How dumb are we?

....."Fixing underlying causes requires first fixing the obvious one: insurance. The industry that produces nothing enjoys immense protection and deference from members of Congress, some of whom make killing public competition comparable to pursuing a cure for cancer.

Insurers with a near-monopoly in some states make money as the middlemen processing paper, spending too much of every health-care dollar on non-health matters like advertising, claims denial, bonuses and perks.

Congress is about to drive 40 million new customers into their arms with only the mildest concessions to shape up their act. Do not believe rumors that they are dropping discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions. They will only charge such folks twice as much as other customers. Some reform." Read the entire article

Until today I have always kept my political opinions to myself, preferring to vent them at the ballot box - where it matters.
As I watch the health care "reform" sausage being made in Washington D.C. I find myself becoming angry.
President Obama has risked much in pursuit of a noble and important cause. Ask anyone who has lost "IT" what the most important thing in life is. They will tell you without pause, "IT" is your health.
How has the insurance industry and their legislative lap dogs the US Congress managed to misdirect us, the citizenry, so thoroughly?

We don't just need a public option. We need to remove the profit motive from health insurance entirely. How dumb are we to allow the market to control and deliver what is a basic human right in the rest of the 1st world economies?
And if you think a single payer system is "socialized medicine" you've been duped. Russia does not have it, China does not have it. In fact I find the people who use the term "socialized medicine" as a pejorative are collecting social security and covered by medicare. Heaven forbid their children or grandchildren should get the medical care they get.
They're also the ones who don't have to go to work thus creating ample opportunity to attend town hall meetings screaming idiotic Reaganesque slogans, their fears fueled by misrepresentations whispered by Slugworth the operative.
Those of us who need the coverage had to be on the job...working.

The health care insurance system in this country was created by default. A group of hospitals needed a way to survive the depression and struck upon the concept of telling teachers (the only group reliably gainfully employed at the time) that for $2/month the hospitals would provide medical care for the teachers and their families should they become ill or injured. Fast forward to 2009 and here we are.
We're letting Wall Street decide who gets coverage and who doesn't. Who lives and who doesn't. We've seen what that privileged Ivy League brain trust is capable of. We let them give us the dream of home ownership - that went well. Now we're going to let them run our health insurance system? How dumb are we?

Before we drive 40 million lives into the arms of these corporations let's get an accounting shall we? We want to know how much of each premium dollar is spent on non-health care expenditures. Marketing and advertising? Claims denial? Are they still paying bonuses for saving the company money by denying sick policy holders the care they need? Executive pay, perks and bonuses?
How come we haven't seen these numbers in the "liberal bias media"? Which of the hard hitting self aggrandizing talking heads are delving into the numbers? Ignore the press releases, read the quarterly and annual reports.
But, it's not advisable to bite the corporate hand that feeds you right? We have the right and must demand answers to these simple questions. Nobody is asking - how dumb are we?

Keep in mind dear reader. when an officer/director of a corporation accepts investment dollars from an investor the corporate officer is legally bound as a fiduciary to act in the investors best interest.
That means the CEO/Chairman/board of directors/CFO etc is responsible to the investor - not to the customer - not to the premium payer - to the investor who has legal recourse if the corporate officer loses his money.

Let's put a fine point on this fellow Americans.
In a choice between saving your life or treating your disease a return for the investor comes first - you lose. You die. you suffer. Grandma dies. Aunt mini gets dropped. Suzy gets no transplant. There's an organ available but they won't pay for the surgery. (risk benefit ratio is out of balance)
Those premie twins will just have to get a job when they get out of neonatal ICU - we just canceled your policy you paid for 3 years. (all real cases)
You Mr. and Mrs. premium payer - you the patient - you die. But your 401K manager gets a fat fee and a hefty bonus for having stellar business acumen.

Wake up America. We should be marching in the streets - screaming. Shutting down cities with general strikes and massive civil disobedience.
We're allowing rich and powerful people - who are too cynical and greedy to know better - to usurp our will, to take what should be a birth right for each and every American and commoditize our lives while they cash in. How dumb are we?