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TechnoratiUS Healthcare History: Our Very Own Killing Fields
Jenny Fritts was 24 years old. Jenny lived with her husband Sean for the past five years, and together they had a little girl named Kylee, 2. Jenny was seven-and-a-half months pregnant with her second child - a beautiful, baby girl.
Jenny is dead. Jenny's unborn baby is dead. They died because they were turned away for appropriate care at a for-profit hospital because they did not have health insurance. Sean rushed Jenny back to another hospital when her symptoms became even more severe, and he lied about having insurance to get her in the door. She was placed on a respirator in intensive care, but she didn't make it. She died. And so did her baby.
They become two more of the more than 45,000 Americans who die preventable deaths due to our broken healthcare system every year. Two more. Mother and child.
And the tragedy doesn't end there. Sean has been very depressed since he lost Jenny and their baby. The rest of his family and friends are worried about him. But he cannot get treatment either. He doesn't have insurance. (You can watch their story here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td802aj-7Sc) Imagine how you might feel. Imagine.
These are our killing fields. In America. In October 2009. In Barack Obama's America. That land full of hope and promise for those who can afford that hope and promise. Yet few in our government offices react as one might think you would when hearing of Jenny and the baby and Sean and Kylee.
I read these stories every day on the guaranteedhealthcare.org website. I read them and clean up a spelling glitch or two and then post them for the world to see. The website belongs to the nurses of the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee. Patients send their stories to the nurses in cascading waves of anger and frustration and desperation. They want someone to listen and to give a damn. And they want someone to help.
But there are so many. The nurses advocate for their own patients whenever they can. And when it's possible, nurses take to the streets and to the phone to try to protest. But the numbers swell every day.
Many are like Jenny and Sean and have no insurance at all or have lost their insurance when they lost jobs or because an employer cannot afford to offer it.
Some are insured and fighting insurance companies for care that their doctors have ordered.
Rich Zandlo, 38, suffers from Cystic Fibrosis and is currently surviving off just 19 percent of his lungs. Rich, who lives in Phoenix, needs a lung transplant at UCLA, but his insurer will not cover the transplant if it is done out of state.
His family is looking for help raising money to get him temporary housing and care in California so he can be available to be on the operating table when the call comes. Find out more, and what you can do to help, at their website, www.helprichzandlo.com.
Amanda (Tannery) Field, 30, has thrombocytosis and doctors are also working her up for Budd Chiari syndrome which is preventing the liver from draining properly. Simply put, her liver is dying. Amanda and her husband both work full time, and she has a 13 year old son to support. Due to the illness, she has been unable to work recently, due to the hospital stays. Aetna, her insurer, has denied help due to a lapse in coverage while she was unemployed.
Amanda's family also has a website, http://www.giveforward.org/amandafield/ where they are trying to raise the quarter million dollars necessary for a liver transplant. They have raised only 7 percent of the funds needed to be evaluated for a transplant. Doctors are currently working on a variety of interim measures to keep her alive.
So, what is our Congress waiting for? And our President? Have they so detached themselves from Sean's reality, from Rich's struggle for air and from Amanda's failing health that they think this debate is about excise taxes and re-election prospects?
This is no political contest. This is very real life and death. Mothers and babies. Young and old. The profit-takers know no boundaries for their greed, and our killing fields are filling with the innocents.
We apparently do not understand that this is no different than an external enemy attacking our citizens and killing 120 of them every single day. What would we be doing? Would we repel that aggressor? Would we protect civilian lives? I don't know that answer to that as we apparently think it acceptable to allow Jenny and her baby to die. And they were just two that day - 118 others died too just on that day alone.
The media should cover Jenny's death and her baby's death with as much intensity as any boy in a balloon drifting over the Rockies. When we are forced to confront what we are allowing to happen in homes and clinics and hospitals all across this land, we will perhaps find it less easy to dismiss as anomaly.
Healthcare is a basic human right. Whatever stops the human rights transgressions against our citizens - our Jenny's and our babies -- that allow this should be halted immediately and by force, if necessary, and then fixed properly so that all citizens of these great United States have equal protection under the law of their human right to healthcare. Immediately extending care through a Medicare for All like effort would be a less drastic but equally effective fix. A non-profit, single standard of high quality healthcare for all. Jenny would be alive today and so would her baby daughter.
Our government should grant, provide and protect the right to healthcare as if it meant the future of our nation or its failure. Because that is exactly what it does mean.
113 Comments so far
Show AllTo Galenwainwright---
More than a decade ago the Indianapolis Star (of all newspapers!) published a series on malpractice in Indiana that made it clear how difficult it is to obtain "justice" while offending doctors got to keep offending. They got a Pulitzer for their effort, but the system remains largely unchanged. Half of lucrative downtown Indianapolis real estate is insurance-company owned. It's also home to Ely Lilly of Prozac fame.
***
To jenx---
On paper you are probably right, although in my old age the name of that enabling federal bill escapes me. It's what kept Emergency Rooms operating, while as you no doubt know, today they are closing down left and right.
***
There is an old expression: "Necessity knows no law..."
-30-
Not that the current insurance system isn't broken, but I'd just like to point out the fact that turning anyone down for emergency care in the USA is illegal. The offending hospital should be sued by her family.
