The collapse of the U.S. healthcare system is very old news.
We are at Code Red in the United States of America. But don't believe me, here's what the top doctor at the American Public Health Association had to say the other day.
"We've never seen it this bad," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
What's also very old news is that the political establishment in our country has seen fit to do virtually nothing to mitigate the profound human suffering inflicted on law-abiding, tax paying U.S. citizens.
It's as if tens of millions of us simply don't exist.
Please look at the video in this just posted diary of a young woman with ovarian cancer and no insurance. It's deeply disturbing and heartbreaking.
Safety net health centers struggle to meet demand
"We've never seen it this bad," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
A survey released last month indicates most ER doctors are seeing more unemployed patients who have lost health benefits. About 88 percent of the 1,200 doctors who answered a survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians said they had patients who had been turned away elsewhere because they couldn't pay. (Federal law bars ERs from turning away patients with emergency needs for lack of money.)
Perhaps the most common theme involves the recently unemployed who have chronic health problems, like heart disease, that require prescription drugs. When their work coverage runs out, they turn to safety net providers to keep the medications going, said Dr. Michael Brooks of West End Medical Centers Inc., an Atlanta-based community health center organization.
But in some cases, patients have simply put off care — like Sharon Moore. Uninsured and recently unemployed, the soft-spoken 59-year-old was suffering worsening headaches but saw a doctor visit as too costly.
http://www.sfgate.com/...
Most people writing about healthcare reduce the debate presently underway to numbers and costs. I remain convinced that we must add shame of the political class to the equation. We must bear witness to the tens of millions of human catastrophes which unfold every day, due to this deeply amoral failure of leadership.
Indeed, the idea has been floated that there should be a day of unprecedented citizen mobilization. Uninsured and underinsured Americans will flood into congressional offices and demand the same healthcare as the political class happily accept.
To the political class who enjoy heavily taxpayer subsidized health care, the catastrophe lacks a face and a warm suffering human body. This is from The Hill (the newspaper of Capitol Hill). To the political class, this is what healthcare reform is all about.
Blue Dogs ask for another healthcare plan
Blue Dog Democrats are asking President Obama to come up with a revenue-neutral healthcare plan in lieu of his initial proposal, according to a letter being drafted by the growing bloc of fiscally conservative House Democrats.
Blue Dog Co-Chairman Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) said the coalition is in the midst of writing the letter, in which it will be calling on the White House to put forth an alternative healthcare proposal to the one it offered up in its budget.
http://thehill.com/...
President Obama has repeatedly called this suffering "heartbreaking", he's correct, and thank God that he and Michelle seem genuinely revolted by this monumental national shame and committed to correcting it.
But since in the United States of America, healthcare remains a privilege not a right, let me introduce you to some Americans who live the depraved healthcare reality every single day.
You might get lucky and win a lottery, "have your name pulled out of a hat".
As the Bush depression worsens, more and more Americans are finding themselves in a vice grip. They are being forced to make choices no American citizen should ever face. Food? Mortgage? Fill the prescription? Clothing for the kids? Or get that little lump checked out?
21% of Americans scramble to pay medical, drug bills
Denise Prosser, 39, has battled cancer since she was a toddler.
Yet Prosser can't afford her next cancer treatment — a radioactive therapy that she's supposed to receive once a year — because she and her husband lost their jobs in December. Without insurance, she has postponed the radiation indefinitely and is taking only half of her asthma medications — sacrifices that often leave her gasping for air and could allow her cancer to come surging back.
http://www.usatoday.com/...
We know that financial ruin awaits even those of us "privileged" to pay skyrocketing premiums extortion for junk insurance. That's because even if you think you're insured, the unregulated insurance industry, will do anything not to pay claims even though you've been coughing up extortion for many long years.
Just ask Karen Tumulty, who (God bless her), blew the lid right off the Murder By Spreadsheet insurance industry on the cover of Time Magazine.
And lest you think AHIP plans on abandoning its deceitful ways, take a look at this. They will fight the public health option until the last dog dies. And for many if not most of us who believe the only solution to our national catastrophe is single payer healthcare, a robust (still to be defined) public option, is the is the non-negotiable line in the sand, we will not cross.
At the end of the day, who besides the political class is most responsible for this catastrophe? The lobbyist/enablers at AHIP who fund political campaigns and careers.
How about we ask Jon Stewart to invite the politicians drafting healthcare legislation on the Daily Show to discuss campaign contributions? We know David Gregory wouldn't touch this kind of questioning with a ten foot poll on Meet the Press.
And one final question, why hasn't our friend Keith Olbermann made Karen Ignagni the CEO of AHIP, a Worst Person in the World? Keith, this is a serious no-brainer.
Would you mind signing this petition, maybe if the GE corporate masters will step aside, Keith will step up and start to cover the healthcare catastrophe.
It's long overdue for Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow to use their platforms to champion healthcare reform and speak truth to power on the great moral crisis of our time.