Thursday, September 17, 2009

The Numbers are rather revealing

Over the past several months I've heard that as many as 83% of Americans are FOR a single payer plan for health care. And still there is none. Even the politicians who are for it haven't chosen to gather up the others who could make it happen, right now. I understand why President Obama cannot do it by himself. I don't understand why those who have the political power to make it happen are not using their clout to bring about the change that they can. Why is it they are still trying to convince the inconvincible, rather than just getting on with making the change that is being clamored for by their own constituents?

Okay, this is not Britain or Canada, but there is no reason why this country cannot come up with a way to have health care for all of our citizens that is unique to our own system and way of doing things. Right now. The idea of health insurance did not become a profit making system until a few political administrations ago. When the HMOs and PPOs first came along, they were non-profit groups. So, it is possible to have health care within groups that provide care in a unique American way as long as the issue of profit is removed. Health care is not something that needs to be profitable and it is possible to use a form of our current system for health care as long as it does not include a profit.

I listened to the speech President Obama made last week that intended to resolve some of the fear based rhetoric being spread all over the media. I was impressed with his candor and style. But I was left, just like everyone else, with the concern that his basic plan will not take shape for another four years. And I was also disturbed that the health insurance companies may just continue to rake-in profits. Actually, unless the government imposes laws to prevent them from charging the high amounts they already do to obtain health care, the only change is that those groups will gain an even greater ability to rake-in more profits at the expense of us, the citizens. It is very obvious that health costs must be governed. Just making it illegal for health insurance companies to not offer coverage or cancel coverage due to pre-existing conditions will not resolve the health care crisis unless part of the plan includes a cap on the price for the coverage. A lid without any thought about profit. As I listened to the speech I could just see the hands of the insurance company executives. Each of their hands caressing the other as they had greedy thoughts about the legally enforced expansion of their business numbers bringing their profits up to get them more private jets and exotic vacations.

Let's face it: this health care situation is the perfect place to decide what Americans believe about individual citizens and what we believe about business. The idea that corporations have the same rights as human beings is at issue. I am on the side that corporations are not human and therefore are not to get the same rights as individual citizens. Corporations are made up of individual citizens, so nothing is taken away from the corporations, but if those corporate entities get the same rights as humans, our political structure is then no longer democratic. Our politics becomes a free-for-all with those having the most money and power ever struggling to maintain or gain more and more at the expense of everyone else.

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