Corporatized Medicine !!!!! The constant repeating of these two words in every workplace, coffeeshop, political speech, political debate, talk show, letters to the editor and dinner table will bring about the desperate changes necessary to send the HMOs, insurance companies, and Big Pharma out the door so all Americans can have qualitative health care based on needs with medical decisions being made by doctors who operate solely with the best interests of the patient in mind.
- Corporatized medicine is everything conservatives and republicans claim "socialized medicine" is but through the corporation. This simple argument + this phrase destroys 50 years worth of Republican talking points that started with McCarthy and continued with Nixon, Reagan, and Bush.
- By opposing corporatized medicine , that does not mean we support "single payer" or socialism. Our position is to look at all the plans out there (including single payer), see what works in other countries, and adopt the best parts of each plan.
- Corporatized medicine is about HMO bureaucrats and insurance bean counters making medical decisions instead of doctors and patients. Very few Americans like this idea. The frame speaks for itself here.
- Corporatized medicine kills people. It's anti-life. By opposing corporatized medicine we are taking a pro life position. This is a frame that our opponents can't handle.
- Corporatized medicine is about less health care service and more costs. Again the phrase implies this.
While there may be a temptation by some to want to strangle every bastard who works in the upper echelons of these HMOs or insurance companies and start a revolution, the proper course of action is to introduce a series of proposals to eliminate the problems that do exist now while simultaneously offering to establish a blue ribbon committee to study the various approaches to universal health care coverage out there + to come up with a proposal within 12 months.
The immediate proposals we introduce should be simplistic in nature such as 1) forbidding an insurance company from denying someone coverage with a pre existing condition. 2) Banning gag orders with stiff criminal sanctions for those who impose them. 3) Automatically require an HMO to pay for emergency medical services (including the ambulance) of any patient they purport to cover at any hospital of the patient's choosing. 4. Make it illegal for a person to make a medical diagnosis about a person for purposes of approving or denying payment unless they are the treating physician on the scene.
I would love for us to rally for health care, have signs such as "Corporatized Medicine Kills" or "Say No to Corporatized Medicine," and use our brain power to save millions of lives. We can't bring back the people that have already been killed by corporatized medicine but we sure can save other people's lives in the future.