More than 60% of the bankruptcies in the United States are the result of medical expenses. The high rate of default on home loans are the result of bankruptcy. It is not only the banks who are breaking the economic backs of the American people, it is also the health care industry in its present form. Our health care providers are in a for profit industry. They make their money on how many of their customers they can deny services to. The pharmacutical companies rake in enormous profits while they gouge the American people for more than other nations pay. Most of us are only one serious illness away from loosing everything we’ve worked for all of our lives.
The outrageous costs of health care threatens small businesses across the country. Offering health care for employees is a good practice and helps retain productive workers.
“I’m in the business to do auto repair,” England said. “I’m not in the business of trying to find out how to provide health coverage and how to get the right sort of plan…. And it’s not easy.”
David Guernsey, who employs 170 people at his office supply business in Virginia, has struggled with the same rising costs to cover his employees — some years, premiums have gone up 25 percent.
His small company can’t hope to compete with the benefits much larger companies can afford to offer their employees. (Source: CNN)
The right rails about the importance of small businesses and their owners. They say that the small business owner is the backbone of the American economy. Yet the do nothing to protect these businesses from the predatory practices of the health insurance industry.
Both sides of the aisles of congress have their ideas about how this should be accomplished. The right and left are both firmly in the pockets of the insurance and pharmacy lobby, but the progressive left sees the hand writing on the wall and realizes that something serious has to be done. Rather than tackling the minefield that is the “single payer” plan, the left is pushing “choice”. Either keep the plan you have or enroll in a government run health care program.
The debate among lawmakers over how to take control over the rising costs of health care echoes sentiments heard two years ago in Wisconsin, when the state Senate pushed for a universal health care plan. Elements of that plan are similar to what Obama has outlined for nationwide reform.
The major divides in Wisconsin were over how to pay for the program and what role the government should play. The measure, known as Healthy Wisconsin, passed in the Senate but eventually stalled over funding.
The Healthy Wisconsin plan would have provided coverage for all residents of the state not already covered by another government plan, like Medicare. Those using the plan would participate in a health care pool, where they would chose from a number of plans. (Source: CNN)
The Wisconsin Plan offers choice, which the GOP isn’t too keen on either. The GOP has no real plan, other than to obstruct and protest every idea suggesting change. How do they stand on the “single payer” proposal? When you look at the salaries made by the CEOs of our present, for-profit health insurers you wonder how anyone can justify not correcting the industry. It is no wonder we have the most expensive and least responsive health care systems in the modern industrialized world.
How serious are the Republicans in squashing single payer? The Washington Post’s health care reform blog reported Tuesday that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina has hired an outside PR firm to put together a video campaign assaulting Obama’s public plan. And this month alone, the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is spending more than a million dollars for attack ads. They’ve hired a public relations firm called CRC, Creative Response Concepts. You remember them, the same high-minded folks who brought you the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the gang who savaged John Kerry’s service record in Vietnam.
The ads feature the chairman of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, Rick Scott who was a former deputy inspector general from the Department of Health and Human Services. Scott is not a doctor, he is a convicted felon who took two hospitals in Texas and built them into the largest health care chain in the world, Columbia/HCA. In 1997, he was fired by the board of directors after Columbia/HCA was caught in a scheme that ripped off the Federal and State governments for hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus Medicare and Medicaid payments, the largest such fraud in history. The company had to cough up $1.7 billion dollars to get out of the mess.
FierceHealthcare reports the following top 10 CEO salaries for 2008.
* Ron Williams – Aetna – Total Compensation: $24,300,112.
* H. Edward Hanway – CIGNA – Total Compensation: $12,236,740.
* Angela Braly – WellPoint – Total Compensation: $9,844,212.
* Dale Wolf – Coventry Health Care – Total Compensation: $9,047,469.
* Michael Neidorff – Centene – Total Compensation: $8,774,483.
* James Carlson – AMERIGROUP – Total Compensation: $5,292,546.
* Michael McCallister – Humana – Total Compensation: $4,764,309.
* Jay Gellert – Health Net – Total Compensation: $4,425,355.
* Richard Barasch – Universal American – Total Compensation: $3,503,702.
* Stephen Hemsley – UnitedHealth Group – Total Compensation: $3,241,042.
When American patients trust their health to a for-profit insurance company, they’re doing nothing less than gambling with their lives in a game where the odds are stacked in favor of the insurance company. (Source: Article Base)
Looking at these numbers and the philosophy behind them it is easy to understand that the present system is not in the business of looking out for the public health. They are in it for the money. And the way they make their money is by providing less services at high prices.
There are many Americans who are suffering needlessly because they cannot afford basic health care. The U.S. is the only developed country that does not have universal health care. Democracy doesn’t mean you have the right not to get health care when you need it or go broke trying to pay for major conditions such as cancer care. Basic health care should be the right of all citizens. It should be a national priority.
If the problem is the owning class’ ruling elite “not getting it” and their systems are not only in place but actively pursuing the subterfuge, seems to me the owning class is long overdue for a public beating.
These are the people, Republicans, Wall Street and Conservatives who trade in shame and fear. If it is the only ‘thing’ they understand or listen to; I believe it is time to shove it into their lives where they cannot ignore it any longer. These greedy politicians and insurance companies are truly a bunch of thieves. They all have health care and they do not care about anyone in America who lacks it. The single payer option is the only answer, but I fear too many Americans are so brainwashed by the free market propaganda they get from all sides (that’s right, it’s even taught in ‘Economics 101′ classes) that they do not even support what is good for them and their families. (Source: Article Base)
Where the author above thinks the single payer system is the only one that will work, I think we could benefit by simply having the choice between private and public run. If someone is satisfied with pay with shoddy health care and lining the pockets of greedy politicians and CEOs, then by all means let them have their way. But, for the rest of us who would rather opt in for a public system, it is time we had the choice. The thing the GOP really fears is that within a short time most people will sign on to the public system. Then their gravy train is over. The health and pharma lobbyist will no longer be able to afford the bribes they have been paying the congress for years.
