This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery

Published on Monday, August 24, 2009 by TruthDig.com

This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery

by TruthDig.com

by Chris Hedges

Percentage change since 2002 in average premiums paid to large US health-insurance companies: +87%

Percentage change in the profits of the top ten insurance companies: +428%

Chances that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance: 7 in 10

—Harper’s Index, September 2009

Capitalists, as my friend Father Michael Doyle says, should never be allowed near a health care system. They hold sick children hostage as they force parents to bankrupt themselves in the desperate scramble to pay for medical care. The sick do not have a choice. Medical care is not a consumable good. We can choose to buy a used car or a new car, shop at a boutique or a thrift store, but there is no choice between illness and health. And any debate about health care must acknowledge that the for-profit health care industry is the problem and must be destroyed. This is an industry that hires doctors and analysts to deny care to patients in order to increase profits. It is an industry that causes half of all bankruptcies. And the 20,000 Americans who died last year because they did not receive adequate care condemn these corporations as complicit in murder.

The current health care debate in Congress has nothing to do with death panels or public options or socialized medicine. The real debate, the only one that counts, is how much money our blood-sucking insurance, pharmaceutical and for-profit health services are going to be able to siphon off from new health care legislation. The proposed plans rattling around Congress all ensure that the profits for these corporations will increase and the misery for ordinary Americans will be compounded. The corporate state, enabled by both Democrats and Republicans, is yet again cannibalizing the Treasury. It is yet again pushing Americans, especially the poor and the working class, into levels of despair and rage that will continue to fuel the violent, proto-fascist movements leaping up around the edges of American society. And the traditional watchdogs—those in public office, the press and citizens groups—are as useless as the perfumed fops of another era who busied their days with court intrigue at Versailles. Canada never looked so good.

The Democrats are collaborating with lobbyists for the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and for-profit health care providers to craft the current health care reform legislation. “Corporate and industry players are inside the tent this time,” says David Merritt, project director at Newt Gingrich’s Center for Health Transformation [1], “so there is a vacuum on the outside.” And these lobbyists have already killed a viable public option and made sure nothing in the bills will impede their growing profits and capacity for abuse.

“It will basically be a government law that says you have to buy their defective product,” says Dr. David Himmelstein, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a founder of Physicians for a National Health Plan [2]. “Next the government will tell us a Pinto in every garage, a lead-coated toy to every child and melamine-laced puppy chow for every dog.”

“Health insurance is not a race to the top; it is a race to the bottom,” he told me from Cambridge, Mass. “The way you make money is by abusing people. And if a public-option plan is not ready and willing to abuse patients it is stuck with the expensive patients. The premiums will go up until it is noncompetitive. The conditions that have now been set for the plans include a hobbled public option. Under the best-case scenario there will be tens of millions [who] will remain uninsured at the outset, and the number will climb as more and more people are priced out of the insurance market.”.....

Countdown-The Nation's Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater chief Eric Prince's deep troubles

Countdown-The Nation's Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater chief Eric Prince's deep troubles

Source: www.youtube.com

http://firedoglake.com

In Explosive Allegations, Ex-Employees Link Blackwater Founder to Murder, Threats

In Explosive Allegations, Ex-Employees Link Blackwater Founder to Murder, Threats

Source: www.democracynow.org

In sworn statements, two ex-employees claim Blackwater's owner, Erik Prince, murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company.

By Year’s End, Benefit Lifeline to End for 1.5 Million Jobless - NYTimes.com

By Year’s End, Benefit Lifeline to End for 1.5 Million Jobless - NYTimes.com

Source: www.nytimes.com

Tens of thousands of workers have used up their benefits, and the numbers are expected to soar in the months to come.

FRONTLINE: sick around america: watch the full program | PBS

FRONTLINE: sick around america: watch the full program | PBS

Source: www.pbs.org

As the worsening economy leads to massive job losses—potentially forcing millions more Americans to go without health insurance—FRONTLINE travels the country examining the nation's broken health care system and explores the need for a fundamental overhaul. ...

Blue Dogs are Extremists

Blue Dogs are Extremists

It is apparent that the medical-insurance-drug complex owns our government. America spends twice as much per capita on healthcare as other developed nations, yet fails to cover one-sixth of our population. We currently spend $2.4 trillion annually, and around $800 billion derives from waste for private health insurance bureaucracies. Why does America sustain such a corrupt, inefficient system?

It is because superwealthy owners of medical corporations wish to maintain massive profits. Their racket functions by pocketing “conservative” politicians through funding their multi-million dollar campaigns. Most Republicans, like John Boozman, are privately owned and will never vote to end the medical complex scam, and “conservative” Democrats are equally problematic.

As economist Paul Krugman recently noted, “Blue Dogs are basically...nothing but corporate tools, defending special interests.” Blue Dogs, particularly our Arkansas delegation, have been leading the fight against public insurance reform. This is unsurprising if one follows the money. Mike Ross, considered a #1 obstacle to reform, has heavy financial ties to insurance and drug companies, as do most “conservatives.”

Recent news reports have been calling Blue Dogs like Mike Ross "moderates" or "centrists," but these labels are misleading the public to believe their positions are mainstream when they are not.

In fact, 72 percent of the nation supports public health insurance, so Republicans and Blue Dogs are radically right of the public. Progressive Democrats like Dennis Kucinich are actually the true moderates most accurately reflecting the public interest.

If Arkansas wants public healthcare reform, among other genuine solutions, voters must reject extremist Blue Dog Republicans in all elections. Please join me in calling for the Democratic Party to field progressive Democratic candidates, or vote Green.