I am sure that the grieving family had the hundreds of thousands of dollars and ten or so years of time to spend dragging the hospital, it's parent insurance company, and all their lawyers into court...
These days, justice goes to the one with the deepest pockets.
Our very own Killing Fields is tied to America's not so new world order. In an article on Common Dreams by Daniel Schwartz titled The Delusional Meaning of War he wrote about public health damage and war. "These are direct deaths and injuries attributed to the physical and emotional wounds of soldiers both during war and the survivors." Our service men and women were told that Depleted Uranium exposure would do no harm. Lies. Depleted Uranium does do harm Also the Associated Press story on 7-26-09, Soldiers in Colorado Slayings tell of Iraq Horrors. It was about a Gazette of Colorado Springs article where soldiers who were accused of murder told the soldier's story about how they had gone mad. The Gazette based its report on months of interviews with soldiers and their families, medical and military records, court documents and photographs.
I recommend David Cay Johnston's books, Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch. In Free Lunch Johnston gives specifics about how we have ended up with the "most expensive yet inefficient health care system in the world." Think back to how we the people carried out the struggle to end the Viet Nam War and also put ourselves on the line about other issues such as free speech. The approach was many pronged. Teach-ins, free clinics, speeches, rallies, educating ourselves. Johnston, at the end of his book Free Lunch says, "In the end, we must be the ones who make our government work.......no one else is going to do it for us.
You will not get health care at the point of a gun.
Old John Wayne movies made this clear!
-30-
It's all thanks to corporate repug neocons in progressive drag like you.
Is it not yet obvious to all here that Shawn Berry is a professional Sophist?
-30-
What a polite word for 'troll'...
I just found his blather to be nonsense.
Another associate of SiouxRose/ThomasJefferson. You don't know what you're talking about. You're not a progressive. You're just another closet corporate neocon Repug in progressive drag.
Bwa ha ha ha ha!
My my my , you're an amusing trollie.
You don't know what you're talking about. You're not a progressive. You're just another closet corporate neocon Repug in progressive drag.
Aside from my above posts, (which point out the fact that I'm Canadian, a socialist and favour universal health care) I can assure you I've only done drag twice in my life; both times dressing in women's clothing and covering my face with an outrageous amount of makeup. I left the closet back in 1986, but was never a republican (or a conservative for that matter.).
Like I said, you're amusing.
Remember Palin's 'Death Panels'?
They can be found in the boardrooms of every insurance company. They are found the in the insurance companies accounting divisions.
They are sitting on the Senate, and have already decided to give these predatory corporations even more power to deny you the basics of medicine.
What will it take to get you off your collective asses and get angry?
I've been contacting my Congressman and both senators while everyone else on this forum sits like lazy asses.
Your congressman and senators are part and parcel of the problem.
You are owned by and have fewer rights than the creatures of legal fiction called 'corporations'.
I don't believe that I'm owned or have fewer rights to fight back. We still have the power to pressure them to listen to us. The only problem is most people won't chip in and do their part. Where does that leave the few who do? They're left outdone by the corporations. I'm not giving up putting pressure and hounding my congressman and senators.
Walk into your congressman's or senator's office and demand to speak with them face to face. They are, after all, public servants, right?
Wrong.
They are there to ensure the smooth flow of money from your pocket to that of the corporations. Law that had been in place to ensure your health and safety have been quietly repealed in favor of higher corporate profits. Worker's rights and safety have been similarly eroded.
If you demand to see your 'elected' representative, and you do not have a TV/film crew or a fat donation cheque in hand, you will politely asked to leave. Push it, and you will be arrested. Guaranteed.
How many people in the US are living barely above the poverty line, working two or more jobs just to keep making minimum payments? How many millions are underemployed, or chronically unemployed, desperate to do anything to stay alive?
Democracy is a stage show to make the body public think that they have a say once every four years. After all, was G.W. Bush *really* elected? Either time? Who paid Obama's election run tab? Senate or Presidential?
As to the corporations having more rights, they can (and do) commit acts of rape, robbery, and murder with impunity. when finally caught and forced into court the worst they have to face is paying a fine or settling out of court for a very minor percentage of their net earnings. These expenses are factored into their operations from the very start.
To continue to believe that you are living in the 'Land Of The Free (tm)' is just denying reality.
You are a slave to a dying system.
No one need "go postal".
But when an uninsured goes to a hospital seeking healthcare, packing a pistol can be useful - it can even be unloaded. If it becomes apparent that ones loved one is being denied medical attention due to lack of insurance, produce the gun - point at the head of the nearest staff one can find, and demand medical care.
Yeah. The first time you try that would be your last.
Security Guards routinely carry heat, and cops are all over the place at any major hospital, especially near the ER.
You flash a gun (even unloaded) demanding better treatment for your loved ones, you will be needing ER yourself.
Or a coffin.
Face it. You live in a very pretty totalitarian police state.
The whole point would be to make a scene. I don't recall many hostage situation resulting in immediate use of deadly force.
Who wouldn't sympathize with someone in this situation. A few years ago, someone even even made a movie about an uninsured person taking people hostage in a hospital so his son could get treatment for a critical illness - It was called John Q - made in 2002 starring Denzel Washington. I never saw it, though.
If you actually survived the hostage situation the prosecution would call you a terrorist and you'd get hanged (or gassed, electrocuted, injected or just tortured to death). Some people might sympathize with your situation, but the media would crucify you. The pro-life crowd would condemn you for not having paid for your own insurance.
