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This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery
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, “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. “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.”
The inclusion of these corporations in the crafting of health care legislation has not stopped figures like Rick Scott, the former head of the Columbia/HCA health care company, from attempting to sabotage any plan. Scott’s company was forced to pay a $1.7 billion fraud settlement—the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history—for stealing hundreds of millions from taxpayers by overbilling for medical care. Scott, who made his money primarily from Medicare, is now saturating the airwaves in a reputed $20 million ad campaign that is stoking the anger and fear of many Americans. His ads are coordinated by CRC Public Relations, the group that masterminded the “Swift boat” attacks against 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
“They are using our money to campaign against us,” Dr. Himmelstein told me. “The money for these commercials came from health care interests that collect fees from American patients. We experienced this before in Massachusetts. We ran a ballot initiative for universal health care in 2000 and the insurance industry spent $5 million on it, including the insurance company I am insured by. They used my premiums to smear an idea that 70 percent in Massachusetts, according to polls, favored before this smear campaign. Universal health care was narrowly defeated.”
The bills now in Congress will, at best, impose on the country the failed model in Massachusetts. That model will demand that Americans buy health insurance from private insurers. There will be some subsidies for the very poor but not for anyone above a modest income. Insurers will be allowed to continue to jack up premiums, including for the elderly. The bankruptcies due to medical bills and swelling premiums will mount along with rising deductibles and co-payments. Health care will be beyond the reach of many families. In Massachusetts one in six people who have mandated insurance still say they cannot afford care, and 30,000 people were evicted from the state program this month because of budget cuts. Expect the same debacle nationwide.
“For someone my age who is making $40,000 a year you are required to lay out $5,000 for an insurance premium for coverage that covers nothing until you have spent $2,000 out of pocket,” Himmelstein said. “You are $7,000 out of pocket before you have any coverage at all. For most people that means you are already bankrupt before you have insurance. If anything, that has made them worse off. Instead of having that $5,000 to cover some of their medical expenses they have laid it out in premiums.”
The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care—$7,129 per capita—although 45.7 million Americans remain without health coverage and millions more are inadequately covered. There are 14,000 Americans a day now losing their health coverage. A report in the journal Health Affairs estimates that, if the system is left unchanged, one of every five dollars spent by Americans in 2017 will go to health coverage. Private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third, 31 percent, of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $400 billion per year, enough, Physicians for a National Health Plan points out, to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans. But the proposed America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200 in the House) will, rather than cut costs, add an estimated $239 billion over 10 years to the federal deficit. This is very good for the corporations. It is very bad for us.
The lobbyists have, as they did with the obscene bailouts for banks and investment firms, hijacked legislation in order to fleece the citizen. The five largest private health insurers and their trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, spent more than $6 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009. Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug maker, spent more than $9 million during the last quarter of 2008 and the first three months of this year. The Washington Post reported that up to 30 members of Congress from both parties who hold key committee memberships have major investments in health care companies totaling between $11 million and $27 million. President Barack Obama’s director of health care policy, who will not discuss single-payer as an option, has served on the boards of several health care corporations.
Obama and the congressional leadership have shut out advocates of single-payer. The press, including papers such as The New York Times, treats single-payer as a fringe movement. The television networks rarely mention it. And yet between 45 and 60 percent of doctors favor single-payer. Between 40 and 62 percent of the American people, including 80 percent of registered Democrats, want universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans. The ability of the corporations to discredit and silence voices that represent at least half of the population is another sad testament to the power of our corporate state.
“We are considering a variety of striking efforts for early in the fall,” Dr. Himmelstein said, “including protests outside state capitals by doctors around the country, video links of conferences in 70 or 80 cities around the country, with protests and potential doctors chaining themselves to the fence of the White House.”
Make sure you join them.
- Posted in
155 Comments so far
Show AllWriting and even demonstrating alone won't stop this theft. A majority of Americans still don't realize that it's going on. We need someone to do like Ross Perot and get on TV with charts and illustrated facts to show up the lies and comprehensibly present the actualities.
Of course, mainsteam media won't let someone get national air time to do this. As a result, after a whole lot of negotiating and re-regulating and reconfiguring, we're still going to be in the same health care (and economic) mess that we're in now. We'll be told "reform" is a done deal and the profiteering insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms will . . . still be profiteering insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms.
