health reform

My thoughts on healthcare
I don’t think doctors are much of the problem, and the pharma companies would have to play ball if the government was allowed to shop around. Medicare part d was designed by the republicans to bankrupt Medicare via a provision that forces the government to pay full retail price for the meds it uses (1) very similar to the way they have tried to bankrupt social security, a perfectly viable system before they got their hands on it.(2)Seems to me the biggest problem is the private insurance companies, whom all in all will probably dump a trillion dollars into fighting a public plan before this is over. For profit hospitals are another problem, since most hospitals will be private before long at this rate, but I’m hoping that if the government takes a larger role in insuring people that they wont let the hospitals take advantage of people in life threatening conditions, but who knows.
Another interesting tid-bit that adds to the problem is that doctors in McAllen, Texas are investing in the labs and clinics, and then sending patients for unnecessary tests to line their own pockets. (3) and I’m sure this is happening in other places to. Docs are becoming quite the business-men. Here are a few other things, Over 50% of people going bankrupt in the U.S. are from healthcare bills, over 70% of those are from people who HAVE health insurance. (4) Meanwhile William McGuire, ex c.e.o. of united healthcare makes 1.78 BILLION over ten years, and if you took the top ten healthcare ceos out of the picture you could insure at least 100,000 Americans with their paychecks. Here’s an example of the sick profits these snakes make while providing no real services. *http://sickforprofit.com/ceos/* that doesn’t count all the other people making millions off of denying coverage to people for any reason they can find, plus the corporate jets and all the other perks... its past time we got these leeches off of our backs completely.
I don’t know that its going to happen, too much money being thrown at preventing the government from doing anything about heath care. On a plus note Dennis Kucinich placed a bit into the bill he worked on that allows states to create their own single payer plans regardless of what the public option comes out looking like. Apparently there is a law in effect right now that prohibits this, but if his amendment survives and makes it into the final bill, then it will be the start of a great thing. This is exactly how Canada got their healthcare plan, and regardless of what the right-wingers lie about, the truth is over 80% of Canadians would not trade their healthcare for American insurance (5). kind of says something doesn’t it. Meanwhile over 70% of Americans want to see a public plan here, (6) Oh speaking of right wing talking points, how come people come to America for health care? I submit that it is because those people coming here for surgeries or whatever are wealthy individuals. The real question is why did over 100,000 Americans (7) Go to India for healthcare last year? Why is that number going to be up to 4 times that this year? (8) In addition to this, All aspects of healthcare are natural monopolies and need to be regulated. Unfortunately the insurance companies are exempt from anti-trust laws (9). And If your about to die from a heart attack, your not going to take the time to go through the phone book and find the best deal on ambulance services.
Are there any Americans who haven’t been lied to, or screwed over, by the health insurance companies? If you haven’t you probably know someone who has, and if not you can find plenty of horror stories at (10). but my personal favorite is about a woman in her thirties who had her claim denied because she forgot to disclose to the insurance company that she took a prescription acne medicine when she was a teenager. right wingers like to complain about unions, such as the cost of pay after benefits to the g.m.c. employees. Well if they didn’t have to buy health care for their employees, like their competitors in every other industrialized nation they would save billions (11). That’s probably why the unions are mostly for a single payer plan I bet. Oddly enough it would seem to me that anyone who actually believes in American industry would be dying to take this cost away from American companies and put it on the governments back. Weird how the republicans are so against healthcare.
Employee based healthcare is really nothing more than another way for the big money interests to control the average person. Either you work for a big company that can afford to give its employees health insurance, or you and your family go bankrupt or die if someone happens to get sick. It also destroys entrepreneurship, its risky enough to start your own business, but when you cant afford to pay these insane prices for private insurance in the meantime, the risk is way more than many people are willing to take. I recently heard on the radio an ad from Wal-Mart that bragged about how most of its employees have some type of health insurance (12). They are advocating that all employers be required to buy private healthcare for the employees. Sounds innocent enough right? Well the reason the Waltons want this to become law, is the same reason why they are willing to lower prices drastically when they open a new store and run the store at a potential loss for a period of time. IT DESTROYS THE COMPETITION, PARTICULARLY SMALL AMERICAN OWNED BUSINESS! Wal-Mart can afford to do this, and they can afford to provide health insurance for all their employees, but what it will do is shut down most small American owned businesses. Say good-bye to that family owned store in the center of town, guess its off to Wal-Mart for your milk an eggs.
