43% of individuals without healthcare will die at a much earlier age then those with healthcare. And that is the nicest thing about private health insurance.
Our current healthcare system of private insurance is draining the pockets of America; leaving the people financially broke and physically broken. We really need to stop this madness.
I cut to the chase in this diary entry. Exposing the flim-flam operations, hyperbolic fear-mongering and the true nature of healthcare in the United States for what it is.
American values demand honest, affordable and accessible medical care for all citizens.
Health reform is much more than just a moral obligation to ones neighbor; it is the route to prosperity for this great country. An educated, healthy population makes for a financially productive, progressive and well employed nation.
Approximately 50 million citizens of this great country now have no health insurance or access to necessary medical care, and that number is on the rise. At the same time, a rich and greedy private insurance industry is siphoning billions of dollars from the pockets of the people. Billions of dollars out of the pockets of hard working citizens and from the income taxes we pay to our government. Monies that would be much better used to secure the financial growth of the household, a growth that will ensure the growth and prosperity of the nation.
Currently, 62% of bankruptcies are the result of medical bills and 49% of home foreclosures occur due to medical bills. Mostly due to private insurance company ‘caps’ on amounts paid for medical problems. Major medical problems are not necessary for reaching such caps. Insured households often and unexpectedly find they are responsible to pay tens of thousands of dollars that they cannot pay.
When major medical problems occur: 25% of firms drop insurance coverage immediately when a disabling illness occurs, 25% more will drop the coverage within a year. Fifty percent of insured Americans will lose coverage within one year of suffering a disabling injury.
Contrary to the "spin" and fear mongering of detractors, a Universal Health Care program will not cost the public more money. In fact, it will save billions, leaving many, much needed, dollars in the pockets of the people. A healthier population aside, the family, the individual and the country will spend billions less in private premiums and tax dollars. The cost of a Universal Health Care system is very small in contrast to the huge private household dollars and tax dollars spent feeding the extremely lucrative insurance conglomerate. This insurance conglomerate is, itself, unhealthy for the country, financially and medically.
The billions of dollars pouring from households in the form of premiums, and the billions more spent by the government in tax subsidies, keep the people broke or heading to broke, as they fill the pockets of the insurance conglomerate. This unsavory insurance conglomerate posted approximately 400% earnings last year, as they leave the public in the waiting room.
A successful economy needs money to flow within the system on a continual basis. When money does not flow through the various venues of business in the public forum, economy and economic growth stagnate.
The billions, which flow into, and stay within the insurance conglomerate, would better serve the economy in the hands of the populace. Especially in these times of tribulation, money needs to circulate among the various venues of the public forum. The people could best use these monies to pay for necessities such as housing and utilities and redevelop some extra expendable income. The current stagnation is reparable, more quickly so if the people will stop donating money to buy caviar for the wealthy, becoming able to buy three square meals for their own household and still have money for the mortgage and electric bill.
Figures cannot lie, but liars can figure.
Health and prescription costs would drop immensely with a universal health care program. This because the insurance industry plays a selfish, if not un-American, game of mark-up gouging that would disappear from the system. These medical or prescription cost shenanigans, it is a shame.
An example would be two of this writer’s medications. Each costs around $62.00 over the counter, without insurance. With insurance, the listing price for each medication is around $450.00, with the prescription insurance paying a "contracted" price of around $250.00 for each prescription. This "contract price", which pretends to be a savings, (around $500.00 for two prescriptions per month) they then use to figure into a total yearly prescription cap. Upon reaching this insurance cap, the insured must pay the "contract price" for these prescriptions, out of pocket. When this scam insurance shenanigan occurs, it is referred to as, "falling into a donut hole" and most who fall into it must pay escalated prices for the last two or three months of the year. A Universal health care program would amend such iniquity.
Much is said of taxpayer dollars going to healthcare reform but little is said of the taxpayer dollars that are already used to subsidize the rich (and growing richer) private insurance industry. Tax supported insurance subsidies collected by insurance companies, which pad the pockets of rich insurance moguls and leave the people suffering.
Insurance companies do not want a Universal Health Care program, naturally. It is billions out of their multi-billion dollar "hijack the population" packages. The greedy insurance industry has fought any health reform since first introduced to Congress in 1948. The insurance conglomerate always defeats such legislation. Utilizing hyperbolic "spin", misinformation and fear mongering, not to mention those elected officials they can buy and sell.
