The Real "Death Panel" HMOs Killed The Real "Norma Rae"

It's sad enough that feminist and labor activist Crystal Lee Sutton has just passed away. But now, it's even sadder to learn why she's gone.

Crystal Lee Jordan, the union activist from North Carolina that inspired Sally Field’s Oscar winning performance in Norma Rae, died on Friday because her health insurance company delayed her cancer treatment. Sutton was diagnosed with meningioma but waited two months to begin taking needed medication because her health insurance refused to cover it. While they debated about whether or not the medicine was included in her policy, the cancer spread through her nervous system making the medicine ultimately ineffective. Sutton herself openly criticized the U.S. health care system as an abuse of the power and potentially murderous for the working class. Her criticism got her insurance company to ultimately approve the medicine she needed, too late.

Ultimately, Sutton herself described best what this amounts to:

"How in the world can it take so long to find out [whether they would cover the medicine or not] when it could be a matter of life or death," she said. "It is almost like, in a way, committing murder."

So you want to know where those fabled "death panels" are, Sarah Palin? They're already working in the insurance companies! They just murdered the real life Norma Rae, and they're out to kill all of us who don't sufficiently expand their "profit margin".

This just confirms why we need real change in this health care system. If there were enough folks in Washington with any kind of courage, we'd be talking about a Medicare for All single-payer plan. It's so sad that the Republicans and the ConservaDems, both bought and paid for by the HMOs and Big Pharma, don't even want us to be able to choose a Medicare-like public option for ourselves!

Oh yes, because supposedly the current for-profit system is working so well... Just ask Crystal Lee Sutton's family who it's working out for them.

My Letter to the Editor on Health Care... Will It Get Published?

OK, I just wrote a letter to The Sun & The R-J. Let's see if it ever gets published. Wish me luck! ;-)

I'm Open to Compromising, But Not Diluting

Overall, I think President Obama's speech on health care was quite good. He spoke eloquently as usual. He stated a good case for health care reform. He finally explained the details of what he wants that we have all been waiting for.

However, there was something in that speech that disturbed me. The President finally defended the proposed Medicare-like public option, but then said he may be willing to sacrifice it for the sake of getting any bill passed. I just can't agree with that.

Do I mind compromise? No. In fact, progressive Democrats have already compromised in foregoing a "Medicare for All", also known as a single-payer, plan that would provide everyone with quality, affordable health care and stop the HMOs from bullying consumers and denying us the care we need as they charge us more and more in premiums. We compromised because we were promised that the public option would be an option we could all choose if we want to.

This is why it's important that a strong Medicare-like public option must be included in the final health care reform package. Without that needed competition, the insurance companies will never feel compelled to abide by President Obama's other proposed reforms, like ending discrimination based on pre-existing conditions. "Co-ops" have been designed by the HMOs to fail, as they already have in areas where they were first implemented, and "triggers" can easily be manipulated by insurance company lobbyists to never be enforced.

So while I am inspired by President Obama's speech to keep working by health care reform, I also feel compelled to call my members of Congress and ask them to ensure a bill with a strong public option is sent to the President's desk so that we the consumers have the final say on our health care decisions, not the insurance companies.

When "Reform" Becomes Robbery

The current health care debate in Congress has nothing to do with death panels or public options or socialized medicine. The real debate, the only one that counts, is how much money our blood-sucking insurance, pharmaceutical and for-profit health services are going to be able to siphon off from new health care legislation. The proposed plans rattling around Congress all ensure that the profits for these corporations will increase and the misery for ordinary Americans will be compounded. The corporate state, enabled by both Democrats and Republicans, is yet again cannibalizing the Treasury. It is yet again pushing Americans, especially the poor and the working class, into levels of despair and rage that will continue to fuel the violent, proto-fascist movements leaping up around the edges of American society. And the traditional watchdogs—those in public office, the press and citizens groups—are as useless as the perfumed fops of another era who busied their days with court intrigue at Versailles. Canada never looked so good. [...]

“It will basically be a government law that says you have to buy their defective product,” says Dr. David Himmelstein, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a founder of Physicians for a National Health Plan. “Next the government will tell us a Pinto in every garage, a lead-coated toy to every child and melamine-laced puppy chow for every dog.”

“Health insurance is not a race to the top; it is a race to the bottom,” he told me from Cambridge, Mass. “The way you make money is by abusing people. And if a public-option plan is not ready and willing to abuse patients it is stuck with the expensive patients. The premiums will go up until it is noncompetitive. The conditions that have now been set for the plans include a hobbled public option. Under the best-case scenario there will be tens of millions [who] will remain uninsured at the outset, and the number will climb as more and more people are priced out of the insurance market.”

This is just part of Chris Hedges' new article on the health care debate at Truthdig. I highly recommend you read it. It shows just what will happen if we end up with "health care reform" with no strong public option. Basically, we'll just be forced to buy overpriced crap "care".

I'm still frustrated by the fact that single-payer was not allowed to be a part of the debate in DC from the start. Maybe if Democrats had started with an easy-to-understand "Medicare for All" plan, we wouldn't be in this mess today.

