Let it be said upfront and outright that not having a Single-Payer Universal Healthcare System, to cover medically necessary services for all Americans, is a major travesty played on the American people by the enabling, moneyed-making relationship existing between the insurance companies and the politicians. As a result, the politicians continue to guarantee, on the backs of the American people, that insurance companies keep their profit-making apparatus well fed; while the insurance companies make sure politicians keep their influence-peddled pockets filled to the brim.
The rest of us are caught in this money fest, we who feed the insurance companies that feed the politicians.
Ask President Obama. He will tell you that insurance "premiums have grown three times faster than wages [of regular Americans] have.
On July 22nd, Obama stated, "if the present trend continues, families will have to provide healthcare at a bigger bite out of their budget .. employers will put more of the cost on employees, or not provide healthcare altogether.
This prediction is hardly one that is waiting around the bend. It is happening now as the battle for a semblance of acceptable health care rages on in Congress, with politicians and insurance companies united against the third leg of the triangle: the rest of us, the castaways of the 21st century.
Out in the private sector, where the roving eyes of politicians fail to see clearly now because of the blinders put on them by insurance companies, sick leaves, which were never mandated by law but were a time honored benefit extended to employees by honorable, caring employers, have been cancelled by some employers who, either use the bad economy as a pretext to do so, or are truly being hit hard by the bad economy and have little recourse but to do so
maternity leaves are now, just that, maternity leaves (i.e., post partum leaves,) no matter if, prior to delivery, bed rest has been ordered by the attending physician to keep a mother from having a miscarriage.Â
The case of medically ordered rest for an expectant mother, these days, translates into loss wages, as in the case of a family member, close and dear to me, who has been put on bed rest by her physician a whole month prior to her due date in order to keep her from having a miscarriage and, who, needs to heed the advice of the physician or lose the child.
Sadly, what only seems to matter to the insurance companies, to the politicians and to the employers is the money they can keep in their pockets. Not the care that anyone receives.
Other employers who have reduced their employees work week to less than 20 hours a week, no longer provide health insurance coverage to their less-than-half-time employees.
Premiums, as Obama predicts, have indeed skyrocketed and no longer are an affordable option for many working Americans. Coverage under has decreased while premiums and co-pays have gone up. Plans cover less, at a higher cost to the consumer than what the same consumer paid, not so long ago, for a plan that covered more.
We, the castaways of the 21st century, the silver haired crowd who paid our way into the Medicare system; we, the workers who can barely afford to cover a mortage or pay rent, feed and clothe ourselves and our children, put gas in our cars. We, the poor who depend on Medicaid for our health care, do not need to have the wool pulled over our eyes. All this talk in both houses of congress and the White House about health care reform is just that. Talk.
Witness Obama s statement at a July 1st Town Hall Meeting on Health Care:
In a lot of other countries, a single-payer plan works pretty well, and has eliminated private insurers and the associated administrative costs. Here s the problem, he says: The way our health-care system has evolved, it s based on employer-provided insurance, which requires the insurance companies to stay in place. The president is pretty blunt: For the U.S. to transition entirely away from the companies could be "hugely disruptive . What we re looking for is a "uniquely American solution, he says, before repeating the merits of the plan that s on the table. Again, he s careful to acknowledge that he understands why people are so enthusiastic about a single-payer system but he wants to build on what works in the existing system.
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For the politicians and the Obama crowd, who spew out words like affordable health care, dollars are the issue. For the rest of us true good, affordable healthcare is the issue.
The politicians, who, one and all, pride and honor themselves as highly moral, highly honorable, highly compassionate, cannot see that they are really tepid in their morality and their compassion, timid in really taking on the health reform, and fixated as they are on the dollar sign, have become highly sentimental to departing with the money deposited in their pockets, bank accounts, or PAC accounts by the insurance companies. They have forgotten, or care not to see, that we need caring physicians who are not out to make a buck at your expense or mine.
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We need doctors who are not going to be penalized,(paid less,) because they give us the care that we need. And, we also need doctors whose gaze is fixed on the healing aspect of their careers rather than the profit-making aspect of their businesses.
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