Health Insurance Companies Are the REAL Death Panels!

The answer should be obvious. However, a striking number of Americans seem oblivious to the profit-driven corporate bureaucracy of private health insurance and the harmful self-serving motives of the corporate bureaucrats in charge of it. I find it especially disturbing that those oblivious Americans seem convinced that an all-inclusive, not-for-profit, government-facilitated health insurance system would be somehow worse than allowing private sector insurers to continue bilking them and denying their claims. While it's not terribly surprising that wealthy folks tend to embrace private, profit-driven healthcare --since many of them enjoy access to high quality healthcare plans not available to the rest of us-- it's astonishing that middle- and under-class Americans persist to argue against their own best interest in the healthcare debate. In my view it really goes to demonstrate the immense power and effectiveness of the corporate propaganda machine. Sadly, the result has been a viral infestation of talking points that favor the heartless corporations whose practices will literally kill many of those disinformed citizens arguing on their behalf. There is a perverse irony in the fact that masses of regular Americans have been successfully brainwashed to reject a proposed system that would ultimately save many of their lives without hurling them hopelessly into debt.

The resounding collective voice of Americans arguing against their own best interest during discussions concerning whether or not a public option in healthcare reform makes logical sense was in fact seeded by corporate strategy and serves those corporations behind that strategy quite well. Those who have trouble deducing as much would do well to research the corporate-political dynamics at play instead of mindlessly echoing the anti-public option talking points and labels instilled by corporate brainwashers. The statements and messages are false by design; they're nothing more than judgment-clouding hype that's being rampantly parroted by weak, indoctrinated minds. Unfortunately the injection and viralization of such tactical spewage has created an easy bandwagon to jump upon for the gullible. It's tragic that so many people refuse to think for themselves and instead opt to remain under-informed. But there seems no viable way to slap their faces and make them awaken to reality. Even those few elected officials who have been arguing in favor of the public's well-being and supporting a comprehensive single payer health option have refrained from inferring that such brainwashed citizens are dangerously ignorant. They fear it would be successfully used against them by their corporate opposition, and they're probably correct. Well, I have no qualms whatsoever in characterizing the brainwashed masses as ignorant. In fact, I'll go as far as to call them blatantly stupid. One would have to be low in reasoning skills as well as quite gullible to persist in believing such easily disproven corporate spin (or lies), and to do so to his or her own detriment.

Reality Check:
Health insurance companies and their lobbyists literally buy the devotion and support of Beltway legislators --both Republicans and Democrats-- which serves the bottom line for all involved quite nicely. Sadly, a significant segment of Congress has succumbed to such bribery in that they regularly accept contributory favors (i.e., money) from corporate lobbyists in exchange for doing the opposite of what would best serve the American public. They're more interested in serving themselves --through efforts to preserve cash cows like the healthcare insurance industry-- than in taking the noble path of identifying liars, calling them on the lies, and serving their constituents with honest representation and integrity. And since they're on the take, these legistaltors themselves are effectively profiting from the insurance industry's denial of lifesaving care to seriously ill citizens --many of whom are either forced hopelessly into debt from their rapidly accruing medical bills, or condemned to forgo necessary treatments and die.

And then when we consider that health insurance company CEOs have been raking in absurdly humongous profits --top health insurance CEOs have averaged $14.3 million in compensation, on up to $1.6 billion-- it should come as no surprise from where such astonishing profits emerge. On the chance that you're a bit slight-minded, I'm going to tell you. They emerge from you, the insurance consumer. In large part they're generated from the combination of exorbitant health plan premiums, in conjunction with the rampant denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, in conjunction with the denial of recommended and necessary treatments that are conveniently dubbed "experimental" by the insurers, in conjunction with the practice of recission (an industry term for the act of cancelling a policy from its inception, usually after a claim), in conjunction with those abhorrent insurance premium hikes that we all despise. Private healthcare insurance is a blood-sucking monopoly from which many of our politicians in Washington prosper very well. Once one acknowledges the motivations, the practices, and the payoffs involved, one should easily understand that it's actually the money-leeching health insurance companies --with bribed Congress members in-pocket-- who constitute the REAL death panels in our nation.

Too many Americans have been exploited by health insurance companies for a long while. These huge corporations have exploited policy holders through sheer domination of the health insurance market, through their elaborate methods designed to avoid payment of legitimate claims, and through their steadfast commitment to apply those methods as often as possible. One of the most deplorable aspects is the imposition of such risk exclusion/elimination practices irrespective of whether patients are condemned to die if not granted access to the physician-recommended treatments that these corporate insurance bureaucrats refuse to cover. It's beyond egregious that health insurance companies place their profit goals far above allowing ill people to live. That's a patently wrong set of priorities. Health insurance simply should not be a for-profit enterprise!

For those of you with a spark of interest in following the money, which inevitably will lead to the truths I've expressed herein, please visit http://www.opensecrets.org and feast your eyes. OpenSecrets.org is a nonpartisan guide to the influence of money upon U.S. elections and public policy. It's available to anyone who would like to learn the truth about money in American politics and its extensive effect on Beltway dynamics and on the spin to which many Americans have fallen prey.

I merely ask that you research the money influence involved in the healthcare battle and then reconsider your views. If you're then still unwilling to acknowledge the corporate domination that has brainwashed much of America as far as the healthcare debate goes, you're indeed a hopeless case and it could even be argued that you deserve what you're going to get: endlessly raped by corporate greed!

As a final point, I'd like to stress that Medicare is a very successful nationalized, single payer medical insurance system that's facilitated by the United States Government. It's far more cost-efficient and immensely more choice-friendly than private health insurance. It's as well far less bureaucratic and, importantly, less apt to exclude critical lifesaving procedures or treatments than are private health insurance companies. In my view, the best and simplest healthcare reform solution would be to make Medicare available to all Americans. That could be done with a relatively small amendment to existing legislation and it would render availability of a tried and true not-for-profit insurance option to everyone. With an option like Medicare, the private health insurance companies would be forced to offer affordable premium costs and better coverage to remain competitive.