They will say: If only there were some way he could have gotten help

The events in Newton Connecticut are of course only the latest in a series of insane attacks by an unbalanced men with guns.  When someone speaks of gun control we are told not to politicize this tragedy, as though a preemptive attack on ways to minimize future mass murders was not politicizing it already.

And you hear another refrain, this one coming from both the left and the right.  If only he could have gotten treatment, if he could have been helped, perhaps it would never have come to this.  It is especially hypocritical when it comes from the right wing.

Because if there was a program, say, mental health screening as routinely as children are vaccinated, and treatment for those that needed it.  If we had all that in place. the right wing would be anxiously dismantling it as quickly as they could.

Mental health screening?  Social engineering they would call it.  A treatment program?  Well that would be an entitlement that needs to be done away with.  Why do I think that?  Because we used to have a lot of that in this country.

California had a state hospital system.  Schools had psychologists.  But in the right wing point of view, all that stuff is unnecessary coddling.

Of course they will have excuses, we can't afford it, it is not the job of the government, but of course it is exactly why we have a government.  Because collectively we can do things that we cannot do individually.

So, to the Karl Roves of the world, you own this one.  This is what you get when you combine unregulated gun access with no real mental health policy.  Not that he cares, but you should.

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Yes, there are death panels

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.