debbierlus's Journal - Health Insurance Reform: The Enslavement of American Citizens to Corporate Rule

debbierlus's Journal - Health Insurance Reform: The Enslavement of American Citizens to Corporate Rule

After months of silent, closed door negotiations between the holy trinity (the executive branch, the congress, & the health care industry), we stand on the brink of health insurance reform.

Health insurance reform. Do not confuse this with health care reform as that was never the intent of this legislation. This is not a minor point. Health care reform would have addressed the central problem of our current health care system and confronted the reality that in order to provide universal, affordable health care for all citizens, we would need to stop treating human health as a commodity. It would have taken a moral imperative to place human life over profit. But, right from the very beginning, the central GOAL in creating this legislation was just the opposite, the development of a plan that not only maintained, but expanded the ability of the health care industry (private insurers, big pharm, large hospitals) to profit off human illness.

And, that has what has been created. A bill that enshrines private health care companies as the government mandated model for health care administration. A bill that will provide 70 billion dollars in subsidies to private insurance companies, at the expense of universal, affordable coverage for every American citizen. A bill that negotiated away the government's ability to stop big pharm price gouging, in exchange for a phony bargain where the pharmaceutical companies would cut up to 8 billion dollars in costs over the next ten years while they elevated prices 10 billion this year alone. A bill that does not allow reimportation of drugs from Canada and holds the American people hostage to a mob type system of pay or die. Under this bill, millions will not be able to afford their prescriptions. Millions more will be forced to choose medication, food, or heat.

Under this bill, denial of care will be allowed for a thousand other reasons then the sole prohibited exception of a preexisting condition.

Under this bill, health care coverage will remain a game of chance.

Under this system, class difference may still determine whether you live or die.
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This legislation was written to save the health insurance system from the collapse which was soon to come. A collapse which very well could have precipitated the transition to single payer.

Why are we reviving the beast?