Its supposed to be a sleepy month....

Hi Folks,

It's been awhile since I wrote anything here. I was very busy with school and what most people call a life. However, we have Obama in office doing great things as President for the past 7 months in office. He has averted a major economic disaster after inheriting a recession from Dumbya Bush. Now Obama's major focus is on healthcare and reforming it. I think that all of us have our "Insurance companies from hell" stories when going to the doctor. Obama's focus on this issue is great because many of us have no insurance or very little of it. Those with insurance have to deal with the runaround and the BS that insurance companies would cover this procedure but not that procedure. Deem an important medical procedure as "experimental" and not cover it. Another scheme that insurance pulls is when you paid your premiums for months or years when you really need and use it the company decides to drop you as a paying customer or gives you hard time. These practices are all in an effort to not pay for your procedure and to pocket your money. You wonder why pay these companies if they are just going to rob you of your money for themselves. Why even pay them if they aren't going to cover you for a visit at the doctor's office.


To address this Obama wants to focus on reforming healthcare. He wants to put an end of the countless horror stories of Americans dealing with the insurance companies. Will it be a single payer system that is in Canada, Britain or France?, No. But what the President proposed is an "Public Healthcare Insurance Option" or the Public Option. Its a government run healthcare insurance program. Under one of the 5 bills that are being debated in Congress the Public Option would be under an Health Exchange and would compete with the insurance companies. The public option would have different types of plans for your healthcare coverage. Those who are satisfied with their health insurance from their jobs could continue to still have it. For those who cannot afford the Public Option the government would give subsidies to those people to buy into it. The insurance companies in the Healthcare Exchange cannot deny anyone for a preexisting conditon or terminate their coverage when they use the insurance. The Public Option will be completly paid for and revenue neutral. It will eventually pay for itself in due time. Sounds like a great plan. It will make most of Americans that was uninsured, insured. The economy will greatly benefit because it will address the issue of healthcare costs where we spend 16% of our GDP. Thats double that of what the British spends on its healthcare. The plan would greatly reduce the federal deficit and debt. Yeah its a great plan!!!


Wrong!

Those in the insurance and healthcare industry feel that competing with a government run healthcare system would take them out of business because they can't compete with a taxpayer funded, government run system. It wouldn't put them out of business. In fact they will still be there. Of course these people want to keep things status quo so, they tell the conservative Republican base all the lies and myths about Obama's proposal. If you hear of what these people say about it it's very moronic. Cries of the Public Option being derided as "socialized medicine" "Obamacare" or "socialized care". Comparisons of the Obama government being "socialist", "communist" or "facists" or being Nazis. As for Obama himself, many comparisons to Adolf Hitler and his genocidal acts while he was in power. Pepper that with the god-awful Birthers. (Those who beleve that Obama is an illegal immigrant because his birth certificate from Hawaii that Obama displayed is a fake. It must mean that he was born in Kenya. Forgetting the fact that Obama's mother Stanley Ann Dunham is an American citizen. Which makes Obama a citizen as well and eligible for the Presidency.) other rightwing fringe groups, racists, and opportunistic former Republican politicians, lobbists, and other Obama haters and you have really interesting and hot August.

Which goes back to the title of this blog, August is supposed to be a sleepy month. The first few weeks is still summer and everything is dead businesswise. Everybody is off to their vacations (I just came back from my wonderful and beautiful weekend trip to Toronto,Canada last week.) The other half of the month is to gear up for the school year. All members of Congress is on their vacations too. It's a working vacation, Congressmen returning to their districts and Senators return back to their states to tell their constitiuents what's going on in D.C. However, on the topic of healthcare the opponets of healthcare reform are angrily shouting down, arguing and just plain being rude to Democratic Congressmen, Senators and those with real concerns of how the Public Option would affect them. Too bad these idiots don't know that they are being controlled by the corporate masters to keep things in the status quo. The maroons are out there parroting insurance industry talking points about rationed care by the government, death panels as mentioned by the Sarah " I Quit " Palin, and idiotic bullshit. If you look at most of them they are older people that on Medicare or about to go on it. Which it is a "socialist" single payer healthcare system meaning the government pays for everything you have with the doctor. Similar systems are the VA Tricare system that veterans get after serving their country. All industralized countries have a single payer healthcare system that works. Ask any of anti healthcare person or a Repubican politican if they have Medicare, then ask them if they were willing to do away with it because it is a "socialist health care" system. Your answer to that question 100 percent of the time would be no, no and no. They realize without that they wouldn't live. You would have to wonder if they would not give up their Medicare because its "socialized medicine" then why advocate to keep this non efficient, for profit health care system where millions of people die each year of a preventable death in this country because an insurance company denied them any care.

The health care opponents very tiny mind cannot comprehend that. They are blindly following what Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Dick Armey and other conservatives are saying to them. They feel that they are doing the right thing when they are saying the insane things that are not in the proposed bills. They should really think and make any sense about what they are saying. At the same time those same people are ratcheting up hatred and violence to anyone in support of healthcare reform. It's sad time in America that the clods would never realize they they were duped by those pulling the strings the healthcare industry. The sheeple would never see it for themselves that they too would benefit from the Public Option. Their quality of life would improve but as long as they are vociferous in opposing any kind of reform for healthcare in the United States they would never see the benefits of that if they really took the time and THINK of what they are being spoonfed.

For me I would want this Public Option plan to pass so that I and many others can get healthcare. I am currently uninsured and unemployed. I left my job after a dispute. I could not afford the COBRA payments. So far I have been doing well but I do worry. For the past few months I have searched for a job. I have an interview next week. I pray that this is the job that I get. At the same time that I am out of work I'm at school getting my Bachelor's Degree. Hopefully as soon I achieve that I would get a good job eventually. Everyday feels like an eternity when you don't have any healthcare. You would never can tell that if something hurts me if I go to the hospital I would have to pay a huge bill that I can't afford or deal with the pain until I can't deal with it anymore. That's the thought that is going through mine and many other people. I am very optimistic that Obama's plan will pass and it will be a relief to many even the ones that are opposed to it.

We must realize that the U.S. healthcare system is broken. Contrary to what the opponents say it is not the best system to get good healthcare. More and more people are traveling overseas to other countries to get better healthcare at a lower cost not the other way around. It's necessary to improve our system before it becomes impossible to fix and the economy will suffer more.


I would like to hear your healthcare horror stories and what you have to put with everyday. I want to hear from you we can have some rapport about the crisis and compare notes. I also want those around the world to tell me about your health care systems in your countries. My only question to you is would you trade up your system with our current system. Let's not forget that all of us is in the same boat and we need the health care reforms so that everyone not some chosen people can have access to it.

Articles:
The Independent:The Brutal Truth about America's Healthcare

H.R. 3200 Factsheet (PDF Article)

H.R 3200 Myths vs Facts (PDF Article)

H.R 3200 Text
From THOMAS, PDF Version

U.S. Healthcare Facts from RAND Corporation study
(PDF)


Universal Healthcare and Single Payer System