Moreover even if you did get some treatment from the docs, you'd still need follow-up care for the individual you pulled a gun for. Do you think that care would be delivered if you're in jail or dead?
I'm not sure any scene short of pouring gasoline over yourself and lighting a match while sitting in front of an insurance company would work...
The only doctors I trust:
Dr. Who
Dr. Steel
One is a fictional character who travels space and time throughout the universe, and the other is a musician and multi-media artist who's avowed goal is to become World Emperor.
I think I'm in better hands...
I wonder how Mr. Kumbaya Peace Prize would actually respond to serious questioning about why he is failing to deal with his urgent domestic policy issues. You know the type of issues that actually mean something to human beings. No time for that, as he focuses on Afghanistan, his buddies on Wall St. and ensuring he has a sweet, rolling in the loot, after the WH life, maybe. I guess he is waiting for the signs to be just right before he springs into action. What a dud.
Hey Shawn Berry---
I finally nailed yore ass. You write in obvious immediate reply to bigbillhaywood:
"Protesting on the streets may work sometimes but the peaceful option would be for people to pressure their members of Congress and the Senate to support or oppose a bill."
SINCE WHEN IS PROTESTING IN THE STREETS NOT PEACEFUL, you diversionary troll? You keep telling us (at this thread and others) we should "pressure" our congresspeople by writing to them. Half a century ago and more Herbert Marcuse called your advice "repressive tolerance." Yeah, like my congressman, who exists by raising millions in corporate contributions to get re-elected every two years, gives a rat's ass about my opinion expressed in a hard-copy letter or an email.
I spent much of my adulthood writing my congresscritters, and found only one of them responsive at any real, serious, level, and that was because he was careful in selecting his staff---and I was an elected local public official.
Those days are long gone. In the days preceding March 20, 2003, in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, I wrote careful letters to both my senators, documenting the lies of the Bush Administration on WMD. One a democrat, one a republican, their canned replies were nearly identical, mimicking the talking points of Bush and Rice about the "mushroom cloud." All, lies.
Give us a f**king break. We know you are not that naive. You are a plant. I'm calling you out. To call you a whore would be an insult to women I respect.
-30-
..and how do you pressure a politician except to threaten them with a breakdown of civil order through massive protests and CD actions.
Writing letters, phone calls and voting doesn't work. Been there, done that.
Do you really expect to be taken seriously with your school bully attitude and childish name-calling?
I have been to street protests myself. Most of them start out peaceful but as soon as either the protester or guarding officer messes up, everything falls apart like a house of cards.
Putting pressure on Congress has worked in the past but the efforts have slipped off in the last decade because fewer people decided to try. If you had tried, good job but how many people have tried like you and me?
I don't care if everyone on this forum wants to call me a troll or whatever. If they can't learn to control their anger, then how do they expect progressives to win? It's easy to shout and cry all day on this site.
Jenny and her baby wouldn't be dead if more people had put more pressure on Congress to pass universal health care a long time ago and hold doctors and/or nurses accountable for getting their treatments wrong or getting personal against patients.
> "I have been to street protests myself. Most of them start out peaceful but as soon as either the protester or guarding officer messes up, everything falls apart like a house of cards."
Shawn Berry, I am almost ready to call you a liar. I live in Maine and I have been to many street protests as well, and I have never, NEVER, seen ANY violence. I have attended two large protests in Washington DC, again there was NO violence.
Could you please back up your statement with examples of protests you have attended that became violent?
Most of the protests that I have witnessed have been overwhelmingly peaceful and the only exception was the Battle in Seattle in which a very small number of protestors were violent and I do not have proof but anecdotally, I would say they were in many cases provocateurs. Out of thousands and thousands of peaceful people the press was 24/7 on this handful of semi-violent people and so painted all the protestors with the same brush.
Violent? Sorry, but damaging the inanimate, unliving property of a capitalist is not "violence".
A better word would have been angry not violent, but having said that, it gave the whore press the ammunition to demonize all the WTO protestors as violent and like I said painted all with same brush as being violent.
If they're peaceful, my concern is they're not covered by the media. I don't feel comfortable going out there and risking my life with the possibility of getting on camera and not being able to work anymore. I don't see politicians listening to street protesters and changing anything. That's why I think it's just another waste of time to gain 15 minutes of fame.
"I live in Maine and I have been to many street protests as well, and I have never, NEVER, seen ANY violence. I have attended two large protests in Washington DC, again there was NO violence."
Do you have a reading problem? I said MOST street protests, not all of them. Everyone knows that street protests often fall apart like a house of cards. Common Dreams has posted so many such examples. If you want to call me a liar, then you're calling Common Dreams a liar.
Shawn Berry, no I don't have a reading problem but it seems that you do. You said that MOST street protests turn violent, not all of them. I said I have been to MANY here in Maine, and NONE of them turned violent. So apparently "everyone" does NOT know that "street protests often fall apart like a house of cards". Now as it just happens, Minnesota is my home state, so I'm pretty familiar with what goes on in Minnesota and interestingly, Minnesota and Maine are very similar. So I repeat, please give specific examples of the protests you've attended that turned violent. You said that MOST of them do, so it should not be hard for you to come up with a list of protests that you attended that turned violent.