The most useful untruth the insurance conglomerate has used over the years is the "Socialism" angle. The angle confuses "Social Program" with "Socialist Society. A shenanigan of fear mongering that is not so effective today. Especially now having the examples of nations that have a Universal Health Care program for their citizens and did not become Socialism's.
Other nation’s aside, this great country very founding is by the brilliant use of the best aspects of various governing systems. The founding fathers created the most innovative Democratic/Republic known to the history of the world. A system of government that incorporates checks and balances, that none of the best aspects used shall deteriorate or escalate to usurp this Democracy.
One part of the various pieces compromising this Democracy is part of the governing system called "Socialism" with checks and balances for control but allowing for the instance of the "Social Program".
In fact, this country is formed under the ideal (without the undesirable aspects), of Socialist principle. An ideal found in the most remembered words of the Declaration of Independence.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." -U.S. Declaration of Independence
This very Declaration demands that every citizen of this country have access to affordable health care without the restrictions and dangerous payment caps found in private insurances. Especially found in the imitation insurances of HMO’s, PPO’s, FFS’s, etc, etc. Restrictions that are, themselves, often dangerous to the lives and prosperity of the insured.
Universal Health Care is also not a "Socialized Medicine" system that might initiate the unhealthy restrictions pretended to be inherent in this "Social Program". Lack of care, long waits, death panels, huge taxes, big government, etc, etc. This is all fear mongering to scare the people into staying with the current system, the windfall private insurance system.
Some use one hand to wave a scary sign that claims the "Big Government" bogeyman is upon us; at the same time, with the other hand, they give the United States Constitution a bit of plastic surgery.
The misleading term "Big Government" is the anesthetic, hyperbolic "spin" that keeps the people from feeling the pain. It has the aspect of, but not the truth of, a government that controls the people. The truth told, Democracy itself is the biggest of "big government" and the people should have no fear of "big government". "Big government" can be "Good Government as easily as it can be "Bad Government" (which is "Tyrannous" Government. One might give the founding fathers a bit more credit.
The founding fathers put into place the first ten articles/amendments to the Constitution, the articles we call the "Bill of Rights". This Bill of Rights placed into the Constitution to serve and protect the Big Government of Democracy from becoming a Big Government of Tyranny. The Bill of Rights placed specifically to specifically protect the inalienable rights of the people from tyranny. The Constitution protects the people from tyranny from other nations, other States, households, individuals, private industry/business or from the government itself.
In our history, the federal government has often enacted legislation to keep big business from running rampant over the rights of the people; including the right to pursue happiness in the form of a better standard of living. Where business will not regulate its own greed and commit fraud upon the public, the government must be in the regulation business.
The vast insurance consortium conducts business by taking big money from the hands of the people and paying back little pennies for necessary damage control, public persona being important in the sales business. Insurance is a means of the rich robbing the middle class and the poor, a robber baron entity that is under the protection of the government, at the expense of the people. The only recourse is that the government takes action as a business entity itself.
The government has also created business, such as the Pony Express that would become the United States Postal Service (the mail system of worldwide envy, that which the taxpayer subsidized until 1970, when it finally became a profitable enterprise). In serving the people, it sometimes becomes necessary for government to be in "business" to ensure the prosperity and progression of a nation. This is an aspect of "good", non-tyrannous government. Is it "big"? Yes, it is very big, but it is not at all "bad" government.
Insurance companies are not the jolly good purveyors of helpfulness they like to advertise. Insurance companies are not beneficial philanthropists for the people‘s welfare. Insurance is a business, one making huge profits off the backs of the people, and they want to keep it that way.
If one thinks that the untruths spread about Universal Healthcare are bad, one might consider some of the following. Private health and prescription insurance is a great thing, unless one really needs it. The lies spread about Universal Healthcare are atrocious but untrue. The actual operating procedures under private insurance are not only atrocious; they are true.
My brother-in-law, Jim, suffering a heart attack and the wailing of sirens rushed him to the hospital. The hospital sent him away because it was not in his insurance "network". Transported to another hospital, Jim survived after a weeklong stay. He survived, but unfortunately, many do not.
For every child that dies after being admitted to the first hospital at which they arrive, five children who are denied admittance and transported to another hospital, die at the second hospital. Statistically, admitting these children to the first hospital, not transporting them to a different hospital, would have saved 4 out of 5 young lives. If the U.S. had Universal Health care, sending children to other hospitals for the wrong insurance or no insurance at all, would not happen.
