Article: Hell Care: Health Care from Hell

Sadly, about 100% of all Republican Congressmen and Senators really don't care about people dying. They don't care about Americans getting killed in Iraq. They don't care about Americans losing their jobs. And they certainly don't care about 70 million Americans with no health care and tens of millions more who are going bankrupt trying to pay their premiums and medical expenses. The GOP is a lost cause.

Republicans, backed by the insurance and drug industries will fight tooth and nail to kill any type of Government Medicare type universal plan available to all who want it. The insurance and drug industries will pump billions into TV commercials, radio ads, and print advertisements to scare the hell out of ill informed and ordinary Americans.

They'll tell us it's Communism, Socialism, Marxism, and that's its un-American. They'll try to claim that Canadians have to wait years to get a doctor's appointment and that medical care in Europe is grossly inferior compared to the great United States of America. They'll tell us we will have to go to a big, old, ugly bureaucratic Government building and sit in hard plastic chairs for weeks to just see a doctor. They'll tell us that the Government is going to tell us what doctor or hospital we can go to, and what treatment they can give us.

They're going to lie through their teeth. The "big lie" will be told over and over and over and over.

You will even hear as we hear so many times, even from Obama that "most Americans are satisfied with their current insurance coverage". I pray like hell, he really doesn't believe that one. That's a whopper. Although if 60 million people voted for Bush and then for McCain/Palin I would imagine that that group would say that they "were quite satisfied that their only son was killed in Iraq", or that "I'm satisfied that I lost my job", or that "I'm quite satisfied that the price of my home has declined by 40%".

In reality I doubt that even one American who has NO insurance has said "I'm quite satisfied with my current health insurance". Apparently, none of the 70 million uninsured are asked the question.

Corporations and industries that have been allowed to grow as big as the insurance and drug industries are more powerful than our Government. They are more powerful than 50% of the American people. THEY control Congress. THEY control the White House's agenda. THEY control the economy, as we have seen in the banking and financial sectors.

92 Congressmen have signed on to support HR 676 led by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).

The insurance industry is even railing against a parallel single payer universal system that would be available to all who voluntarily want to sign up for it. They want nothing to do with it and will fight to the death to derail it.

What they want if for the Government to give everyone a tax credit of about $2500 and then have that amount be directed right to their revenue stream, their bank account. Then they want ever American be mandated to buy a policy that may cost twice that, or three times or quadruple or more.

The end result will be that tens of millions of Americans will go bankrupt paying for insurance premiums and the expenses that the insurance companies call "not covered" or "not reasonable and customary".

The end result will be every American spending every available discretionary spending dollar on health insurance or prescription medications that are "not on the formulary list".

If you think the economy is bad now just wait until you see it after the insurance and drug industries pervert the entire system for the greedy benefit.

Eventually, the economy will implode.

I think everyone has to keep in mind that the insurance companies only make money by collecting more in premiums than they pay out in claims. They have a vested interest in thwarting everyone's attempt to submit claims and get full coverage. They have developed the claim denial process into a science.

The insurance industry has a vested interest in your death. They don't want you as a policy holder if you are sick or injured or have a chronic condition. They don't want you as a policyholder if you are approaching 50 years old or older because you are entering that "unprofitable" stage, for them. They don't' want you as a policy holder if you have a "history" of many illnesses.

If you have had pains in your chest you are being watched. If you had a suspicious mole on your skin removed you will be monitored for life. If you get headaches your file no doubt has a red flag on it. If you ever admitted you ever smoked at any time in your life even if you gave it up 20 years ago, it will be duly noted in your records. If you admit that you have an occasional glass of wine, if you develop liver problems 30 years from now, that fact will be brought up to deny you coverage---they will attempt to prove that you knew that you were an alcoholic and lied on your questionnaire (I know someone who had that happen to them).

If you are sick the insurance company either wants to shake you off as a policy holder, or they want to do everything they can to limit you coverage or deny you coverage under any pretense they can justify; or they want you dead. Death is the easiest way to get rid of you as a policy holder. And they can accomplish this by interfering with and setting up all kinds of obstacles to your attempt to seek proper medical treatment.