The swine flu pandemic may be the first "test" of the supposedly reformed system.
OK then. Might as well stay home and watch "More to Love".
There will be no real health care reform because a president elected by a substantial majority has jell-o for a spine.
It's not going to change until the government and corporate CEO's are afraid of the public. It's as the frenchman in "Sicko" said when asked what if the government tried to take away health care,he replied "they wouldn't do that because they are afraid of the public". Heads are going to have to roll folks.
Well said, exactly, Hounddog! I wouldn't wait too long for the same here; unlike many of our fellow citizens, the French are real, whole people who know how to live.
Tony Vodvarka
Hovering in limbo over if 'they' can or can't be changed is not fear, it is death, the worst kind.
Hedges: "any debate about health care must acknowledge that the for-profit health care industry is the problem and must be destroyed." Amen, brother Hedges, and this very statement should be put on the masthead of every call for true health care "reform." Health care must somehow be snatched back from the hands of the for-profit forces. Anything else only pretends to be "reform."
Dr. Himmelstein, I'll look forward eagerly to your "variety of striking efforts early in the fall" on behalf of single payer. That will be timely, as the contending forces of the right and the faux-left will have produced a stalemate into which, with maybe enough "striking efforts" by the American people, some actual productive reform effort could move. When people throw up their hands at the corporatist political system's ability to reach a "reform" consensus, they may be willing to go back to the drawing board defined by the actual preference of most of the American people.
Health Care is a Human Right.
Your right-wing friend disagrees?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (10 December 1948), rose directly from the experience of the Second World War.
The UDHR proclaims that:
“everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one’s family, including food, clothing, housing, and MEDICAL CARE.”
http://www.nhchc.org/humanright.html
** This statement of high principle was adopted at the URGING of the United States.
Amen to that. Our healthcare system in the U.S. is a clear illustration of injustice, inequality, inhumanity and down right cruelty.
Please take the time to view "Critical Condition" aired this past Friday on Bill Moyers Journal. Encourage others to do the same.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08212009/watch.html
Please don't forget, Cygnus, that these are the same people who feel that the United Nations is a commie plot to overthrow the God given, God supported wonderful US of A. I don't think a UN resolution will do much to make an argument with these people.
MichaelC
Unfortunately, despite its being constructed by Eleanor Roosevelt (or perhaps because of), the US Senate never ratified UDHR, so that treaty isn't considered the Law of the Land, and its provisions are constantly ignored by the US national government.
Good thing, too. Otherwise we might have to put a few people on trial---
“...everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one’s family, including
food (who passes/backs legislation that enables the likes of Monsanto?),
clothing (who passes/backs legislation that enables the likes of WalMart?),
housing (who passes/backs legislation that enables the likes of BofA?),
and MEDICAL CARE (who passes/backs...?...um...we'll soon find out).”
thing is we already pay for national health care
how much will national health care cost us????
NOTHING.......ZERO......ZIP
in fact it will save us
RIGHT NOW
OUR GOVERNMENT spends $3300.00 dollars per person per year on health care.........then the rest of us pay thousands more
in ENGLAND where they have national health care....their GOVERNMENT spends $2900.00 per person on healthcare
and THEY have universal coverage
so we ALREADY pay for UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE..... we just are not receiving it.....
why not???
Thanks. This is a great talking point and I had not known about it.
Joe
The best way to begin reform is to remove a source of the corruption. The private industry.
One Group. One Plan. One Payer. The American Plan.
Then we can work on removing another source of corruption, the politicians who barter their votes and influence, turning their backs to the voices of their constituents.
Hedges is on the mark. Mass media and officials now daily (and without thought) brand us by the name "consumers" as we are commodified and objectified in the schemes of finance and commerce.
No longer is there a real differentiation or understanding of a "service" as opposed to a business. Just about everything and every one is for sale at a profit. We now pump out the latest of brave new world generations trained and schooled almost exclusively in the predatory and success oriented framings of a planet and a people where all life forms are not here to be served -- just sold and exchanged.