The difference between Universal Health Care and our Private Healthcare system is that Universal Healthcare serves people by the extent of the emergency, not by how much money or what insurance a person has.
Under Universal Healthcare, people all people receive medical care which is prioritized by the seriousness of the medical condition, not wealth. The whole Universal Health system is a lot like our system except for the restrictions of insurance networking and the privilege of wealth.
Three times as many people, child or adult, who have no insurance, will die in a hospital.
There is something wrong with this picture; the citizens of this country are in dire need of a Universal Healthcare Program.
Many fear mongering tales make the rounds, some old some new, vilifying Universal Health Care. These scare tactics work if one is not educated to the situation.
One such tale of woe about Universal Health Care currently spreading is the one about traveling, from the U.K. or Canada, to the U.S. to get an operation. This blaming the systems in Canada or the U.K. is almost humorous, if one is informed.
A person who can afford to travel to the U.S. for surgery certainly has money and probably has private insurance (available in the U.K. and Canada). Under a Universal Health Care system, priority depends upon the medical necessity, not money. In such a case of travel, the surgery was obviously not an emergency. The patient is surely impatient and most likely has private insurance and a private hospital.
Private hospitals do not staff all surgeons for all surgeries. When a private hospital needs a surgeon that is not on staff, they must call out for one. In such a case, the hospital, as any patient in the Universal Health Care system, must wait its turn; a turn, which is dependent upon the necessity of the surgery itself, not how much money the patient, has.
Contrary to what one might think, less people die for heart problems and such, if they do not have immediate surgery. With no private insurance payoffs, hospitals and surgeons are not so quick to cut in the U. K. and Canada.
A personal experience in our system is my own (insured) mother. Having chest pains and taken to the emergency room, they scheduled her to have an exploratory surgery the next morning. Before the surgery, much to his chagrin, I pulled the surgeon aside and questioned the medications she took. Many of them had the possible side effect of heart problems. Instead of the surgery, mom they admitted mom to a hospital room where her prescriptions were recalibrated and tweaked. The action of waiting and investigating proved the expensive, life threatening surgery to be unnecessary.
The claiming of a long wait to see a doctor is the same situation. Universal Healthcare bases a doctor’s appointment using the same system of medical priority. Doctor’s appointments scheduled anytime the medical need demands and can be the same day or up to three months away. Most people in the United States who visit a doctor on a regular basis make an appointment for once every three months. Our current private insurance system is the same; a patient normally scheduled for an appointment every three months unless the medical condition demands otherwise.
Universal Health Care is a "Social Program", not "socialized medicine"; under Universal Health Care, one can choose any doctor(s) or public hospital (A "private" hospital, even in the U.S.A. today, is just that. A hospital that is exclusive to the general population according to the wealth and contacts of an individual. There is no "out of network" doctor, hospital or medical facility in the program.
However, the same lack of restrictions applies. In any case, approximately 85% of the populations having Universal Health Care are very happy with the system. A much, much higher percentage than the percentage of people in the United States who are happy with their insurance.
A "single payer" universal healthcare program would be the best. However, the rich insurance consortium is blocking the way. Hence, a public option appears our best hope of attaining any semblance of decent health care for the people. Even the public option legislation shrinks in its helpfulness to the people as the powerful insurance consortium strangles it in the Congress. With well-paid lobbyists and utilizing expensive websites, a news reporting system that spins the news and, especially, those elected officials with an eye to donations for re-election. Legal, "straight-up" donations of course, surely there would be no hanky panky or under the table money in this; elected officials just happen to believe that screwing the public is good for the people.
Medicare is "single payer" insurance. Medicare would be solvent if not for mismanagement, fraud and the government’s foul juxtapositions of these monies. On the use of monies for things not intended, the Social Security Insurance program would be solvent but for its monies being drawn by the government for use in other areas. Both of these "Social Programs" are of "Good Government", the "bad" government only enters the picture upon the magician like hands of our trusted officials holding the keys to the bucks. Bad Government comes about for these programs only when the Congress rapes the two systems, without a kiss at that.
Now is the time for all citizens in the United States of America to demand their constitutionally guaranteed the right to the pursuit of happiness, which is being systematically deteriorated by greed. There is not one good reason there is no honest, affordable and accessible health care in this country, for all the people.
Approving a Universal Health Care system in the United States is a financial windfall to the people as it is also gainful to the health of the nation.