Americans from both parties agree on one thing, especially, these days, something about the process of rubber stamping corporations' wishes in Washington that we still call "legislation" stinks.
"One must connect these dots. - legislators in other nations DO take responsibility for health care quality and here THEY DO NOT. They fall over backwards to shift responsibility onto others.. "contractors in death" often. ERISA Section 514 is proof of this collusion."
ERISA in many ways represents a smoking gun showing that politicians are in fact largely responsible for the wrongs they blame wholly on insurers. It directly contradicts the public interest - it protects insurers from responsibility for the most extreme greed.. and by bribing them obscene amounts of free money and financially (if you don't think too much) "justifying" the absolutely impossible to morally justify system, it ALSO clearly protects politicians from responsibility. They want that so much they are willing to spend HALF of the nongovernment healthcare spending, and a growing amount of government spending on NOTHING OF VALUE.
"The RESULTANT increased cost of the system CREATED FOR THEM also allegedly 'makes' rationing systems like itself 'necessary', supposedly, but even a child can see that this increasingly amoral and destructive system that doubles healthcare's cost is crazy in that its by its greed, then justifying ITSELF!!!!."
Does Legal Justification Exist To Label Health Reform Process As Corrupt And Require They Start Over? Moral justification certainly does.
This certifiably evil, increasingly muderous and clearly unhealthy exchange that poisons health care and especially now, health care reform, in the public's eyes, creates a "rebuttable presumption", in the legal sense, of wrongdoing that is dangerous to the legitimacy of our system, and this needs to be resolved.
WHO IS RUNNING THIS COUNTRY? We've seen this year that often, legislation in Congress and the Senate is sourced by lobbyists. It could be argued that almost certainly, its written, sometimes with the literal, other times with only the verbal or financial assistance of insurers, drug companies and biotech firms..
The politicians responsible ARE CLEARLY GUILTY of something - by virtue of their close associations with these interests and their utter and complete exclusion of the public.
I think its obvious that now, if they desire to retain their posts, they should have to defend their actions from a clear presumption of guilt of corruption.
Their actions have exceeded the threshold necessary to convince a reasonable person by a HUGE margin. This under common law logically reverses the normal presumption of innocence until proven guilty. In short, to a logical person, they have by their actions shown they are guilty, unless they can prove their innocence.
In particular, this presumption in all of our eyes, applies to Senate and House recipients of contributions from the insurance, drug and other health care related industries. they should immediately recuse themselves from this issue.
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Arguments:
Obviously, its wrong to allow politicians to go against the nation's needs, especially when they have received money from lobbyists for input, while the people's interest were denied.
Its obvious that insistence on an unsustainable private healthcare model is not only dooming the legislation's chances of being allowed to exist in limbo for FOUR YEARS and two elections, its also dooming the legislation's chances of ever succeeding. ignoring MAJOR warning signs from Massachusetts.
The draining of resources from families they need to be devoting to retirement and lifelong learning has the potential to doom the future of the entire working and middle classes and strip tens of billions of families of their remaining equity, as it is used to pay off medical debts.
Lets admit it, they are lying about the bill, and making promises like the income cap which they know they can never keep to hide the structural decrepitude of the bills logic. They are gladly leading this nation into financial disaster.
They deny that healthcare premiums and drug costs have been rising at rates which make a private solution insane. they are even denying their own campaign promises. Obama himself during his campaign to the effect that we could not have a mandate "until health care was affordable".
There are some huge questions that should be raised by the politicians cozy exchanges with industry, against the public interest, questions of conspiracy which should also be accompanied by rebuttable presumptions of guilt given the exchange, tit for tat nature of these exchanges.
I have to first, though, focus on why we absolutely cannot allow health care reform to be hijacked by legislators who put the financial interests of a tiny 450,000 people, less than one precent of the nation's population, ahead of the urgent in many cases, life threatening situations of the remaining THREE HUNDRED AND SIX MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND people.
1.) The private insurance model is completely unaffordable and unsustainable for a majority of the nations's wage earners. According to a report issued by the Federal Reserve in 2005, the price increases have made the current system completely unaffordable and unsustainable.
2.) Price hikes have been running at several times the official (and artificially low) "rate of inflation" and in a very high percentage of them, those premium hikes have been astronomical. (see references at end) Additionally,
3.) the costs NOT PAID BY INSURANCE have been rising even faster. So, the insistence in proponents - the utterly "fatal' assumption that insurance would somehow be a sick person's only expense, is a lie. Often, insurance premiums are half or even less of their total expenses NOW. That increased cost deliberately prevents poorer people from getting care they NEED.
4.) The nation's people, of both parties, have repeatedly expressed preferences in polling for a Medicare for ALL (not "medicare buy in, or other such bailouts for insurers), single payer system, like Canada's Medicare in which EVERYBODY gets high quality care, and premiums are replaced by taxes that are paid in proportion to income. The existing 'health insurance' system is eliminated, not retained to pull our nation down, and that huge money saved on billing is devoted to patient care. Premiums cease. Health and Age Discrimination ceases for everyone, not just those in expensive individual plans.
Health care is no longer connected to jobs or age. The dangerous caste system that withholds care from those who need it the most is eliminated. Costs are reduced so much that vast expansions in care are made possible. Chronic diseases are treated in the most effective manner, reducing polypharmacy, which often is substituted for effective diagnosis. Government would buy drugs negotiating prices based on global pricing norms.
5.) Obama has himself admitted that a single payer system like Medicare is better, and that you cannot have a mandate until health care is affordable.