It should go without saying that this is simply an excellent article that should be required reading for every thinking American in this country. Unfortunately, as Chris Hedges points out, any discussion of a single payer system is rarely mentioned in print and especially on the airwaves where the corporate masters are apparently reluctant to have anyone challenge the status quo. It is also apparent that the network and cable stations are in no rush to invite Dennis Kucinich on their talk and news programs to discuss the issue of a single payer system and the bill that he and John Conyers are sponsoring, HR 676. What would go a long way in making such a health care system affordable is to stop the flow of money which is propping up the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Money which is being used to kill and maim and cripple people could instead be used to help and prolong life in a country which is all too quick to look at violence as a way to supposedly solve the problems of other countries.
That the Insurance Industry is a major factor in the problem is undeniable.
But those companies need the assistance of far too many professionals who in effect have made themselves complicit, and at the very least willingly allowed themselves to become 'delivery personnel for a defective system'.
The responsibility can only be placed in the 'laps' of the highest ranking and most important members of the medical establishment; the DOCTORS.
They are the 'decision makers' and the 'order givers', from the examination room, to the pharmacy's 'pick up window'.
With the execeptions of a few national organizations with very few members in comparison to the total population of doctors the vast majority of Doctors could care less that so many are forced to do without even the most basic of medical care. Their silence has been their 'consent'.
This is simply an indicator of the high level of 'social corruption' that the American society has produced.
Hey America, you need some serious overhaul of your 'collective conscience'-----
Your last president and his entire staff have proved to the world that they were some of the lowest 'sleaziest' little miscreants and multi-generational social parasites history has ever known. The were simply just as corrupt and criminal as the Nazi and Janpanese the Americans sat in judgement over----65 yrs ago. They in fact made the Bourgeois French just before their revolution----seem like shinning examples of virtue in comparison.
So if your society is corrupt at the highest levels, then what can be expected from the 'others'.
If you keep on the present track of the 'downward spiral'---you just may get a glimpse of a horror that will make the French and Russian revolutions look like 'picnics in the park.'
And you will have done it to yourselves.
"If the USA were another country, the USA would invade the USA, in order to keep the rest of the world safe"-----
Very true, well writen comment again.
["If the USA were another country, the USA would invade the USA, in order to keep the rest of the world safe
Well, true. If they could make a profit by doing so, and if they could convince the usa that they should disarm all of its wmd`s before they invaded...
Hi NativeSon--First time I've seen your signature line: "If the USA were another country, the USA would invade the USA, in order to keep the rest of the world safe"
Problem is, my 'NativeSon', it already is. It already is.
The USA corporations look at the US population as a resource to be exploited, just like the population of any third world country.
It is important for Americans to be educated about the options available to them if we are to overhaul healthcare in America. Therefore I urge every reader here on common dreams to pay for an ad in their local newspaper directing readers to commondreams.org if they really want to be knowledgeable about future healthcare options for America. Unless we can convince the majority of Americans that corporate media is bad for out health (literally and metaphorically), nothing will change.
Most Americans haven't travelled much and when they do they generally don't engage people in discussions about their healthcare. Also no other English language news programs exist in most of the U.S. (like Canada's CBC) thereby preventing the general public from getting any opinions other than those dictated to them by corporate America.
At least at CD's we can read articles by intelligent and enlightened fellow Americans that will never have any chance of being heard in the mainstream media. If the public one day chooses to actually READ and scrutinize their information rather than listening to 5 second sound bytes from the likes of CNN, FOX and hate radio programs, then perhaps we have a chance of saving democracy from the jaws of the predatory, sociopath corporate beast.
It is always a pleasure to read the prophetic voice of Chris Hedges.
No matter how many articles like this appear providing insight and prophetic vision, the sheeple will crawl back to the duopoly every time. When it comes to authentic transformational praxis, one can always count on the herd capitulating. In the end, the only thing the sheep have is fear.
Elohim, It's up to you and me baby, to keep the sheeples from climbing back into the dank stable of the duopoly. See my post below. Jerry
I watched Obama's ex-doctor, on a conservative news show (I think FOX) and he came out with a great statement.
They immediately went to a commercial and he never came back.
Is this not the epitomy of political irony?:
People who want health care "reform" and look to Congress to enact it are now between the following rock and hard place.
1. They can oppose its passage and leave in its place the incredibly poor health care and obscenely expensive system we now have, to the immense profit of the insurance companies and health care providers and the poverty of the people.
