Let’s get real about health care. The facts–FACTS–tell us that we should follow the Democratic lead, and we should also get out and work for it. Write Congress people. Call the news stations. Get out the word. If we want real health care reform, we must work for it. If you want a public option to your health care, even if it is just in case some well-meaning health insurance clerk cancels your insurance because you get sick, you’d better Email your friends and anyone else whose address you can find.
Here’s why. The health care organizations, such as doctors, health insurance companies, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are coming after the President with everything they’ve got. They are going to lose money with any kind of health care reform. But a public option will really cut into their income, because you won’t be paying for all those expensive percs any longer. The average health care CEO makes $13 million a year. Do you think that these executives or their similarly paid top staffs are going to give that up without a fight? Make no mistake about it. This is NOT about health care. This is about money and power.
All these people fought tooth and nail against any kind of health care program in 1993. Sure, they’re making different sounds today. But it is only because they see a groundswell of opinion…73% of Americans saying that they want a government sponsored…that’s right, “Big Government”…sponsored health care. It is obvious why. The government is the only entity that can be trusted any longer. And even then–only the Democrats. The Republicans are scurrying around as you read this, spouting every scary talking point they have been taught.
Americans spend about $6,000 per year on health care. Europeans and others with really good health care, longer life expectancy, universal care, etc., spend about $3,000. So let’s see how that works. If there are let’s say 100 million families, to use round numbers, that would mean we would spend about $600 billion on health care. Under a government system, whether single-payer or other government option….we would pay only about half that, or $300 billion. Well, where did that extra $300 billion savings come from? From the current fat, bloated, cheating, swindling health care industry. (By the way those are not insults. Those terms are actual facts that can be supported. There is fat in their budgets, such as corporate jets, bloating, such as luxury resort meetings. There are documented frauds and swindles. For example, Rick Scott–the television spokesman for the opposition to President Obama’s and the Democrats’ plan–headed a company that was fined one billion dollars for defrauding the government for its services.)These guys are not going to go away quietly. So they say…this will cost a “Trillion Dollars over ten years.” Well, yes, perhaps, but that comes to $100 billion a year. We’ve already seen that by using a government system, which costs less but provides the same doctors, hospitals, etc…think of Medicare as an example only better…we will reduce our annual expenditures.
Even if the Republicans are not exaggerating to help their lobbbyist friends, $100 billion a year is only a fraction of what we spend on Defense. We spend $600 billion a year on the military. We could take it all…the entire $100 billion…from defense and never know we had taken it. But we won’t have to. The money will all come out of the hides of the greediest people in the United States–the health care industry. Remember the $600 billion we spend? The health care excess profit is 20% of that cost. 20% of $600 billion is $120 billion. That alone pays for it.
There are numerous ways, should it be necessary. For example, we could pay for this and much more by simply restoring a rational tax structure. Making hedge fund managers and those who make over $3,000,000 per year pay a reasonable amount on income above that level. We can all get bye on $3 million plus half of the money we make over that.
Fred Barnes, columnist, in the conservative’s main publication, the WEEKLY STANDARD, said, in 2003 about Bush:
“Sure, some conservatives are upset because he has tolerated a surge in federal spending, downplayed swollen deficits, failed to use his veto, created a vast Department of Homeland Security, and fashioned an alliance of sorts with Teddy Kennedy on education and Medicare. But the real gripe is that Bush isn’t their kind of conventional conservative. Rather, he’s a big government conservative.”
This article in the leading Republican rag proves that the Republicans knew that Bush was a big spender and they didn’t care…because they were big spenders too. Give away the country–to big financial firms in capital gains tax breaks, to the oil companies in drilling rights in national parks, to defense contractors like Halliburton by starting a war that killed 4,000 American soldiers and severely wounded another 30,0000. But they would not even support a modest extension of the SCHIPS program to allow children of the working poor to have even a modest health care plan. These were not the welfare “queens” the Republicans think live in some kind of luxury in broken-down public housing on a few hundred dollars a month. These were low-income workers’ kids. President Bush could give $43,000 tax break on top of previous tax breaks to annual millionaires but he couldn’t give even minimal health care to the working poor. Rep. Roy Blount of Missouri, the House leader, the same guy now asking you to trust him, vowed that the Republicans in Congress would sustain any Presidential veto rather than allow more poor kids to get health care.
These Neocons are the same guys who get money from the health care lobby and who ask you to trust them. These guys aren’t your friends. Not Dr. Burgess, or Dr. Gingery, or Dr. Barrasso or Dr. Boustany or Dr. Coburn…all Republican legislators who are against your being able to sue them if they kill your child by mistake or against your daughter’s right to have an abortion if she is raped by some psycho, or your right to have reasonably priced health care. In fact, the good doctors, all now politicians, (we have our suspicions why) have been consistently against your right–in some cases–to have health care at all. If you are very sick, why should a health care company take you on? They, like the doctors, are in business to make money. You will cost money to the super-rich doctors and obscenely rich health insurance executives.
These guys are not your friends. They never have been and they are not now. They are simply worried about their very expensive lifestyles being at risk. You can pressure our government to give you great public health care like every other advanced country in the world. In fact with a public option to create universal health care, ours should quickly become the best in the world. Or you can continue to believe these people who have never voted, supported or spoken out for your interests. Ever.
If you are even the slightest bit concerned…think of this. A public option will stimulate competition and drive prices down. If it does not, it will fail of its own weight. But if you want to have a public health system to fall back on, you can’t merely agree. You must become active and do something. Go to the Obama for America…I think it is…website and donate ten bucks. Write someone. Call someone. Get involved before it is too late.