You're making up bs about street protests. Politicians don't listen to them. They exist for 15 minutes of fame. I don't have to give specific examples of peaceful protests falling apart. Common Dreams already proves me right and most of the street protests reported have turned violent and out of control. You think you can dance around protesting and politicians will listen? Oh yeah right. MN and ME are not similar? Give me a break. Go back and read those articles and stop wasting your time.
Focus Shawn. Give us specific examples. I can only think of a couple in my lifetime that went violent. I don't see any violence in the Boston protest that is currently at the top of the front page.
The protests out here in MN are examples. What about those Seattle protests? The corporatists won anyway.
I would rather not lose what little I got than get into trouble. I have a better chance of keeping my job putting my part of my pressure on Congress than risking getting attacked and beaten. When single payer passes, doctors and nurses prove to be better trained, and spying by the government is reduced, then I'll be happy to risk it out there. Street protests are just another 15 minutes of fame clown show. Politicians don't listen to them anyway so why should I bother? I would rather engage in direct confrontation with the politicians.
The changes you seek aren't going to come about with you and the rest of the country living in a state of fear and anger. Someone made an excellent post about sacrifice on the "Challenging the Banks" article. You need to get out of your comfort zone. The corporate fascists in this country have full control on the levers of power. They will not relinquish them without a fight.
Who is the one in the comfort zone, people like me putting pressure on Congress all the time or people blowing up on this forum living in their own fear and anger? I'm already out of the comfort zone while the spoiled ones on this site flaming me aren't. I'm glad I'm only spending this weekend typing. What do you gain from doing this everyday? You're not fighting the politicians on their actions unless you get out and contact them more often. That is how democracy works. Ralph Nader admitted that FDR counted on public pressure to keep government in check. I didn't have to go through college education to learn this much.
I understand your point of view. That said, letter writing is not the only form of pressure we can place on these people. I also maintain that it will be insufficient to get the job done. I truly feel that peaceful protest and peaceful civil disobedience can play a significant role in bringing about change. I understand that you do not wish to engage in this form of pressure. At the same time, I don't think you should dismiss it as it is an important tool for other people to use.
You're right. It can't hurt to join a street protest that politicians won't give a damn about does it? No thanks. I don't do 15 minutes of fame.
"Jenny and her baby wouldn't be dead if more people had put more pressure on Congress to pass universal health care a long time ago and hold doctors and/or nurses accountable for getting their treatments wrong or getting personal against patients."
I don't think so Shawn. Look at the banking bailouts. I think over 80% of the populace was opposed to them. Congress and Senate were deluged with angry mail and calls. They proceeded apace anyway. While I write my pseudo-representatives, I am not deluded to the point of thinking they have any effect whatsoever. This is further evidenced by the form letter responses I receive from them.
As for your posting skills, you are much like myself in a number of ways. You become unduly harsh at times. That said, you often seem to engage in discussion that spirals into "argument for the sake of argument". I think you could offer this board a lot if you tried to catch flies with honey instead of vinegar. Hopefully you will take this in the spirit of constructive criticism that I offer it.
Lastly, the time is now for action in my opinion. We are quickly lapsing into a corporate fascist tyranny. Something is going to replace this free market madness as it is abundantly clear that this system is failing. It could just as easily be corporate tyranny as opposed to reasonable socialism. The choice is ours.
"I don't think so Shawn. Look at the banking bailouts. I think over 80% of the populace was opposed to them. Congress and Senate were deluged with angry mail and calls. They proceeded apace anyway. While I write my pseudo-representatives, I am not deluded to the point of thinking they have any effect whatsoever. This is further evidenced by the form letter responses I receive from them."
I have to strongly disagree with that. That was only one time when the public actually got engaged. If the public had done this more often, Congress would be different. Once is not enough. It takes practice and consistency.
"Lastly, the time is now for action in my opinion. We are quickly lapsing into a corporate fascist tyranny. Something is going to replace this free market madness as it is abundantly clear that this system is failing. It could just as easily be corporate tyranny as opposed to reasonable socialism. The choice is ours."
We have corrupt leaders but that's not the same as fascism. Every day, there are laws being brought up for and against hostile corporate takeovers. I pay attention to them. Why does Olympia Snowe and Max Baucus get more coverage while Bernard Sanders and John Conyers don't? I support single payer and never give up putting my part of the pressure. We can overcome corrupt politicians by countering the corrupter's influences.
Can you name a single instance in world history where that the kind of change we need was accomplished by writing and trying to reason politicians or leaders?
Power doesn't listen to reason, only ultimatiums such that it concedes it's power, in order to keep from losing it's power altogether. In the 1930's it was not people writing their congresspersons that effected change, it was the very real threat of a socialist uprising.
I'm not saying writing alone but people did make Congress listen back then whatever way they did it. I don't believe politicians to do anything on their own. They rely on some influence or other to sway them and right now the corporations are winning and it makes me mad to see my efforts going nowhere thanks to fewer people joining in to add to the pressure.
Here's a quote from FDR:
"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."
How would you describe our corporate and big money interest owned representatives today? You are in denial.
Where did I say that I tolerate the growth of private power? You're getting way off. FDR needed public pressure or the New Deal would never have passed. People hammered their members of Congress during the Great Depression even when they wouldn't listen. FDR almost faced assassination attempts. Were it not for public pressure, who knows when this nation would have emerged from the Great Depression.
