My soap box on a public option

Word in the blogosphere tonight is saying the public option is dead.

Where to even start on this one. We need a public option.

Fear has been spread of Death Panels. The truth is, we already have them. On a regular basis people with "Insurance" are denied coverage for trumpet up reasons. You could say I'm being a Left wing nut job on this one, but when you have people testify to Congress that they're job was to find reasons to deny coverage (Public Record, go look it up) what else can you call it but a Death Panel? Maybe a Greed Panel is a better term for them. After all, they're not so much about killing the patient, as saving the company money. The patient dying is just a side-effect of protecting the bottom line. In other words they're saying a person's life is just part of doing business.

Between when I was hit by a car (2003) and my brother's recently broken knee (2009), I've seen it myself how the insurance companies stand between the Doctors and the patients.

I was hit by car while working, so workman's comp picked up "the bills" (just not all of them). The problems started before I even left the accident scene. Do I get life flighted or raced in the back of the ambulance? Life Flight was more expensive than the ambulance. The choice was the ambulance because they thought it would be better for me to die in that than in the air, and it'd free up the chopper for someone that might actually make it to the hospital. (I've always been stubborn, so I made it via ambulance).

While I was still in Surgical ICU the insurance company complained about the time I was spending in the hospital. After I was released, it continued to go down hill. Every time I saw a doctor, an insurance company nurse (an LPN if I remember right) was in the room. Her whole reason to be there was agree or disagree with the doctor on what treatments I needed. I HAD TO FIGHT FOR A PSYCH EVALUATION, because the personality shift I had wasn't worth them worrying about. Only reason I even got one was because I went and set it up myself. Then it became a race to see the doctor I selected vs their corporate whore / shrill of "Doctor". Then they refused to pay for it, even though they sent me to 2 of their whores (the first one agreed with the doctor I chose). I never got any of the counseling 2 of the 3 Doctors said I needed. Not once did I receive any physical therapy, and the cane I walked with for months, was paid for out of my own pocket. The PNMR guy was more interested in sucking up to the insurance company than treating the patient. Physical damage included my brain, my neck and my hip. (I had to learn to walk again, on my own).

My brother is Mental Handicapped, because of that he's on SSI (with medicare). I got him to take Tang Soo Do with me. The school I study at has a history with teaching the mentally handicapped. My brother is 5'9" and about 95lbs. When he was in jr high (in the 90s), he joined the wrestling team, and some how managed to break his knee. He had a healthier weight back then. In April or so this year (2009), he was working a kick drill, but not shifting his weight right. As a result, the knee that had the scar tissue and the like broke again. At first we thought it was a sprain, so I took him home, and our mom iced it. The next day, it was 2x the size. So I took him to the ER (he's afraid of hospitals). We had problems with one Doctor, but were able to get a second opinion. He got free crutches and a free brace for his knee (things my mom could not afford), physical therapy, x-rays at each follow up visit, and lots of great advice. Not once did someone from Medicare or the Government show up to tell the doctors what they could and could not do.

A health care co-op won't work. They won't have the power that the big companies have. They'll look good, but won't last. Not when Big Insurance can reward and punish the peasants.

During Open Enrollment last year at work, the Blue Cross rep they sent out, said we'll be punished for using our Insurance (not the exact wording but the gist of it). How? Our premiums will go up. We'll have to pay even more than we are now. But if we grit our teeth and bare it, our premium will go down, and we'll be rewarded for being good little peasants who don't upset their golden apple cart.

The "Tea-baggers" have been saying that they'd lose their current health care if there was a public option. Sadly they're probably right. Not because the United States Government would mandate it, but because Companies would see it would be cheaper to force their employees into it. The company saves money, and has a better bottom line. You think they'd pass the money on the employees? Please the employees are slaves. Most of the people with jobs are doing more work with less pay.

Most employees don't realize that though. They think that the company screwing them is in the employee's best interest. From a conversation with a guy from FedEx last week. Nutshell version "Yeah, FedEx cut my pay, I have more work to do, but I still have a job". Talking about Unions and UPS. He said UPS had better benefits and pay. But because of UPS being a union shop, UPS let people go instead of doing pay cuts. (Or so the FedEx guy claimed).

Glen Beck lately has been talking about how great the American Health Care system is. Go look up his news stories from January 2008. He said on the air (at cnn I believe) that the American Health system was crap. He didn't say it just once either. He said it in a video from home when he was recovering. He said it on the air multiple times.

Now he's saying that the US has the best Health Care in the world. If that's the case, why did Remote Area Medical start opening up around the country? Remote Area Medical is supposed to be for 3rd world countries to help the people there to have a fighting chance. Has the United States become a 3rd world country?

We, The People of the United States, need change. We need to stop having a 3rd world level health care system and actually start pretending to be an industrial country again. Why is it other countries, countries we're told we're better than, have free health care? If we're so much better why don't we have a health care system they want instead of one they criticize (go look up the news papers coming out of England this week, we're being laughed at. The Daily Mirror called the U.S. The "Land of the Fee").