2. They can support the passage of a "reform" package that, it seems, will be a "memorial" to the soon-to-be-dead Edward Kennedy that is based on the Massachusetts model of EK's home state: mandatory purchase of insurance, high deductibles (people paying $7k a year on insurance that doesn't cover anything and they don't have their $7k to help them pay their own bills), coverage based on the whims of state governments to support those who need assistance (always the first thing to go when it's budget cut time): in other words, for all intents and purposes a system no better than the one we have---and one that will as, critics say, be far more expensive than the "unreformed" one we have.
So what's the "lesser evil" between these? Is there another way that eschews "evil" solutions in favor of an actually "good" one? Well, obviously there is, from a single payer, or enhanced Medicare for all. But, the pessimists will say, isn't this exactly the dilemma we face in elections in a two-party system in which we may not like either of the two contending parties. Since one of these evils is preferable to the other, we have to do the "realistic" thing and select that less evil one. It's the third party dilemma raised again where a specific issue is concerned. If there's any hope for true reform, I would go back to Dr. Himmelstein's statement, quoted in this article, that his single payers doctors' organization plans "a variety of striking efforts early in the fall." If the will of the people is going to prevail over that of the two corporatist parties (in a presidential election or on passage of legislation), it will indeed take "striking efforts" to overcome the inertia of an established political system. But other movements have faced large odds and, largely through a variety of "we shall overcome" striking efforts have been able to produce such unlikely results as the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. We've done it before......
Jerry D -
Great comment about the rock-and-a-hard-place irony surrounding how the "health care reform" debate has been framed to date. I wish I could share your optimism about the analogies to passage of the Civil Rights Acts, but I can't.
In the 1960's there eventually emerged legitimately "fair and balanced" coverage concerning racial segregation in the US national media. The pro-segregation, states' rights advocates were not flush with cash to spend millions of dollars on DC beltway lobbyists to protect the status quo. Nor did the forces favoring separate but equal regularly fund the TV ads which sponsored mainstream media evening news programming, the way big Pharma and the insurance industry routinely do today.
The 21st Century GOP may be analogous to the solid south Dixiecrats of old in terms of their hard ball parliamentary tactics, but the economics of national health care are dramatically different.
Bill from Saginaw
Bill: Thanks for the response.
I admit, of course, and it's a well-taken point, that the times and issues are different between the 1960s and today, to the detriment of mass action as you indicate. However, not all the differnces are favorable to a lesser possibility of such action today. The civil rights legislation of the 60s was enacted on behalf of the about 10% of the U.S. population (blacks), whereas the suffering that needs to be "overcome" today is such that it easily involves the great majority of the people of all races, age categories and regions of the country. So don't underestimate the power of that huge mass if appropriately "mobilized." Aye, there's the rub and some of that "variety of striking efforts" to which Dr. H. referred will no doubt need to be brought to bear. But please don't despair until those "striking efforts" have been employed.
underestimate the power of that huge mass if appropriately "mobilized.
There has never been a time in US history that rights were given without the pain and loss of life that that fight takes.
Slavery, child labor, unionization, civil rights, woman rights all took individuals to stand up and pay that price for what they felt was right. As individuals stood up then masses followed. Sometimes the other way around but none the less US gov requires it's pound of flesh to get rights for it's people.
Our leaders give away rights to vested interests and demands we the people earn ours.
Hi Bill from Saginaw--You also forget the huge propaganda victory continued de facto slavery offered the USSR, which is the primary reason the Civil Rights Acts were passed.
Jerry D Rose, those striking efforts of the past were covered by the media. People saw dogs attacking children. No one will be seeing doctors chaining themselves to the White House fence. Medical professionals already demonstrated in front of the White House. No one saw it unless they were present (or watched privately made videos). The corporate media stayed away. But look at how much attention they lavished on people screaming "Socialism!" and "Death panels!" at town hall meetings. And now the public is confused and worried about the once popular public option.
The fix is in.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
As C. Hedges writes:
"The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care." Yes, and we could add that the U.S. ranks 41st in life expectancy while spending more than any other country on health care. God forbid that anyone should suggest that this system is class-based.
I felt that I was going to be sick after reading this article, but there would be no "health care system" to help me. I guess it's true.
It may take something drastic, to force the government into doing the right thing. By this I do not mean a violent uprising or burning and looting of buildings; that is the method of the adversary and their lackey's on the right.
I suggest an alternative action, and the outright divestment, by policy holder's, of their private insurance plans. The threat alone, could not be countered and if the government were to ignore the action of possibly millions, who refuse to participate in this farce they call health care and health care reform, it would be only a matter of time before they and the private insurance industry fraudsters are out of business.