"We have corrupt leaders but that's not the same as fascism."
That was the basis of my reply.
As for the great depression, letter writing didn't get the job done. If you study the history of it, you will find much suffering and many split heads.
"As for the great depression, letter writing didn't get the job done."
Tell that to the Great Depression survivors. I never said it was the only way. People weren't spoiled with the Internet during the Great Depression. The insurance companies are confident that we'll be losers refusing to confront our Congressmen and senators. I'm not one of them.
The United States is nothing more than a third world country with a bloated military. The sooner our citizens realize that, the sooner we will be able to take to the streets and change it.
"The United States is nothing more than a third world country with a bloated military."
Allow me to amplify:
In the past two years I've spoken to several basically conservative American business people who frequently travel to Canada and Mexico. In the course of discussing business topics and changes in the U.S that they've seen since the inception of NAFTA, I asked which of the two cultures they thought the US now most resembles.
All said Mexico.
Note that we did not discuss politics but focused on the daily methods and practices encountered in doing business. Each, in various ways, cited increased graft and corruption in the U.S.
*****
In 2006 I had a long and initially enjoyable conversation with a mature, well educated businesswoman who came to the U.S. from the Ukraine in the mid'90s. She revealed that she was moving to Canada. When I asked why, she replied: "I grew up under the domination of the Soviet Union - I'm not going to go through that again."
She supported this with a chilling recitation of the parallels between the Soviets and the U.S. Neocons.
.
Skeptimist. I use to live in Mexico and would agree with you. What most Americans do not realize, most Mexicans do not have any kind of credit available to them. Now let me ask you: If the banks took most of Americas credit away wouldn't we resemble just another Banana Republic? When the pundits say we have the highest standard of living in the world, that is nothing more than a facade, a canard for the sheeple, masses. I think if you check, you will probably see that we have the highest credit debt in the world.
I contact my Congressman and both senators every time especially on military related bills. Protesting on the streets may work sometimes but the peaceful option would be for people to pressure their members of Congress and the Senate to support or oppose a bill. I wished more people would join us in pressuring Congress to support legislation for peace and oppose legislation to continue the wars. We could cut down the bloated military that way.
I read some of the stories on that site. Very sad. When you put faces to the people it so much easier to empathize with their plight. I read of one who had slipped into Canada to get care. Our Medical establishment claims this more common then we are led to believe with a number getting care via faked cards.
But reading her story I can not really blame her. I guess its something we will just have to bear until the citizens of the USA get TRUE Universal care.
my family and i lived under the UK health care system for 4 years.
we also lived in holland for a year.
we had not problems what so ever with either health care system.
once, the congress begins to vote on letting states having single payer health care systems.
bet your butt i will be calling every congressman who votes against this.
and when it passes i will move to the state that has single payer universal health care.
That web site guaranteed health care has some heart moving stories. Her's one for those independent minded souls who think the government should not be involved in health care:
Brian
IL
Heathcare Status: Self-Insured
Middle America: 49 year old father of 3 boys, ages 17, 13, 10. Married twenty-five years. Self-Employed. Over $100K per year. Living the American Dream. Carving out a living for my family and doing it my way. The self-paid way. The American Dream. Being what I want to be. Living the dream.
As long as my dream includes paying 20% of my gross income in health care in a single year. And the five of us are pretty healthy. Okay - I have a son with mental illness - none of it covered by my insurance that is $1,200 per month. No catastrophic or chronic illnesses besides that. The typical bumps, bruises and tonsillectomies, but, knock on wood, nothing major.
But everything that any of us have ever had before 8 years ago - is pre-existing and ridered out. Oh, and dental? All self-paid. Deductible? $1,000 per person. College tuition? The health care industry is enjoying 100% of what I had hoped to stick away for education for my boys. Honestly though - I don't mind paying $500-$600/mo for health insurance for my family and then it actually paying for the health care, but here I am.
Six figures per year - wife working for a mental illness non-profit in order to give back and be first in line for decent mental care & resources. It doesn't go far.
I can't do it anymore. Business is slow. Times are tough. I am going to have to drop someone. I live in fear that one of the kids will wake up one morning with cancer or I will have a heart attack from stress. Speaking of which - I need to have my triglycerides checked, BUT - the blood work is about $500 and I haven't met my deductible. So - I don't go - although I am out of the meds. Doctor won't refill unless I go see him and spend the $500. So much for preventative medicine. I ain't got $500 for that right now - especially when I feel okay.
I hate where this is going. I hate the fact that I have NO choices. I am forced to make life decisions based on health care.
I have been screwed by so many health insurance companies over the years. And the paperwork! My God. My wife and I are both college educated and do project management for a living and the EOB stuff, etc. duplicate billing, disorganization from the providers - my wife and I often say - "I wonder what the hell stupid people do!" No way can we ever figure the stuff out - its a miracle that anyone gets paid. We just err on our side and hope for the best.
God forbid anyone has to go to have a "procedure." You adopt a new hobby every time someone has to have something done. This infuriates me. I don't know what the best answer is, but here is the deal. Is it right that my government - the government of freedom and democracy, the richest most powerful and innovative country in the world - has been sitting back watching this HC system rape me of choice, future for my kids and a chance to live my American dream?
