Harry and Louise have lost their charm, so the health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies and the Republican Party have hired Rick Scott, a part owner of the Texas Rangers with G. W. Bush, to design and lead a disinformation campaign that is costing $1 million per day.
Rick Scott has an "interesting past. He's the guy who started and headed the lucrative Columbia/HCA chain of for-profit hospitals that paid kickbacks to "cooperative physicians and overbilled Medicare so egregiously that Columbia was forced to pay a record $1.7 billion in fines. Mr. Scott was given the boot, but he also received $10 million in severance pay and stock options worth $300 million. In a show of sympathy for the unemployed, the GOP gave him a job: oversee an anti-Obama health plan campaign developed by the very same company that "swiftboated Senator Kerry.
So why are these people so afraid of a Canada/European single-payer program, a plan that is far superior to our for-profit system that leaves 47 million Americans with no insurance and millions more with inadequate coverage via policies that let the insurance company which procedures will be allowed and which will be denied?
Here's why: Health is a lucrative business. Medicare, a single payer system that lets you choose your MD, has low overhead costs that run around 3%. In comparison, our much-vaunted private health care system admits to spending an average of 20% of your premium dollar on what they call "operating costs.
Those who run Medicare receive modest salaries, but in 2002, Norman Payson, the CEO of Oxford Health Plans took home $76 million, Leonard Schaeffer, the CEO of WellPoint received $21 million and D. Mark Weinberg, the executive VP of WellPoint: was forced to make do with a mere $14 million. That's per year!
In fact, the twenty highest-paid health insurance executives in 2002 received $237 million. Add another $1.1 BILLION in stock options (for a total $1.75 billion for TWENTY people) and it becomes obvious why these "for-profiteers have no interest in change.
They don't care that the US ranks 33rd in health care " just behind Castro's Cuba. They don't care that we have a higher infant mortality rate than single-payer countries like Canada, the UK, Australia, France, Germany, Japan and Sweden, and they don't care that we spend twice as much per person on health care (but live shorter lives) than citizens of those countries.
In contrast to the for-profit system, where insurance company employees are rewarded for finding loopholes in company policies that permit the denial of coverage, single payer systems exist to deliver health care, not deny it. Instead, we Americans are saddled with a system that works very well if you are a member of Congress or if you are wealthy enough to pay for deluxe coverage, but for most of us, that's just a dream, as evidenced by the fact that more than 60% of all personal bankruptcy filings involve unaffordable health care costs.
What about big pharma? In single-payer countries, identical medications cost just half of what we pay! Could our drug costs be high because there is no competition? Could it be because drug companies spend millions on ads to persuade us to get our MDs to prescribe this drug or that? Could it be because, in 2002, the pharmaceutical companies paid a record $91 million to 700 lobbyists " and that was in 2002!
How, I ask, can we believe Rick Scott & Co.'s lies and distortions about Canadian care after learning that Canadians, when asked to name the Greatest Canadian, gave that honor not to Alexander Mackenzie, who was Canada's Lewis and Clark, or to one of their national leaders, but to Tommy Douglas, the father of the Canadian Health care System?
Why aren't we ashamed that the BBC documentary, Panorama, revealed that a British medical team dedicated to providing care to poor people overseas, ended up spending 60% of their time assisting poor AMERICANS, many of whom had risen at 4 AM and driven 100 miles to stand in line for a chance at medical care?
And what about cost? Yes, taxes go up, but premiums go down, and more of your money goes to patient care - not to pay a for-profit company's 20% overhead. In addition, those who currently lack insurance will have access to inexpensive preventive care, which drastically reduces trips to very expensive emergency rooms at taxpayer expense when things get out of hand.
We spend more money on "defense than the rest of the world combined, some of which, according to the Pentagon, is used to staff and maintain 741 active military sites abroad. That's one reason that just a 15% cut in military spending could pay for 100% of the Obama Health care plan or even a single-payer system without raising taxes.
As for the Republicans who claim to support improving the current system instead of adopting a proven single-payer option, why should we trust the people who have opposed Social Security, minimum wages, unions, women's rights, animal rights, bank regulation and a host of other citizen-friendly advances? Why should we trust these Republicans who have already amended the Democratic Senate health bill nearly to death with more than 360 amendments?
Finally, how can we be so incensed over the deaths of 9-11, but ignore the fact that 23,000 Americans die every year for lack of medical care? Why aren't we rushing to establish a system that has proven efficient, effective and even-handed in countries that have single-payer plans that broaden coverage while lowering per capita costs?
The rich don't care, and neither do many of our legislators, especially those who are in the pocket of Rick Scott, the insurance companies and Big Pharma. Call and E mail them in support of the single-payer option. Watch how they vote " and remember it at the next election. That's what Wellstone would want you to do!