I fail to see what the argument can be against a good public option. I’ve tried to wrap my mind around some of them. Lets see, argument number 1. “government is bad and screws everything up“. Well then, the key word is OPTION. You like your private plan, keep it, you don’t, you have a new OPTION. Hmmm sounds like they are encouraging competition. Isn’t that what right wingers are all about when it comes to the “free market”. Besides, the government does so many things so well that this argument is just ridiculous, I’m not going to bother listing it all here but its plain as day, government is good. When you do find something that the government does badly, its more often then not because the capitalists got a hold of it and destroyed for whatever sick reason they had at the time. (ex. Medicare part d., social security, *see 1st paragraph*) If you would rather let the corporations run the whole country with no government interference, you are not only an idiot, but also either a Fascist, a royalist/monarchist, or an anarchist, all of which are pretty much anti American points of view.
Which brings us to argument number 2. “The private insurance companies can not compete with a public plan“. Wait a minute, what? The first time I heard this said by a right winger on the radio I was driving and almost had to pull over I was laughing so hard. How obvious can someone be. So lets see, if the government plan is so good that the private companies wont be able to compete, then everyone will have the option to switch over and then have better insurance then any private plan could provide. If the public option is not that great then the private companies will be fine, there is just one more choice out there providing for more competition. Competition, isn’t that what “free market” capitalists are all about? (I know I already said that.)
Ok what other empty arguments have I heard. Oh here’s one I hear a lot, “I don’t want some government bureaucrat standing in between me and my doctor.” Well personally I would much rather have the government standing there over some bureaucrat from the private industry, whose only goal is to make money and deny health care in any way possible. Also there are thousands of American doctors and nurses who are for single payer let alone the public option because they are sick and tired of the administrative hoops they have to jump through with most of the private companies as well (13). But once again, it is a public OPTION, don’t use it if you hate the government.
The one I hear the most, and is also the most ignorant, is that “everyone has healthcare, emergency rooms can’t turn people away” So outside of the fact that one trip to the e.r. without health insurance will bankrupt most Americans, and even bankrupt a lot of them with insurance if they have to stay in the hospital for more than a day, lets look at the words EMERGENCY ROOM. Key word, Emergency. Go ahead, go to the e.r. and say “I got this weird lump and I don’t know I think it might be cancer.“ You will get told to come back when your dying. At that point of course its too late to treat it. Emergency Rooms are not set up to provide preventative care, and they don’t.
Well, I know there are other arguments out there, but I think I have made my point. Feel free to throw another one at me, I will shoot it down when I get a chance. but dont echo some lie without proof, there are so many lies being thrown out there right now its sickening, and i wont respond. Of course its hard not to believe a lie when there are hundreds of billions of dollars promoting it. (14)
(1)*http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/03/01/the_80_billion_medicare_sellout.php*
(2)*http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_thom_har_061022_the_truth_about_the_.htm*
(3)*http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/9/740385/-McAllen,-Texas-and-Collaborative-Medicine*
(4)*http://www.examiner.com/x-15753-SF-Wellness-Examiner~y2009m7d15-Middleclass-insured-Americans-filed-75-of-personal-bankruptcies-due-to-healthcare-costs*
(5)*http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5haqIdwLkO0bfRWlsx51kCcdeG0GQ*
(6)*http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/health/policy/21poll.html?_r=1*
(7)*http://www.rense.com/general69/ameri.htm*
(8)*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/27/americans-outsourcing-hea_n_245310.html*
(9)*http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=51800*.
(10)*http://www.sanders.senate.gov/files/letters/*
(11)*http://www.carlist.com/autonews/2005/autonews_131.html*
(12)*http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,242272,00.html*.
(13)*http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_doctors_revolt*
(14)*http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4913.shtml*