For many people, this may not be an option, however it is certain that many more millions are near or already over the edge of the health insurance abyss and cannot maintain their coverage. There is nothing else to lose therefore, that is unless the abomination that is now being hustled through the government, forces you to pay with your very last dollar.
All progressive blogs and like organizations could easily get a petition for people to sign and a commitment from them to not participate at anytime in the current private, for profit system. On mass, they could burn their policies in front of the whole world; could you imagine the mall in DC, with millions of people lighting up their policies, with there pathetic, if not criminal billing schemes and the horror show they truly present as America's system of health care.
The debate, if you can say there was one, is over. Yet by cutting off the profits, through this direct form of action, by reducing the number of people forced into playing this immoral game, you will see just how fast these paper pushing business will last, and how quickly the government can respond to the people's wishes.
STIG, that is a GREAT IDEA, but good luck in getting the apathetic American public to do anything even if it is in their best interest.
See my post above.
Lorado, I still haven't given up on Hands Across America for HR 676, even if I couldnt make it yesterday; ironically because when my SIL's coverage ran out after a month in hospital, they dumped her unstabilized back on the family in an uncontrolled bipolar manic state. My entire extended family has been trying for the last 10 days to get her committed, even when another SIL-M.D. and the rest of us declared under oath over a week ago she was a danger to self and others including 2 small children in her care. We didn't have to tell the police, we could SHOW the police and they still didn't put her into custody until Sunday after she terrorized their small neighborhood for 2 days. And they wonder why I want UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE? ARGHHHHH!!!!!
NETMINNOW, i sympathize with your situation as you and family are feeling the pain of a lack of healthcare. I wish the best for your sister-in-law and her family; her case demonstrates the critical need for SINGLE PAYER. I know there are such medical needs all over this country crying out for a just solution.
I was a little down about the lack of participation yesterday, but your situation reaffirms my committment to getting something done. Thanks for your comment.
This is a fantastic idea. It is workable. Perhaps we could enlist the assistance of that not-for-profit medical group that put on the free medical care week in Los Angeles? I am willing to work for this. I am retired and have some time. If you want to work to implement this idea, I will help. I am in Bellingham Washington, a member of Veterans for Peace, an activist. colferm@hotmail.com.
MichaelC
I wouldn't be able to participate in the way I have suggested MichaelC, I'm a Canadian. This does not mean however, that what is emerging in the U.S. will not directly effect our health care system here in Canada. We would be remiss, of the knowledge of the scoundrels ruling over your bankrupt system and the courage they would be engendered with if you, the American citizen, fail to take back what is rightfully yours.
It would be but a matter of time thereafter, I fear, before they turn their rapacious gaze and their billions, towards our system, in order to destroy or fatally injure it. In fact, some conservative politicians have already thrown down the gloves, in our direction, knowing that the Canadian system is a continuing threat to their preferred clients bottom line in the insurance industry. Even if we are successful at repelling these adventurers, the salt they sow could starve our system into capitulation to their wishes.
Iodora is correct and that starting anew, a protest of this sort and magnitude, is near impossible, but not undesirable. What it would need, above all, I believe, is the moral certitude and conviction of groups already in place. If you are to stand naked, it is best to do so with as many other naked people as possible. There are many large religious and social organizations in the U.S. that have actually participated in various divestiture campaigns. And if not in your area or region, I sure other socially responsive groups near you, even online such as Twitter, would be readily available to quickly organize and prepare a large number of people for the swift financial unravelling of the private health care oligarch.
As with any business, whether legit or usurious, if it can not generate sufficient profits, the receivers of its largesse and their stock market investments would quickly disappear. As soon as it becomes a hollowed vestiges of its former self, the government can start a fresh, and as Obama himself has suggested, the way would be clear for the creation of an American universal, single payer system.
As I have posted here before, I have executed health care directives in which I refuse to participate in the system, and express my clear wish to die rather than to accept any treatment, under any financial arrangements, from a system that I consider inhumane and grossly immoral.
This system is a tragic illustration of free-market ideology trumping common sense and common decency. The profit motive serves corporate providers by driving "innovation" in the form of more treatment at greater expense regardless of efficacy, forcing all but the most highly paid among us to accept options that we simply cannot afford. At the same time it ignores preventative care and public health concerns that are clearly in the interest of the society as a whole.
