Do you have health insurance? Have you been taught to fear a government option because of the 'death panels' that would condemn grandma to a horrible death because it was cost effective? Well surprise, there is a group of doctors, paid for by your insurance premium, who's sole purpose in life is to find a way to deny you care when you need it most.
Read for example the testimony before congress of Linda Peeno, in May of 1996, or that of Wendall Potter in June 2009. Thirteen years apart they were describing the same thing. The goal of for-profit health insurance companies is to make money, regardless of who dies in the process.
In many states, the Blue Cross companies have gone from non-profits to for-profit companies. Think their care has gotten better? Why do you think health care companies are such a great investment? Yes the cost of health care has gone up, but what has gone up are the profit margins of the health insurance companies, not the amount of money being made by doctors.
There are a lot of doctors, especially primary care physicians, who years after graduating from medical school are still trying to pay off the student loans they used to become doctors. No, I am not trying to say doctors are poor, most make more than I do, but when you go to school for as many years as they, work as hard as they do to become doctors, I do not begrudge them making a substantial living.
The raising cost of your insurance is not going to the cost of treating you, it goes into the pocket of the health insurance companies. And denying you coverage when you are most in need of it, is the dirty little secret of the industry.
The concept of 'death panels' in a public option was based on this: A public insurance option would negotiate with providers and drug companies to obtain the best possible prices for products and services. The only leverage the public insurance would have to obtain a better price would be the refusal to buy certain products and services. Therefore, they would be restricting what they covered to only those products and services that would give the agency a good deal. In other words, a death panel is doing exactly what the insurance company that you already have is doing, using its buying power to extract concessions from vendors.
But the real death panels, attempting to find excuses to drop you from your insurance if you become sick, or to deny treatments that are in fact covered by your policy, by claiming they are not 'medically necessary', well those don't count.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
What did you think it was for?
You are constantly hearing the right talking about limiting government, as though everything would be fine if only the government would just stop getting in the way of business. So let's just look at some of those crippling regulations that business and the right fought so bitterly against.
As you walk through the supermarket, throwing items into the shopping cart, your are checking the labels. Your child is allergic to nuts, and you know that selecting the wrong product could be the difference between life and death. Did you think that listing the ingredients on the labels was something the manufacturers did out of the goodness of their hearts? They do that because the law requires it. The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1966 established labeling standards that were bitterly fought by industry.
Do you work an 8 hour day? Do you expect to be paid overtime when you work more than 8 hours a day? Although 8 hour work days had been won in pockets throughout the country over the years, through strikes dating back to 1835, it was not until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was enacted that the federal government got into the business of enforcing standards and working conditions. That established a 44 hour work week for a considerable portion of the nation, a minimum wage, time and a half for overtime, and outlawed "oppressive child labor".
When you have a cold, a fever, an ache, you can reach into your medicine cabinet and find a number of non-prescription drugs to treat the symptoms. And you can do so knowing that none of those medicines contain poison or heroin or cocaine. That all began with the Biologic's Control Act (1902) and The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), These two pieces of legislation were the foundation upon which the Food and Drug Administration was eventually built. It is because of the FDA that pharmaceutical companies actually have to prove that a new drug works, that it does not do more harm than good, and that they have to tell you when the potential side effect are.
It is cheaper to sell contaminated food and medicinal products than it is to maintain a safe and clean facility, and to monitor for contaminants. It is cheaper to dump your toxic waste where it will contaminate the drinking water of the surrounding community, than it is to properly dispose of it. And if a small group of manufacturers do that, then others must do the same to compete.
Who's job did you think it was to enforce that the bottle that says 'Asprin' on it contains aspirin? Would you rather go back to the days when you might work in a factory where the air was filled with asbestos? If you get sick, and cannot work for a week, do you still want a job when you get back? Did you think the only purpose of the government was to invade relatively weak countries so that US companies could do things there that would be illegal here?
The purpose of our government is to protect us from those more powerful, those we cannot fight on our own. That includes, of course, foreign governments, that's why we have a military, but also from companies that would control our lives the way mining companies that ran 'company towns' in the 1800's did.
As you walk through the supermarket, throwing items into the shopping cart, your are checking the labels. Your child is allergic to nuts, and you know that selecting the wrong product could be the difference between life and death. Did you think that listing the ingredients on the labels was something the manufacturers did out of the goodness of their hearts? They do that because the law requires it. The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1966 established labeling standards that were bitterly fought by industry.
Do you work an 8 hour day? Do you expect to be paid overtime when you work more than 8 hours a day? Although 8 hour work days had been won in pockets throughout the country over the years, through strikes dating back to 1835, it was not until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was enacted that the federal government got into the business of enforcing standards and working conditions. That established a 44 hour work week for a considerable portion of the nation, a minimum wage, time and a half for overtime, and outlawed "oppressive child labor".
When you have a cold, a fever, an ache, you can reach into your medicine cabinet and find a number of non-prescription drugs to treat the symptoms. And you can do so knowing that none of those medicines contain poison or heroin or cocaine. That all began with the Biologic's Control Act (1902) and The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), These two pieces of legislation were the foundation upon which the Food and Drug Administration was eventually built. It is because of the FDA that pharmaceutical companies actually have to prove that a new drug works, that it does not do more harm than good, and that they have to tell you when the potential side effect are.
It is cheaper to sell contaminated food and medicinal products than it is to maintain a safe and clean facility, and to monitor for contaminants. It is cheaper to dump your toxic waste where it will contaminate the drinking water of the surrounding community, than it is to properly dispose of it. And if a small group of manufacturers do that, then others must do the same to compete.
Who's job did you think it was to enforce that the bottle that says 'Asprin' on it contains aspirin? Would you rather go back to the days when you might work in a factory where the air was filled with asbestos? If you get sick, and cannot work for a week, do you still want a job when you get back? Did you think the only purpose of the government was to invade relatively weak countries so that US companies could do things there that would be illegal here?
The purpose of our government is to protect us from those more powerful, those we cannot fight on our own. That includes, of course, foreign governments, that's why we have a military, but also from companies that would control our lives the way mining companies that ran 'company towns' in the 1800's did.
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