Submitted on August 7, 2009 - 1:37pm.
AGG: Your situation is as sadly typical as the deaths by care refusal. There are even more deaths by care administered--not mistakes but people following orders exactly. At least 100,000 a year of those; 150,000 ER visits for tylenol toxicity...
The whole system is rotten. Your pacemaker check up should cost maybe $50-$100. I was struck by the $100 MRI in Japan discussed in Sick Around the World on Frontline. Reading the book is still on the list. If charges reflected costs, someone like you would not need way as much insurance as it would be cheaper to write a check and you wouldn't have to be an educated project manager to do it.
Instead of demanding gov't pay for this ripoff, we've got to get the system to change and the only way to do that is go after the FDA and AMA and move toward cash payments for primary care. In the meantime, maybe set the goal for universal coverage for emergency care. I support cash accounts for Medicaid recipients too. I don't have all the answers but situations like yours strike me as insane.
One day, on NPR (All Things...) they told a story about a drug that the British Health Service refused to pay for. It was for leukemia or lymphoma. It didn't cure or even extend life. It just made people more comfortable and even then it only worked for 10-15% of those who took it. It cost, I think, $20,000 a treatment. After a while, the drug company came back and said "How about if you only pay when it works?" and the BHS said OK. I know it sounds cruel to say that part of the problem is that everyone is spending someone else's money, but it is part of the problem. That's why paying cash for primary care will cut costs for those services, no middleman/bureaucracy and more competition when people aren't "stuck" with whoever the HMO will pay, or who takes Medicaid. There are cash only medical practices. Costs are cut 30-50% and the docs make as much or more money.
In the current environment, starting at the top will just not work. I'd already decided to pay the fine rather than submit to health insurance tyranny. Support medical freedom at the state level. Docs should only be professionally punished for ethical problems or damage to patients, not for healing their patients with "unapproved" methods.
1,200$ per month!! WOW! I wouldn't be able to afford that.
In Europe, unless your country has a 100% tax-financed health care system (Scandinavian countries for example, and the taxes there are of course higher than everywhere else for that reason), your health care contribution is calculated according to your income in many European countries, albeit with an upper limit (roughly 4,000€ per month in my country), no matter how much you earn - which BTW means that rich people pay a smaller share of their income than the less wealthy.
In my country the health insurance contribution amounts to 7.65% of your monthly wage if you are employed (roughly half of it paid by the employer) or all of the 7.65% if you are self-employed.
If you are unemployed or penniless, this is taken over by the state. Children and non-working spouses are automatically co-insured at no or minimal extra cost.
But you now have to co-finance (via a - small - contribution) medication, stays in hospital or rehab weeks in a spa in order to avoid abuse. And you can only get 3 weeks in a spa for rehab purposes every 3 years now. It's been getting tougher here as well.
But I wonder: How did it ever get to the point in America that people are expected to be able to afford 1000+ dollars per month??? Why weren't millions of Americans hitting the streets already decades ago? This is after all a basic human right! Why did you let that happen to you?
If anybody in Europe suggested what is your reality, their party would be politically dead forever.
I am aware that many European countries have partially or substantially privatized - but with far more regulation than the US, health insurance coverage.
But the situation is so messed up here in the United States that only complete government intervention and conversion to at least a Canadian style system - and probably more like a UK-style system, is going to fix the problem. Then, maybe in a few decades, the US can think, just think, of adopting a Dutch or Swiss style system.
The analogy would be the water, electric or gas utilities in the US. In many places, these are privatized, but they are heavily regulated - supervised really, by a state government utility agency. The result is that most are not unduly burdened by water, electric or gas bills.
Boy, what a day. I just found out that BCBS raised my premiums 12.9% for 2010. I am speechless.
When I was in America and we discussed health care, I for fun entered basic data like age on a Blue Cross or Blue Shield questionnaire on the internet (no health data yet at all) and ended up with a theoretical monthly health insurance payment that was roughly 3 times of what I pay in Europe (yes, many of us pay as well, wherever health care isn't 100% financed by taxes)!
Since many other items are actually cheaper in the US than in Europe, there is no reason whatsoever for this difference.
Unless doctors and hospitals feel entitled to become really rich in America.
Sad article but it misses some of the other causes for deaths like this. The healthcare system is broken but there are multiple sources of a broken health care system. NativeSon gets it right that doctors are also to blame. There are four reasons for bad doctors. For one, they think that if insurance and drug companies can raise their rates, so can they. Second, the medical education in this country for nurses and doctors is fubar. Third, fear of patients taking the doctors to court because lawyers are greedy leads doctors to more bad decisions. Fourth, modern medicine and machinery have made doctors careless in getting the treatments right even when it's obvious that more deaths are caused by medical errors. Combine all these causes together and health care is fubar.
The attitude of our Elected Misrepresentatives in Congress and the Oval Office, willing servants of Mammon at the expense of the People from whom the Misrepresentatives ostensibly derive their authority, has been summed up perfectly by a fictional predecessor:
"If they had like to die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
· Yr Obd't Servant
Where is the so called "Right to Life" crowd in all of this? They only seem to care about the so called unborn and then only those where the parent or parents have Insurance coverage. Where are the Churches, Synagogues and Mosques? I don't see any of this crowd doing squat!This is one of the MOST important Moral and Ethical issues of our age and yet all I hear from this qtr. is deafening silence!
