Liar, Liar ... Well, Healthcare Pants on Fire

So, we've been told over and over again that under the
healthcare reform plans currently defended and pushed by the President and
Congress that we can keep what we've got if we like it. No one will
take your health insurance bennies away. Not under our employer-based,
for-profit system.

Well, tell that to the latest batch of employees in Chicago
to have their insurance benefits cut right out from under them - they
sure didn't get to keep what they had.

The workers at SK Tools had no choice. Their health
insurance benefits were cancelled. Sick family member? Too damn
bad. Need a doctor. Tough luck. The company representatives
say the recession has hurt them, and they have no choice. The company is
also asking for 20 percent cuts in hourly wages. Wow.

Now, the workers have voted to strike. And there will
perhaps be some resolution for this bunch of employees. Folks will cry
out, perhaps even President Obama will step in, and this situation will
probably get resolved - though folks will suffer in the interim.

But the larger issue remains. Just how gullible are we
when we trust that any private company will be forced to keep any benefit plan
it chooses not to keep?

Employers will still be able to change up healthcare plans
to meet the company's needs - and if that means you have to see
another doctor or pay a higher co-pay or drive to a more distant in-network
provider, that will not be your decision. And health insurance companies
will still be able to change their provider lists and covered services and all
sorts of other things without any input from policyholders.

So, America, it just isn't true that you can keep what
you have if you like it when it comes to private, employer-based healthcare
benefits. It's a big, fat lie. And the company noted in the
article above provides but one example. There will be many more.

The House bill on healthcare reform, the Senate plan for
healthcare reform and the President's plan for healthcare reform - none of these actually guarantee that you can keep what you have if you like
it, because tomorrow your employer or your insurance company may change what
you like to suit their bottom line. That's the truth.

If this big lie about healthcare reform rolls off their
messaging engines like melting butter on a warm slice of bread, what else do
you suppose they are lying about? Come on. Get real. We
won't have what we want in terms of truly having the freedom to choose
and keep or change our doctors, our providers and our own treatments until we
break free from the lies and produce reform that guarantees a progressively
financed, single high-quality standard of care for everybody. Everybody
in, nobody out.

Then you can keep what you like. Your choices.
Your decisions. Your health. Your healthcare. Your
money. Period.

It's not just the right-wing selling myths in this
discussion. We need to admit that and work to be as honest as we
can. Too many lives depend on this. There will be no death panels
to order Grandma's demise, but there are also no guarantees that you can
keep what you have if you like it under this system. Both things are
lies.

We can provide one another the healthcare security that
we're being misled to believe is in the current reform plans. But
we will have to help our fellow Americans to understand that a publicly
financed, privately delivered healthcare system - like Medicare - for
all of us is the most reasoned, most economical and most freedom-protecting
choice.

And that's the truth.