Monday, February 05, 2007

Disappointed

I was so gung ho for John Edwards for his stance on poverty, his opposition to the war and especially because he claimed to support universal health care. Now that he has released details of his "universal health care plan" it looks as though it's another giveaway to the insurance companies looking not unlike the sweet deal Massachusetts insurance companies were recently given. Make insurance "more affordable" so everyone can and then must buy in. Hello? Who does that help, exactly?

Reading deeper I find that Edwards' plan requires a Medicare style option among the choices offered to consumers. Some speculate that this requirement opens the door for a single payer system as we would be able to choose the plan that best fits our needs. But the health insurance companies would never allow that to come to pass.

Health care will never be affordable or universally accessible in this country until the insurance companies are driven out of business. There's no other way. Insurance companies exist solely to make money--their interests lie not in improving lives but in lining shareholders' wallets. How we've allowed them to take over this country is beyond me. Nothing short of a single payer, government run health care system (as seen in most of the developed world) will be fair or affordable. I'd like to see a presidential candidate work towards this goal and we, as citizens, should be demanding nothing less.

I'm off my soapbox now. For the moment.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Got them! All the recipes back to the beginning. Now I'm caught up, hooked back in and ready to go! I can't however guarantee that it will work, but I'm going to try.

Anonymous said...

I don't believe the insurance companies can be driven out of business. If they ever pass a law requiring everyone in my state to get health insurance, I'll go further off the grid, and simply stop going to real doctors for my healthcare. I'm practically there now in some ways. I already don't have health insurance and can't afford it. So if they want to require me to buy it, thhey can either raise my wages accordingly, or give me healthcare for fucking FREE.

Holistic medicine, building community, bartering for what people need, exercising and eating lower on the food chain -- even stealing from large corporate institutions when absolutely necessary -- are all ways we can stay stronger and healthier in a culture that goes out of its way to promote sickness and sloth.

Off MY soapbox now...

Unknown said...

Perhaps you should talk to some people who live in those countries with universal health care. They wait months and months for their health care. It's much like the emergency rooms here where you wait hours and hours whether or not your are a paying customer. Consider the other programs run by the government and the shambles they are in...take for instance the school system. Universal health care would be a disaster for the patients.

Magpie Ima said...

What we have is a disaster. Americans *with* insurance wait months for care, those without are simply getting sicker, going broke, and dying. All the while the insurance companies keep making money.

Public schools don't work for many kids for lots of reasons, not just because they are government run.

Medicare has a better history of cost containment than private insurance companies. And Medicare covers individuals that insurance companies won't touch.

Consider this: no country with a government run health care system has ever voted such a system out.

Elizabeth said...

I'm Irritated, have you ever talked with a real person who lives in a country with socialized medicine? Most of those I've talked with are reasonably happy. Granted, no system is perfect. But it seems a heck of a lot better than the disaster we have now, where the big winners are insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and the big losers are the working poor.