Seaglass: You have that right! The vast majority of the American church insanity, crowd are nothing more than hypocritical tools of the wealthy elite. They rail vehemently on abortion and the unborn but not a peep about the born being murdered by the thousands,around the world in illegal wars for power and profit. The church cultists with very few exceptions, have always been cheerleaders for the MIC; even to go so far as to have military chaplins embeded in this murdereous killing machine. If the extraordinary evil, hypocritical church cultists care about unborn babies so much why arn't they adopting thousands of orphans from all over the world and giving these kids a home? Marx called them the opiate of the people and that is just the way the people that really run America want to keep the sheeple.
Well said. The incredible hypocrisy of the religious organisations is mind boggling.
We'll get no help from them. We have been robbed. Health care was hijacked and made a commodity. Once, long ago. a doctor would treat you first and bill you later. Everyone knew it was in their best interest to keep the doctors paid and the patients healthy; it was part of a humane, civilised, viable community. When people didn't pay their doctor, it was because they were too poor; not because they were trying to "game" the system. The only ones who have gamed AND trashed the system are the insurance corporations. We need to get them TOTALLY out of the picture.
I have a dual chamber pace maker requiring two vists a year. In 10 minutes they run a computer program which tests the leads and pacemaker computer routines. They just raised the rates 20%! WTF! And there is no COLA increase because the "cost of living" has gone down? I consider a pacemaker monitoring cost rather vital to staying alive, don't you, President Obama?
There won't be a public option come out of US "health care reform",
due to our investing far too much of our treasure in saving the banks and our senseless wars in Afghan/Pak and Iraq.
The Senators realize this; there isn't any funding left for health care.
Senator Tom Harkin has promised public option in legislation by Christmas, but all of his career he's spoken out of both sides of his mouth. He's famous for holding contrasting views simultaneously. He voted to support the Afghan war, and the war on Iraq, and that's where so much of our treasure has gone.
Time to cue John Prine's "Sam Stone"...
Bill in Dubuque
We have degenerated into a caveman mentality. From the beginning this nation was made up of evil, greedy, murderous leaders. We are destined to suffer the consequences of our hypocrisy and we cannot avoid our pitiful collapse. Historians will not treat us very kindly. Read "The People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn and you'll learn that we have been on this path since the beginning.
I agree. This hard truth is too hard for most Americans to bear. In many forums, when this is brought out, you have a bunch of people saying, "Everybody else does it too". They don't know that but they just want to change the subject because, up until now, they have benefited from the status quo. Admiting they are part of a criminal enterprise would cost them money so they don't admit it. It's all about money for the fools.
Not to make light of the tragedies reported here, but there is an irony: most people who "go postal" are on prescription pharmaceuticals. Something the MSM is loath to publicize. They got "health care." Just the wrong kind.
-30-
The antidepressant business may have just "put a cork" on the increasingly frustrated populace which was depressed for valid, not clinical, reasons. The shrinks, of course, were backing up the pharmaceuticals soma pushers. Now it may be reasonable to believe that, when people can no longer afford the menal "cork", an epidemic of "going postal" behavior may result. It's logical but they won't touch this one with research or studies because of "liability issues". The medical profession uses the legal profession with the insurance corporations to avoid responsibility for their behavior. And then they have the gall to talk about "responsible behavior". What a pack of assholes.
Donna Smith wrote:....and then fixed properly so that all citizens of these great United States have...
If the United States (Its people) were so great why if this happening..?. Stop the demagoguery with such falsehood!
Nationalize insurance corporations, now. It's the only solution. Medicare for everyone, pre-natal to burial. We _can_ afford it.
Where is our health care Bulworth? lol It's been 11 years since this great movie, and the politicians are still running scared of the insurance industry.
Be sure to pass all the websites listed in this article around. I think it's high time to do a class action lawsuit by the citizens of our nation against the insurance companies for purposely conspiring with the government to halt progress in the medical field for the benefit of the citizens...
The American people must accept their share of the blame for this tragedy. Most of us have become desensitized and lazy-minded, caring only about our own self-interest. We have allowed this situation to develop over the past decades, doing nothing to stop it. Anyone who dies, in this rich country, because they have no healthcare insurance, is a victim of first-degree murder, and anyone who sits back and doesn't protest this crime, is a willing party to it.
You make a very valid point, but you miss mentioning the most important members of the 'first degree murderers'---the Doctors.
The health care industry could not exist without the Doctors who are the 'first line of delivery'----and have allowed themselves, with very few exceptions to be 'the delivery boys and girls for a defective product' 'health care in the USA'.
Why you did not mention them is a very good example of the 'blind man' describing an Elephant while he holds the tail.
Exactly. In a comment above, I mentioned the 20% increase in my health care costs. To be more specific, the DOCTOR raised his charges 20% while the Insurance corporation did NOT raise their "allowed charges". Bastards, all.
We'd be able to provide the right kind of health care, a single-payer system, Medicare for All, if we weren't so completely obsessed with imperial military conquest of the entire world. Military spending is draining the treasury faster than any other budgetary expense, and this Congress is absolutely guilty of this obscene offense. So is Obama, as committed to militarism as any president in our sordid history. We simply cannot sustain a trillion dollar a year military budget and pay for universal health care at the same time. That's our priority: killing as many people and destroying as many cultures as we possibly can, all for totally bogus reasons--not providing decent health care for our own people.
