I heard Olympia Snowe, Senator from Maine chastise her fellow Senators for moving too quickly on health care reform. "Why do we have to move so quickly," she asked? Perhaps she would feel a sense of urgency if she lost her health care coverage like thousands of Americans do every day while Congress continues to drag its feet.
I'd like Congress to be forced to give up their excellent health insurance coverage for themselves and their families until they get this mess fixed. And then, I'd like them to have to accept the worst insurance plan that they pass in Congress. Then, and only then, they might think like us and pass a sound bill.
Until then, we need to organize, and speak out. If you need some talking points, or bullet points, try these:
The present situation is intolerable. There are no cost controls and way too much power in the hands of the health insurers and drug companies. The health insurance companies donate huge amounts of money to both parties to maintain the status quo. They win, we lose--year after year.
None of the proposed bills are “GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH INSURANCE.” That would be single payer, “Medicare For All.” However, most people who have Medicare are satisfied with it and would fight like hell if we got rid of that government run program. Veterans and government employees are also very happy with their single payer insurance.
Private health insurers are raping us today (and will tomorrow unless we regulate the hell out of them). Their profits have skyrocketed. Premiums have risen by double digits at a time when wages are stagnant or falling. All the major companies are in collusion with each other when it comes to setting rates. There is no real competition. They own us. We let them by continuing to elect politicians who won't stand up to them and stand up for us.
If you like health insurance coverage that you have today, that doesn’t mean you’ll have coverage that you like tomorrow—or ANY coverage, for that matter. Not under our present system where the following are standard practice: pre-existing conditions are not covered; rescissions of policies for “misrepresentations or failure to disclose medical history—including conditions you didn’t know you had”; yearly maximums; exclusions of certain illnesses; and other insurance company gimmicks specifically designed to limit coverage and maximize their profits.
The need for health care reform isn’t only about providing insurance for those who don’t have it now. It’s about making sure that small businesses and individuals can afford it tomorrow and 5, 10, and 15 years from now.
Health insurance companies should not be “for profit” companies because the only way for them to make profits is to continuously raise premiums and deny benefits to those who paid. The original health insurance companies were nonprofit. As insurance companies became for- profit the practice of medicine changed. My wife saw this happen over the 20 years that she practiced nursing. Decisions are made based upon insurance reimbursements - not what is best for the patient. This is the main reason she no longer works in her chosen profession as an RN. She had too many sleepless nights worrying that she might have done something to harm a patient because she was constantly given more responsibilities and expected to function with less staff on longer shifts.
Drug companies sell the same drugs in other countries for much cheaper, because we let them. They are making profits overseas, too—just not as much as the off-the-charts profits we allow them to make in the US. I’m tired of it.
If my choice is a for-profit health insurance company employee who is denying my coverage to get a bonus for herself (or for her boss), or a government employee who won’t deny my coverage because she won’t get paid a performance bonus for denying me (especially if the bill is submitted by the doctor to the government for reimbursement like Medicare), I’ll take the latter every time.
I have to fight my health insurance company for coverage all the time. My doctor recently told me she is on the phone fighting with the insurance companies up to 15-20 times a day. They want her to prescribe a cheaper drug EVERY TIME. She will present them with studies that show the more expensive drug works better. They will require her to call another number to obtain "peer approval" from an insurance company paid doctor even though it might be a pediatrician who has no knowledge of adult practice or no knowledge of the particular drug. Ridiculous! My doctor admitted she never has this problem with her Medicare patients.
I encourage you to go to the website for Frontline (a PBS show known for its independent investigative journalism) and watch the following videos. Sick Around America tells the story of the health care crisis we now have in this country. Sick Around the World examines health care delivery systems in five democracies around the world and how they have managed this problem. Most of their citizens are happy with their system of care.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundamerica/view/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/
I am not saying there are easy answers, but clearly we need immediate, meaningful, radical, health care reform. I wish the Republicans (who are heavily funded by big insurance, as are many Democrats) would stop their fear tactics and come up with intelligent, sound ideas about how to reduce the rising costs of health care, bring down premiums, and provide coverage for every American. It will be a member of their family that becomes uninsurable or bankrupt some day soon. It's not a question of IF, only a matter of WHEN.
It is unfathomable to think that I live in a country where people have to lose all their life savings, lose their home to foreclosure, and file bankruptcy because of medical bills for an illness suffered by a family member. Most of these families are hard-working people who went to college, or work in trades that are the backbone of our society, owned their own home, and HAD health insurance.
What do we say to the surviving family members who mourn those who DIE needlessly because they have no access to health care? (Google "number of people who die every year because of no insurance." It's estimated to be 45,000 people!!!!) That's way too many funerals. It's unacceptable. Not in America.
Take some action. Together we can insist upon REAL REFORM.
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