It is, in a word, insane.
I do not have health insurance and have refused to participate in employer-provided plans. I will refuse to comply with the coverage mandate which will certainly be a part of any health care "reform" legislation. This mandate is nothing more than corporate welfare guaranteeing 40 million or so new customers to the private insurance industry, which provides ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OF VALUE to the health care of anyone.
My directive specifically states that I refuse consent for any conveyance, admission or treatment, and that I refuse to accept any financial responsibility for any medical services rendered to me.
I think Stig's tactical idea is excellent ... I believe that Single Payer Action in Washington held a similar protest a few months ago, where insurance policies were burned.
I am 59 years old, single with no dependent children, and am one of those many millions of people with little to lose. I am not financially able to emigrate, or I would do so in a heartbeat. I am disgusted by the character of the public debate on the health care issue, and frankly do not care to live amongst a people who care so little for one another that they must be "sold" on the idea of humane and fair provision of health care on the basis, as Obama so indelicately put it, of "what's in it for me."
Well said. I had not thought about having a directive that said "hands off!!" but I like the idea.
I would disagree that this is free market ideology. I think it is phony free market rhetoric to disquise and protect monopolies.
Wow, I am stunned and humbled dr holmquist. I have no choice in the coverage issue, no premium money and no coverage with my employment. I won't be able to buy even the smallest crappiest policy under any circumstances so I won't be participating in the mandates either. Hope it doesn't affect my job, but I'm paid so little that if I was forced through payroll deduction to buy in , there would be NO INCENTIVE for me to work. I never thought of directives to state "fuggeddabowtit". It would free up that portion of my thoughts preoccupied by those worries but it wouldn't be fair to the 2 minors at home still. Still they're almost adults, so soon...
drholmquist, you have articulated my philosophy exactly. I have also decided not to participate in this country's ridiculous excuse for "healthcare." I would rather die than contribute a penny to the bloated insurance & pharma industries. I suspect that being dead would be much more pleasant than filling out endless paperwork, arguing with insurance representatives, taking prescription drugs which have side effects that are delt with by yet more prescription drugs, sitting in depressing waiting rooms with the ubiquitous blaring televisions (advertising more drugs) and watching the endless parade of drug reps march in and out with catered lunches and gifts for the doctors and staff. The whole system is indeed insane. I'm putting my directives into writing, but I don't have a lot of faith in my wishes being respected if someone sees the possibility of a profit in extending my demise. I wonder if I will actually be allowed to opt out of the system, or if I'm just going to end up as another consumer on a hospital conveyor belt yielding up my last shekel to the corporate sleazebags.
Hello AnnaAcappella--http://www.caringinfo.org/stateaddownload has forms and instructions for each state's Advanced Directive form. My advice is to look at the one for your state, talk to your family and the person you want to request to be your healthcare representative, consult your local legal aide office about the importance of having the document drawn by a lawyer [some states require it, and in some cases it's best for your interest, so check], and after the document is finalized, ensure copies are delivered to your primary physician and others in your imediate circle. Such directives usually deal with terminal disease or the desired level of care to be given after some trauma [auto accident, for example] afflicts you, but they can be made very specific, and they can be updated just like a will.
Anna, you make a good observation about the possible willingness of a hospital to try to squeeze blood from a stone ... so to speak. And I don't know if "the system" can be forced to leave an injured or critically ill person to literally die on the sidewalk.
I hope I don't ever have to put it to the test, but I firmly intend to should the situation arise.
I have also arranged for a health care agent who has agreed to press my wishes on providers if necessary. While I condemn the system, I feel strongly that many of the individual practitioners -- especially nurses -- are caring and conscientious people who might well be badly shaken by being forced to honor my wishes. So, I have also asked my agent to forward a letter to any practitioner who might become involved in my protest action, to the effect that I do not hold them responsible for the systemic corruption I find so morally objectionable.
I haven't significantly participated in the medical monopoly for over 30 years. When I had insurance through work, I went to an orthopedic surgeaon about a back problem. He basically told me I was a hypochondriac and had his nose way out of joint because I had previously consulted with a non-MD who just happened to have clients who were famous, local pro football players. The referral M.D. said there was only one other orth-guy in the HMO and he was an even bigger a**hole.