But I agree with Ms. Smith that it is well past time that we take measures to FORCE these bastards to change their priorities, from militarisn to health care. We need to disempower the insurance cartel by taking our money back from their greedy clutches, any way at all. We need to start using physical force, because they simply do not repsond to anything else. Petitioning Congress to act like human beings instead of the monsters they clearly are has gotten us nowhere. We need to start dragginig them out of their power buildings into the streets, and giving them a taste of justice. We have let this obscenity drag on far too long. With 120+ dying every day because they can't afford health insurance makes us the most barbarian country in the world. Those assholes in Washington are the barbarians, and we need to take effective action to get rid of them. Begging and pleading with them is pointless. They listen to no one but zillionaire lobbyists. That's who they serve, not us. Why must we continue forever being enslaved to their monstrous greed and inhumanity?
While I agree that these foreign wars of imperialist aggression put a serious drain on our society, we could easily fund single payer with the existing pool of money we now use for health care. In fact, we would save billions of dollars each year. The insurance companies know that they are expensive middle men who do nothing for the health of Americans. This is why they vociferously attack any attempt at a public option. They know that millions of Americans like myself will dump them the day a public option becomes available. The laggards will continue to suffer at the hands of the insurance companies but when a superior government option stands out, they'll quickly jump ship.
No public option will be permitted by this Congress that in ANY way cuts into the profits of Big Insurance. Not. Gonna. Happen. Even if there is a public option in the final bill, it will be next to meaningless. The public option is just a way to distract from real reform, which is and can ony be a single-payer system. The public option they talk about is only for the very poorest people who can't possibly afford to buy insurance. It isn't meant to be optionable for everyone, because then of course nearly everyone would opt for it, and there's no way in hell they'll ever permit that. And it would only provide the barest bones coverage possible, if even that. The public option is a fig leaf. Big Insurance isn't worried by the threat of a public option. They own this whole fiasco of a system and neither Congress nor Obama is going to change that.
I am not ready to throw the towel in. I will talk with anyone who cares to listen. I have written my Congressman and both state Senators. I would gladly march in a protest if one presents itself. I think this is a crossroads for this country.
I haven't thrown in the towel, either, or I wouldn't bother making comments about this. Write, protest, march, talk calmly, see nothing change, move on.
Street protests never worked but hounding your Congressman and senators will. More people need to chip in like I do otherwise we're all losers.
What is described in this article is completely immoral and sick. I wish we could also call it "Un-American", but obviously we can't.
in a time of increasing real scarcity, and false oil-based abundance, the winners win and watch as the losers are allowed to die..
--from the end of Conrad's Heart of Darkness: The horror!, the horror!
That pistol packin mama from Alaska was worried about Obomba's health care death panels. Well, we have death panels now; what the author calls " killing fields " but of course that was not important. Where is the outrage from the tea baggers and Palin when according to reliable sources, 122 people a day die because of lack of health care. IF THE HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE NOT DEATH PANELS, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS!
They just reformed our health insurance policy at work. Get this: I am to submit myself to the insurance company for tests that include things like glucose and cholesterol. If I don't, I will be "non-compliant" and my deductibles will be raised and my coverage decreased. Talk about inserting themselves between the patient and doctor. As I pointed out to my co-workers, they will then use this medical information in the future to deny me coverage based on "pre-existing" conditions. This whole situation is rotten to the core and every talking point these fascists make is in direct opposition to reality and truth. Unbelievable.
Lefty,
One thing to watch for is that your diastolic blood pressure (the low number) is below 90. They have number crunched the blood pressure stats and have found that people with more than 90 are higher risk of heart disease and a host of other maladies. How true this is, I don't know. But I do know that you don't want to give them an excuse to jack up your rates because you are high risk. The best way to lower your diastolic blood pressure is to avoid salt for a week before the test, exercise aerobically every day and monitor your blood pressure until you get there. You can get an automatically inflating wrist cuff with digital meter pretty cheap. Do it and it will save you money on health insurance and probably lengthen your life.
Yeah Lefty, the Health Insurance Companies are in business to make corrupt $$$ and they should change their name to: SICK INSURANCE COMPANIES. I do not have a problem with anyone making a legitmate profit, but these guys are making illegitmate profits and the first thing most of them do when you file a claim is either stall you and look for loopholes until they can figure a way to not pay or just deny you. I have seen this first hand in my family and friends.
Smith: "The media should cover Jenny's death and her baby's death with as much intensity as any boy in a balloon drifting over the Rockies. "
But as Smith herself has noted, Jenny's death isn't news. It's business as usual.
On cbs news, the screams of that Florida boy who was doused with fuel and set on fire can now be heard on their website. It's horrifying to listen to. So, I noted in their comments section that dumping fuel on someone and lighting it is 'Napalm'. Bombs perform a similar function and a similar agony, but has ANYONE been treated to the screams of an Iraqi child? On cbs news website? And yet hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children have died in the last six years, most of them because America dumped fuel on them and lit it. Has anyone, ever heard their screams?
I'm deeply concerned that we live in a society that is selective about whose screams we're going to hear. Such a society cannot POSSIBLY have an accurate depiction of reality.