Private Health Insurance Has GOT to Go!

I have been in favor of single payer health care for decades. It appalls me that this great country of ours is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have some kind of single payer avenue for “we, the people.”

The latest polls show that the majority of Americans want some kind of single payer system. Yet, here we are at the threshold of health care “reform,” and the greatly watered-down version of single payer, the “public option,” is in danger of being flung off the table! Our government representatives are NOT speaking for the people. They’re speaking for the moneyed interests who are massively profiting from those who are sick and dying and diverting those profits into the pockets of our representatives.

I am so sick of hearing about “death panels” (whoever first coined that phrase should be hung by the yardarm), or worse yet, the absolutely stupid question of us wanting some “government bureaucrat” deciding on our health. Hello? Who is now currently deciding on our health care? Some “insurance bureaucrat” whose sole interest is generating profits for the insurance conglomerates, which leads him or her to deny benefits for the flimsiest of reasons.

The horror stories of citizens who for years dutifully paid their “premiums” suddenly needing health care are denied for “pre-existing conditions” or “incorrect filling out of the health form,” thus invalidating the claim are rampant in this country. This is ridiculous!

The best idea I’ve heard came first came from Dr. Marcia Angell, currently a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. She was on “Bill Moyers Journal” July 24, 2009 (The emphasis is mine):

“I think we have to start all over on this. I really do. I think we have to go for a single payer system. You could institute that gradually. You could do it state by state. You could do it decade by decade. You could improve Medicare. That is, make it nonprofit. But extend it down to age 55 and age 45 and age 35. It would give the private insurance industry a chance to go into hurricanes, earthquakes or something. To get out of the health business. It could be done gradually. I think that has to be done. And it's the only thing that can be done.”

Love it! I’ve heard the idea of gradually lowering the age for Medicare a few times since then, but Dr. Angell is right on with this comment. Let’s incrementally lower Medicare until all are covered, and let the private insurance companies go play with “hurricanes, earthquakes or something.”

Better yet, have them go away and come up with something better. If they crassly deny those needing health care, letting them die or remain infirm, all in the name of the almighty dollar, they most likely will do a variation of the theme with disaster victims…and who needs that?