6.) It is clear that the legislators have examined all of the possible permutations of a private insurance system that siphons off money to justify, by its doubling of our costs, its own existence. Better to simply get rid of it and allow the HUGE AMOUNT of money spent by doctors and hospitals on billing thousands of different insurers and the 30% spent on insurers and 5% or more spent on brokers to instead be devoted to care.
The legislators HAVE CLEARLY FAILED to find any combination that works to make health care affordable, and also they are trying to hide their failure in broken promises. This creates an utterly unwholesome situation that seems to be forcing legislators to spin ever-larger lies concerning every possible aspect of THEIR nightmarishly complicated false "reform".. They need to step back, and consider the fact that this is not some separate planet, many other nations here on EARTH have trod this path. BUT the HUGE costs providers charge, and the complexity and cost of the system make adopting a public mandatory, private optional system like Germany's or Hollands impossible. The window for that is long past, because of cost. Single payer is now clearly our only affordable option besides a system like Britians NHS, which would necessitate our buying hospitals (and often, paying inflated costs which may have been over inflated, or for obsolete equipment) Better to reserve private ownership and instead, do the simplest thing which can work, switch to single payer, now, while we still have a middle class. This should have been the default path from the beginning, not an experiment that follows closely in the path of Massachusetts's system WHICH BY ALL ACCOUNTS IS IN A STATE OF CRISIS..
7.) One must connect these dots. - legislators in other nations DO take responsibility for health care quality and here they DO NOT. The content of the ERISA Section 514 is essentially a document that directly contradicts the public interest BUT it protects insurers and by preserving the absolutely impossible to justify system, politicians, and is written by same. The increased cost of that system also makes systems like it necessary, supposedly, but even a child can saee that the system is wrong and that its justifying ITSELF. This unhealthy exchange in the public's eyes, creates a "rebuttable presumption", in the legal sense, of wrongdoing that is dangerous to the legitimacy of the system, it needs to be resolved. The people of the United States agree, THIS DEAL STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN.
ERISA's combined with the Senators and Congresspeople's acceptance of campaign funds and their subsequent stubborn refusal to change insurance structure, even with its strong suggestion, of a corrupt conspiracy against the health and financial futures of the people of the United States best interest again, should create in any logical person (common law) a legal presumption of guilt that the politicians responsible should have to defend their ILLOGICAL ACTIONS FROM, logically reversing the normal presumption of innocence until proven guilty. In short, to a logical person, they have by their actions shown they are guilty, unless they can prove their innocence.
In particular, this presumption in all of our eyes, applies to Senate and House recipients of contributions from the insurance, drug and other health care related industries. they should immediately recuse themselves from this issue. That would deprive the people of the US of a quorum during a national emergency. Therefore, we have the right to demand a "new trial" in a DIFFERENT FORUM, one which is not CORRUPTED BY MONEY.
ERISA Section 514 was created by legislators in order to absolve insurers of those IN GROUP PLANS from blame for their deeds, and it applies even in the most extreme cases. It creates a "rebuttable presumption" that insurers are INNOCENT despite vast evidence to the contrary, "in the interest of public policy". However, that policy clearly benefits politicians and does not benefit the public. It perpetuates the profitability of a system that takes money often for services which are not delivered, in essence free money.
It acts to insulate insurers by means of ERISA from all responsibility IN EXCHANGE FOR (by their continued existence in the position they now occupy, rationing care from those who often need it the most to those who need it the least) an absolution of THE POLITICIANS OWN responsibility, that this "tit for tat" combination of actions BOTH in direct antagonism to the needs of the people of this nation, represent a CORRUPT EXCHANGE and as such should be considered a criminal conspiracy to destroy the security of this nation's people.
8.) The preservation of this system and the gyrations of politicians to preserve the additional problems facing most Americans of "job lock" and "price hike intimidation from using healthcare" when those problems could easily be eliminated by changes in pricing structure, and permanently, and totally by the economical and affordable single payer system, again raises the rebuttable presumption that there is a corrupt conspiracy.
The goal seems to be to lower wages and prevent workers (specifically) from being able to use healthcare that they have paid for out of fear of retaliation if they turn out to be sick, because of price hikes. Those discriminatory price hikes in GROUP insurance (the kind that most Americans have, and the only kind most Americans can afford) were carefully preserved in the new bill. The much promoted changes are only put into effect IF the Democrats win TWO MORE ELECTIONS and they only effect NONGROUP insurance that is too expensive for most people, and which has been rising in price astronomically.
To make a long story short, the first priority should be crafting something which not only works for everybody, - we need something that especially works to deliver healthcare where it is most needed, and systematically works to improve the health of ALL Americans, rich and poor, in the best possible way stopping our race to the bottom. That WISE approach will clearly also save the most money. This is the criteria to which we should aspire. health for everybody, people above profit.
The corrupted fake reform process has failed. A new effort can build on what we now know far easier without the 1600 pages of baggage.
With the politicians removed from it, and drawing on the experience of other nations, we can make rapid progress. I suggest a process like Taiwans', which resulted in adoption of a national single payer system similar to Canada's. That is what Americans want, that will make Democrats win in 2010 and 2012. Without it, they are guaranteeing defeat.
then, the chance for ANY health care reform is in the hands of the GOP, obviously with the Democratic leadership's glad cooperation.
Time is short, and they are deliberately wasting it.
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The AFFORDABILITY lessons from Massachusetts we should be listening to