Yes, death. Death is their weapon of choice when all else fails.

They have other weapons of course. The annual deductible designed to encourage you to NOT seek treatment because that's what you will have to pay. They really like the $2000 and $5000 and $10,000 deductible. They are then off-the-hook for $10,000 in payments a year, and at the same time they pick up anywhere from $5000 to $15,000 in annual premiums, depending upon your age and health (sickness) history.

They also have the co pay to spread the payments around so that you many have to pay more for a prescription medication than it actually costs. If you have to get a prescription med that costs $30 but have a $25 co pay, they only pay $5. You pay $25. And to boot, you pay them $5000 to $15,000 a year for this wonderful privilege.

Of course many drugs are very expensive and to thwart this fact they have the secret "formulary list" where they just out-an-out tell you your medication is not on the list and is therefore not covered. Try to get a complete copy of a "formulary list". It can't be done. It's a secret. Only THEY know. You will be told, after-the-fact, whether you are "entitled" to a drug that might help you with your medical condition.

They also have other obstacles like the "anniversary date" whereby your body is suppose to know what diseases it can contract or what injuries you are allowed, depending upon a January to December schedule.

There is also the "open enrollment period" at work where, in a panic, you can try to decide what your body may need for the next year. But you better hurry up, it's only open for 30 days, then it slams shut, and you are off on another full year with the coverage that "is wrong for you".

Then there is the denial of claims; and the denial of the appeals to claims; and the "reasonable and customary" clause which means they pay whatever they damn well please; and the "limitation clause", the "exclusion clause" and the "termination clause" all designed to increase their profits and basically hasten your ill health and your death.

Death is their main product. Death is their principle service.

Before your death, your financial bankruptcy is also something they strive to achieve. For every dollar, tens of thousands of dollars or hundreds or thousands of dollars that you are in debt due to medical expenses, is a hundred thousand dollars more profit they have. Why should they have the burden when you are heading toward death or are already dead anyway. Their thinking is----"what does a dead person need money for anyway", so they might as well try to dump the burden on you.

But death--------death is what they are really selling. That's their main product. That's the insurance company.

Don't even get me started on the pharmaceutical companies. They want the opposite. They want you alive, lingering and suffering. Unless you are in pain, unless you are incredibly uncomfortable, unless your health is deteriorating, preferably slowly, than you are of no use to the pharmaceutical industry.

Healthy people are not the customers of the drug industry. If you really ARE healthy, or think you are healthy-----fear not. You will be bombarded with TV commercials and print ads that cost them billions of dollars to try to convince you that your arteries are clogged, or may get clogged, or could be clogged, or once were clogged and the clogging is coming back.

If that doesn't work they'll tell you, you can sit there fat, dumb and happy and just take a Bayer baby aspirin every day, and you'll be just fine. "Ask your doctor is an aspirin-a-day-regimen" is right for you.

If that doesn't work you will be told you are suffering from depression, or anxiety, or lethargy, or hyper-activity, or incontinence from an enlarged prostate, or erectile dysfunction from a removed prostate, or female sexual lethargy.

Yes, the drug industry wants you sick, injured, in pain (preferably chronic pain), depressed, sexually dead, or they want you to have some fluid leaking out of some orifice on your body, that shouldn't be leaking out. They want your hormone levels out of whack. They want your blood sugar levels too high, or too low. I hate to say it but if you have cancer you are a goldmine, especially if you can hang on for a few years.

The drug industry wants you sick and suffering. Whenever you are healthy and don't need their products you are of no use to them.

The insurance industry wants you in perfect health on the other hand. If you are sick, suffering, in pain, injured or have a disability----you are the enemy.
And death may be the only answer.
The real one and only long term solution is H.R. 676 - Single payer universal healthcare for all.
At the least, thank God Obama is finally mentioning the need for a government policy health option, along with Sen. Kennedy. I just hope in the details, the "conservative devil" is not lurking, waiting to turn it into a fiasco that favors the insurance and pharmaceutical industry. I shall keep my fingers crossed.
And I thank Howard Dean for continuing to sound the drumbeat, and of course Cong. Dennis Kucinich who has always been at the forefront of this important issue.