Re: mammograms. I've been told, and perhaps someone knows for sure, that doctors are trained to examine women's breasts very carefully because if there is a malignancy, pressure may break the tumor open and metastasize it. Now, what exactly does a mammogram do?
We must have Freedom of Choice in medical care and the way to successfully not participate is to explore natural medicine/functional medicine and learn how to treat causes of disease, not symptoms. Support Access to Medical Treatment Act and HR3394, 95, & 96 to stop the FDA from pulling natural treatments off the market and denying free speech about them.
I'm sure lots of people here think I'm nuts, but it is realistic to save at least 10% of costs immediately and 40-50% down the road as indigestion will stop turning into cancer and other real preventive methods take hold. It is estimated that if everyone in the US and Canada had adequate vitamin D status, we would prevent over 100,000 cases of breast and prostate cancer.
To keep yourself healthy or get healthier read "Why Stomach Acid is Good For You" by JV Wright, MD and L. Lenard, PhD. Go to www.hsibaltimore.com and sign up for the e-alert or search e-alert archives. Go to www.wrightnewsletter.com and for $49 you can get a 1 year subscription and access to 9 years of archives. Ignore all ads and stick to content which is research backed and referenced. Go to acamnet.org and see if you can find a nearby physician. Ask good questions and be informed in order to find a natural medicine physician.
Or, do on-line searches: "Dr. Mark Hyman and Functional Medicine", "BEC5 and skin cancer," "War on Holistic MDs", "pyridoxamine taken off the market"
"D-Mannose and UTI" This is real, this is serious and as Mr. Hedges points out, nothing useful will come from this latest "plan" DO SOMETHING to undermine them.
This is a great action that I've already taken with my immediate family. We now self-insure, and have saved over $15,000 since the scheme was implemented last year. Additionally, the Advanced Directives my 78-year-old mother and 83-year-old aunt I care for have similar stipulations to those suggested by drholmquist below. They very well understand the "nature" of our "healthcare system," and are totally appalled by it.
Dying was once a dignified and family oriented event that occured in the home, as was the subsequent burial of the deceased. But the state has made this an almost impossible act. The same could be said for birthing; just try getting a birth certificate for a baby not born in a hospital or other "medical" facility. The result is that such Life Happenings are now removed from the home, which serves to further atomize the extended family and society as a whole.
As for the various Health Insurers/Big Pharma bailout schemes proposed in Congress, I oppose the entire lot and support only HR676 and have written my reps telling them I will strenuously work against them if they vote against the Public Interest, which is only represented by HR676. I suggest folks frame their letters to their reps the same way. Not one more penny for either insurers or Pharma, or for war or the banksters while we're at it.
Self insurance is the only way to deal with this.
Insurance corporations make money insuring people. This business model assumes a large pool of subscribers for a reasonable premium. It's wrong. When you insure yourself, you put all the administrative costs in your pocket. The hardest part is having the discipline to never touch the health account unless you are sick. Are we so weak that we have to pay an insurance premium because we don't have the will power to put that money aside? The Insurance pigs are counting on it. If you can get a group of like minded families to pool their savings in an equitable and egalitarian manner, you are well on your way to destroying the health insurance mob.
jbentham
I agree: such a boycott should, if our numbers were high enough, bring the congress 'round.
I have been seeing the system of for-profit insurance as rigged for some decades now. I have been without insurance for the past 13 years; faced with the prospect of medicare supplemental insurance choices, i find i am staring the private for-profits in the face yet again (as i would be were i to sign on for Medicare Part D, the prescription drug catastrophe passed several years ago by congresspersons who admitted to having no time to read the bill before a vote was called.)
Medicare supplemental insurance, otherwise known as Medigap, is private insurance purchased on top of that which is provided in the original Medicare plans A and B, to cover significant gaps in what the government plans will pay for. There are a number of options, and the options are standardized, and the companies cannot refuse to take you on; but their charges are not regulated, and if you do not sign on for a Medigap policy in the first 6 months during which you become eligible to do so all bets are off: no company is then required to take you on. Yet again, we are made dupes of the corporate health insurance racket. the system is set up to game the consumer of privately-vended health insurance, even under Medicare.
By all means, let's boycott. A senior on a small income, i already can't win for losing.
Stig, if this is your original idea, you are one bright mfer---- this is the first and only idea I have seen that has a chance of a snowball in hell of having an influence. I like it.