This diary is written by an American expat living in the European Union reporting on grassroots healthcare reform issues for Main Street America.
As an American expat living in the E.U. no matter where I go, every resident I see has access to medical coverage. Imagine that a Continent full of people with a population that is greater than that of the United States can afford to offer this to it's citizens, as the European Union is now rated the second largest exporter in the world in a posture wherein as part of the E.U. Germany is rated the 3rd largest exporter in the world, whose currency the Euro rivals the US dollar, wherein everyone is medically insured with a full prescription benefit program from cradle to grave as a human right.
At this point I would like to introduce you via the magic of Youtube to Marianne Hoynes, who's a great American, who is fighting for her life and yours! As it happens Marianne Hoynes is one of millions of medically indigent Americans. But with Marianne Hoynes there's a difference she's turned into a healthcare activist, as she cannot afford her prescription medication bill, which will be forcing her into medical bankruptcy along with millions of other Americans. Thanks to the robber baron policies of the 1% in the American neo-feudalist state. Marianne Hoynes is exposed to substantial pain everyday of her life with every step that Marianne takes, she is in pain and her pain and her suffering exemplifies the pain and the suffering of millions of Americans who are denied medical access based on their inability to pay.
Marianne bravely gives voice to the voiceless and a human face to pain and suffering of the medically excluded. You shouldn't turn away from this diary. You shouldn't turn your back on Marianne. You should hear her story, because her story is America's story. There's no better time to tell America's story than on the 4h July! The day of American birth and rebirth. Time to remember our neighbors. Who is Marianne Hoynes? She is the all American girl next door. Today we are all Marianne's family, and so it is that I ask you as our American brothers and sisters please do not look away.
Let me add that I'm an American expat who has German insurance. If Marianne Hoynes were in Germany, her medication could be purchased with a $12 co-pay. Stunning isn't it!
For anyone unable to watch the video, here is a quote from Marianne Hoynes:
"Please hear this voice of the disabled. Don't let the insurance lobby win this
fight. From the exhortion of the pharmaceutical industry, I'm a citizen of the
United States and I need Congress to stand up for me, because I cannot stand
up for myself."
Marianne like myself is a fellow American expat, who unlike me made a mistake. You see she returned to the United States of America, she went home and then Marianne got sick. At which point this brave young American woman has had to face off against what may only be described as the most corrupt medical care system of any industrialized country in the world, which has instituted a legalized system of theft promulgated through a system of elections, which have been largely depoliticized, and turned into an often meaningless media extravaganza, wherein the American public has become so atomized, that we now have a population of millions who are angry and confused as they no longer know the way out. We must understand the depoliticized American elections are bought by private capital (primarily financial capital) with the aid of the neo-feudalist Congress.
Where America stands alone, as all other major industrialized nations on this planet have some kind of universal medical access available to people as a human right. But in America where corporations are human beings, and the medically indigent are dehumanized by official US government policy, which is the only way that the pain, suffering and human outcry of the millions like Marianne Hoynes in agony can be understood. Corporate greed kills tens of thousands of uninsured Americans just like Marianne every year. But Marianne will not go quietly.
Marianne has decided to go public and tell her story to anyone listening. So America are you listening? Or have we all become so desensitized by corporate media propaganda, that we can't remember what it's like to be human and to care, because America has become brainwashed by corporate media propaganda, which I understand very well. You see I hold an MBA in marketing and I can tell you that the American people through its media are the most lied to people on the planet earth. You don't understand that until you stop living in America as I have, because I live in the European Union where publicly owned media tells us the truth about what's happening in America. The truth is America is literally dying for healthcare reform. Won't you please listen to the truth. The truth is that America has a dehumanizing for-profit medical and pharmaceutical industry which is all about profits and nothing about people, which they cannot export to the rest of the world because the world has rejected the for-profit American healthcare model as a failure, as exemplified in the OECD chart below.
Americans pay more than the other OECD countries, but they don't live as long! What kind of value are we getting for our money?
Do we care enough to get politically involved. To care enough to listen. To care enough in this 2012 election season to take a stand that says healthcare for all in America as a human right is what we stand for, is what we Occupy for, because we in America want freedom, freedom from pain, freedom from suffering, freedom from medical cost exploitation, freedom from medical bankruptcy. Freedom to live as Americans.
(WARNING: THIS IS A MEDICAL VIDEO MADE BY MARIANNE HOYNES, WHOSE DEPICTION IS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PAIN AND SUFFERING FELT BY MILLIONS OF MEDICALLY INDIGENT AMERICANS. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED)
Let me add that I'm an American expat who has German insurance. If Marianne Hoynes were in Germany, her medication could be purchased with a $12 co-pay. Stunning isn't it!
For anyone unable to watch the video, here is a quote from Marianne Hoynes:
"It's only because I'm an American that I don't have access to affordable
medication. If I lived in any other country in the world, not just developed
countries, but a lot of third world countries also, this medication would be
provided to me for free, paid for through my tax dollars. It's just not right.
I'm hoping to go testify before Congress and the American college of
Rheumatology to tell my story and stories of millions of other Americans, who
also don't have access to medications like this."
http://www.oecd.org/...
Essentially speaking people in the European Union aren't pushed into medical bankruptcy. Pharmaceuticals here are regulated, so as to make life saving medications affordable to people, because the goal here is to prevent human suffering and unnecessary death, instead of in place of the profit motive, that has infected the for-profit American medical system and brainwashed the American public into accepting medical bankruptcy as the leading cause of all bankruptcies, in a posture where 59 million people are medically uninsured. Where a recent Harvard study tells us that 45,000 Americans die every year simply because they can't afford medical insurance. America is dying for healthcare reform. This diary therefore asks you to stand up and step up today and call your member of Congress and tell them if they will not vote for meaningful healthcare reform, then you will not vote for them come November.
(U.S. profit margins)
If this diary has made you shed a tear or two, as I have then that's a good thing. It reminds us that we are human. It reminds us that the brainwashing of the American corporate media in support of the tyrannical for-profit American medical system hasn't worked in suppressing our humanity into abdicating our freedom to be free of fear, suffering, pain, it is time that we stand up, step up and shout out. We're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore! As such we demand that the United States of America join every other major industrialized country in the world in declaring that healthcare in America is a human right, without which there can be no freedom.
New York Times link to Harvard study below:
"Harvard Medical Study Links Lack of Insurance to 45,000 U.S. Deaths a Year:"
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/...
To win in America all we have to do is to care about each other and stick together!
If we are looking for change we must look to the Occupy movement to provide
that peaceful nonviolent approach to change in helping to elect better
progressive politicians to public office. The Occupy movement and the
American unions are the last great hope of the American working class dream!!
Thanks for taking the time to read my diary!
(I'd like to invite you to follow me at the Daily Kos (or on Twitter.) Just click on the links below. Thank you. )
http://www.dailykos.com/...
https://twitter.com/...
-------------
Also I'd like to invite you to follow the Class Warfare newsletter group at the Daily Kos.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
PS: Marianne, we the undersigned by our comments support you and love you. We are your fellow Americans. We are your brothers and sisters. From today we all stand together. If you want to share your message of support post below or visit Marianne Hoynes Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/...