Death Panels Already Exist - At Private Insurance Companies

[dballance]

While idiots like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich are railing against health care reform by claiming Obama will be creating death panels and euthanizing people they've overlooked something. Death Panels ALREADY exist.

Bureaucrats already decide who lives and who dies. Those bureaucrats are not in the government though, they are the people at your private insurance company. They make life and death decisions about your health care.

I read an article in a Hawaiian newpaper this morning about a case where a health care company denied a woman a liver transplant. She died. She was the mother of two children

Why did they deny her a life-saving transplant? She had trace amounts of marijuana in her blood tests and the article hints at the possibility she may have been an alcohol substance abuser but does not make that assertion. By the way, hepatitis is not caused by alcohol substance abuse. So something else caused her liver disease.

A few issues crop up when I think of this. Why were they testing her blood for marijuana in the first place? She needed a liver transplant due to hepatitis not a pre-employment drug screen.

Second, are trace amounts of marijuana really a good reason to deny a person life? Who made that moral judgment? It wasn't the government. It was her private health care corporation.

Lastly; where are the Terry Schiavo pro-lifer wing-nuts on this? Do they think it's okay that a private corporation can make a decision to deny a live person care that will cause their death?

Why aren't all those pro-life groups and religious groups speaking out in favor of health care reform? According to the Bible Jesus never talked about increasing corporate profits. Instead, check out Matthew 23:31-45. It's the passage containing the verse:

"...whatever you did not do for the least of these you did not do for me,"

Pretty clear to me. If you did not do anything for the poor. If you did not do anything for the ill. If you did not do anything to help your fellow man then you did not do anything for Jesus.

Now I'm a militant atheist and proud of it. However I still contribute money to charities that help out society every year. I support our local food bank to help feed people who would otherwise go hungry and other such causes. Just because one is and atheist doesn't mean one is a horrible, amoral person.

So I have a hard time listening to the right-wing nuts claim to be Christians and claim to love their brothers and sisters in this world when they don't live up to Christian values. If you are a Christian and cannot support health care reform then you're a hypocrite. You're not living up to the teachings of your God.

So stop listening to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and go talk to your minister or read your Bible for a change. Maybe you'll find some real inspiration that will make you see the GOP is nothing more than a corporate front group that thrives on the backs of lower and middle-class Americans.

[47of74]

1. I get the feeling when Matthew 25 comes to pass

I get the feeling when Matthew 25 comes to pass the crowd at Christ's left hand will be chock full of insurance company executives and their teabagging friends.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. No public money for private insurance! No Corporate Welfare!

[Zodiak]

3. Let's not forget the new law that says that....

...an insurance company can deny coverage to a sick person if they have reached some kind of limit.

A DUer lost a family member to this law....basically the law says pull the plug if the INSURANCE COMPANY deems it necessary (or something like that).

This happened in Texas, I believe.

This is a DIRECT CASE of a "death panel", and it was set up by a repuke congress.

[mzmolly]

4. We should simply call their claims absurd vs. say "we already have death panels."

I never like to give their talking points any credence. In other words, don't ever start with what they give us. ;) They're paranoid fools!

Welcome! :hi:

[followthemoney]

5. Insurance companies make bets on people's health.

If the insurance companies think you are healthy they will accept your premiums because their bet is that they won't have to pay out.

If you have a pre-existing condition they don't bet on you. You get no insurance. The health care system gets all its money from you. You pay much higher for health care than the insurance company does for the same care. You have no position to negotiate from. You are sick. You are vulnerable. They want all your money because you are going to die anyway and you won't need it.

When they lose the bet they try to find out if you cheated them so they don't have to pay out.

The companies use your premium money to bet on the stock market. If the market goes down they need to increase your premiums. They need more money.

It's all about the money. It's not about your health.

[crim son]

6. That is such an obvious truth that we should never stop repeating it!

Palin talks about decisions being made on the basis of how productive a citizen is. With private insurance, productivity isn't even considered i.e. the most wonderful, active, productive and useful member of society might develop cancer yet be uninisured, and die.

Why don't people see this?

[snagglepuss]

7. I second that. nt

[cui bono]

8. Amen brotha/sista!

;)

[MadMaddie]

9. Where are the commercials that are saying what you just said

The Pharma and Insurance companies are flooding the airwaves with garbage and we might see 1 or 2 commericals speaking the truth. Why are the Dems never prepared for this kind of shit?

[lovecanada56035]

10. It's a no-brainer, really

And it's incredible that Americans are letting these scumbags get away with this.