ACTION ALERT: Tell Obama & Congress to Keep Their Health Care Promises!

If this is really what they're up to, then the Obama Administration will have hell to pay.

The Obama administration sent signals on Sunday that it has backed away from its once-firm vision of a government organization to provide for the nation’s 50 million uninsured and is now open to using nonprofit cooperatives instead.

Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, said on Sunday morning that an additional government insurer is “not the essential element” of the administration’s plan to overhaul the country’s health care system.

“I think there will be a competitor to private insurers,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “That’s really the essential part, is you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition.”

Her less-than-forceful insistence on a government insurance organization was paralleled by Robert Gibbs, the president’s press secretary.

If they give up on the public option, then I give up in trying to make sure Obama gets a second term. It's really as simple as that. He already gave up on passing a strong climate and energy bill. He already gave up on putting real effort into repealing DOMA & DADT. He already gave up on passing the Employee Free Choice Act AND the Freedom of Choice Act. And supposedly, we needed to accept that these sacrifices had to be made this year so that we could see a health care bill passed with a strong public option and other pro-consumer reforms.

And now we won't even get that? The Administration now thinks we'll sit back and accept what now looks like a government bailout of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies? HELL, NO!

So are you as angry as I am? If so, then we must take action NOW to stop the "health care compromise" train wreck from getting any worse! First, send a message to President Obama that any health care "deal" with no public option, no prescription drug price negotiation, and no pro-consumer reforms is completely unacceptable and is will not be defended by us. Secondly, tell our Majority Leader Harry Reid not to accept this "compromise" as a done deal and work to make sure that the final Senate bill looks more like the HELP Committee (Kennedy-Dodd) bill with real pro-consumer reforms. And if you're lucky enough to be represented by Shelley Berkley or Dina Titus, ask them to support HR 3200 if and ONLY if it has a strong public option and other meaningful pro-consumer reforms. Otherwise, ask them to only support HR 676 and stop the HMO/drug companies bailout.

Get it? Got it? Good! We still have time to get real health care reform passed, so let's not let some weak-kneed politicians pull us down!

The Reality of "Canada Care"

OK, OK, I did it again. I jumped into a heated discussion on health care in the comment section of today's Sun story. I can't help it!

But hey, at least one of the smart commenters noted today's HuffPo diary from an American experiencing that horrid right-wing nightmare that is "Canadian Socialized Medicine". And guess what? He's still alive & kicking!

And O by the way did you know that according to the largest survey on primary health care ever conducted in Canada that most people have high praise for their family doctor and a staggering 92% would recommend their physician to a relative or friend; that they have excellent access to primary care and experience relatively short wait times for treatment and that the concept of prevention is strongly built into the public's understanding of viable and efficient national health care?

And they're not teeth-gnashing, flag-waving Red menaces. Well, maybe during the Stanley Cup playoffs they are.

For you see, Canadians enjoy a quality of health care (and, subsequently, quality of life) that has been demonized by the bitter mouthpieces for the corporate health cabal in these United States, who themselves have much to lose if American citizens choose a national health care plan:

Firstly, they would lose all the profits wrung from an aging and increasingly unfit population (66% of Americans over age 20 are overweight or obese) which is dependent on exorbitantly priced medications.

Secondly, they would lose their power to influence political policies involving unregulated production or research into more affordable medicines, policies which ultimately favor them and their fellow capitalisto fuck-buddies over the ailing and elderly.

And thirdly, what I just said but double.

The radical right always tries to scare us with the Canadian, British, and French "socialized medicine bogeymen", but never tell us that in all 3 of these nations, along with all other developed nations with single-payer health care, that they all have overall higher life expectancy and a better standard of living. (Hint: Look beyond the initial per capita income to see what they can pay for with their money as we toil away at our work just to barely get by and pay for the HMO plan, prescription drugs, other out-of-pocket expenses, etc.).

And for all the usual arguments that "America has the best health care system in the world" and "people from all over the world come here for good care", they also forget to give us a little caveat. "America's best health care" is only available to the super-wealthy that can afford it! What other developed society has so many of its people rely on the emergency room for primary care, has so many uninsured people, so many "insured people" who still pay through the nose for inadequate care, and so many damned diseases ravaging the population?

If Obama, Reid, and Pelosi really wanted to solve our health care crisis and truly bring about universal health care, they'd just push for a "Medicare for All" American single-payer program that would take the best of the British, Canadian, and French programs, then adapt them for this country. But alas, the "sick care" industry would never allow that! And worse yet, it's been like pulling teeth just to get "centrist" (read "corporatist") Democrats & Republicans to even allow a public option that would let us choose a public plan over the usual HMO crap.

It's too bad that what most Americans usually hear about a Canadian style single-payer system is how "scary" it is when the truth is far from scary. Really, why should we be so afraid of lower costs, better care, and longer life expectancy? If we were to ignore the whining and screaming from the "sick care" industry and enact a real universal health care system, we'd be far better off. O' Canada, indeed.