Walks Upright

45,000 deaths per year in the United States are associated with the lack of health insurance

via 45,000 American deaths associated with lack of insurance – CNN.com.

“If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it … That’s a cost we can’t take on.”

- Joe Lieberman

Dear Mr. Lieberman, Since the War in Iraq has been a cost and a public non-option in more ways than one, could you please not reference one’s need to go see a doctor as “a cost we can’t take on” but rather reference future unjust wars with a limitless monetary budget to kill and injur as “a cost we can’t take on”?

via TheHill.com – Centrists threaten Obama’s agenda.

The United States National Health Care Act (HR 676) establishes a unique American national universal health insurance program. The bill would create a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system that uses the already existing Medicare program by expanding and improving it to all US residents, and all residents living in US territories.

With over 45-75 million uninsured Americans, and another 50 million who are under-insured, the time has come to change our inefficient and costly non-healthcare system.

Canadian Health Care: Fact vs. Fiction

That’s right. McCain hasn’t paid a dime for his health care since he’s been in office which is why he compares paying for health care to flying to outer space. How much more condescending and elitist can this man be? A lot more.

On the eve of the latest round of Wall Street chaos, John McCain, the man who would love to reform the way you receive health care, wrote an article titled “Better Care at Lower Cost for Every American”. Here are a few gems from that article:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Yes you read that correctly. John McCain thinks there’s just too many rules imposed on the Health Insurance industry and he wants to “open it up” the same way he opened the gates of hell on the banking industry. That isn’t the only gem in this article written by the “anti-government” man who wants the highest job in government.

(The American health care system) insults our common sense and dignity with excessive paperwork, disconnected visits with too many specialists, and by elaborately hiding from us any clear idea of what we are getting for our money.

Actually the paperwork side of being a patient hasn’t been so bad. Clinics ask very specific questions about medical history, medication allergies, would you like your DNA to be used in future experiments that may create the ultimate warrior cyborg that your children may have to defend there homes against… that kind of thing. It’s the paperwork side of being a health insurance customer that is a total nightmare …and I’m just talking about when service that is approved.

Health insurance is simply a financial device that shifts around the apparent costs of the nation’s overall health care bill among various payers.

If that is the case then leave the poor Health Insurance industry alone. They’re just here to help make things shift around. They would never get involved with anything outside of that realm like denial of service or raising premiums on patients too ill to work. They’re our buddy in the system. That’s what McCain thinks and that is scary.

We are paying too much now for the kinds of outcomes we receive. We need to pursue opportunities in collaboration with providers for lower costs through incentivizing better practice patterns that reflect the latest in medical science and more effective treatment regimens for costly chronic conditions.

So the high costs are at the point-of-care level? Nurses, medical practitioners, doctors, and medical assistants, and facilities are to blame? No he’s not saying that even. He’s saying that the healing is too costly especially for you chronically ill folks out there. These are the rantings of a mad man who lays a blind eye to the insurance premiums and profits in the American Health Care System equation. Providing medical professionals with incentives to lower costs? The industry unfortunately does that now and it frequently leads to doctors and other professionals receiving bonuses for denial of care, which by the way, should be completely criminalized.

Read more of McCain’s “Better Care at Lower Cost for Every American”> [180KB PDF]

Here’s a still from a surveillance camera at a hospital emergency waiting room in Brooklyn, New York. The woman is dying on the floor reportedly while “people nearby ignore her”. This happened in Los Angeles a year ago and I predict it will continue to happen. I highly doubt the workers in these hospitals are that oblivious to this mess. I’m sure when you peel beneath the surface you’ll find that people are directed to ignore the poor and uninsured and are threatened with the loss of there jobs if facility resources are used to treat these patients. Absolutely sick. We’re Americans…. every damn one of us. We can do so much better.