Fear failure, not health care reform

[babylonsister]

Fear failure, not health care reform

August 11, 2009

BY JESSE JACKSON


The terrorizing has reached fever pitch. "Obama's health-care reforms will kill your grandmother," they scream. Beware government "death panels," warns Sarah Palin. There will be a "government takeover" of health care. Bureaucrats will overrule doctors. Government will get its hands on Medicare. The lies and inanities keep on coming.

Right-wing demonstrators organize to take over town-hall meetings. Republican leaders, intent on "breaking" Obama by stopping reform, repeat and abet the lies and distortions. Conservative Democrats cut backroom deals to benefit insurance companies and drug companies. This debate on health care is enough to turn your stomach.

Stop and take a deep breath. In fact, Americans should fear failure, not reform. Our health system is broken. Health care costs -- 31 percent of which are on administration, run up by insurance companies trying to insure only those who don't get sick-- are rising at twice the rate of inflation. We already spend about 50 percent more per capita than other industrial nations -- but they insure everyone and get better health results, while we have some 47 million and rising without insurance.

Those with insurance aren't much better off. Co-pays and deductibles are rising. Coverage is getting cut back. Businesses can't afford rising costs. More and more is forced on taxpayers and consumers. No wonder 14,000 people lose health care every day.

And those with insurance find it covers less and less. Half of all personal bankruptcies are caused by a serious illness or injury. Two-thirds of those bankrupt have insurance -- it just doesn't cover the costs of a serious illness.

And yet, the insurance and drug company lobbies can terrorize Americans into fearing reform. They would, in the cynical words of Republican House leader John Boehner, prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't know -- a devil that Republicans and the lobbies paint as particularly gruesome.

more...

http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/1709763,CST-EDT-jesse11.article

[John Q. Citizen]

1. Jackson piece is a pretty straightforward history of this health care effort until

he gets toward the end and fails to mention that both the drug companies and the insurance companies have been on board with these reforms since day one as long as there is a government funded (subsidies for lower income people) mandate that everyone is insured.

They will trade out a trillion a decade in new money going right through them and their profits in return for their support of the bill. And support it they do.

Let's name names here. What drug or insurance companies is Jackson accusing of trying to derail they have been pushing since last December and before? They never say. They never name names. They say "the generic insurance and drug companies." they never name an amount of money expended on anti-reform advertising or organizing.

The truth is these companies are fully on board for the big trillion a decade and they are on board with donating money to key Democrats to insure that the mysterious and new exciting idea of the moment, the "public option" stays shrunk down to irrelevancy.

There is no doubt about it. The insurance industry is all for this bill exactly as currently written. And the obama admin and the Drug companies cut a deal to keep drug prices artificially inflated for ever.

In a so-called free market you should be able to haggle. but not us. We have socialism for the rich and market driven solutions for the poor.

We need single payer Jessie, and you know it. You ran on it out in public and everything.

[Laelth]

2. +1 n/t

:dem:

-Laelth