It’s a race all right. And very dark horse, Corporate Cash, is beaten into a foaming-at-the-mouth, win-or-die burst of speed by his whip-wielding, far-right-handed jockey. Greater Good, still in the running, is hampered out of the gate by crazed fans of Corporate Cash who’ve thrown themselves on the track, hurling threats, waving posters featuring epithets like "Kill Hitler’s Horse!"--some of them packing heat. There’s violence in the air.
Greater Good has been the favorite to win the race all season, but a crafty PR campaign in favor of Corporate Cash may spell doom for Good’s support among health care reform fans. How do you stay on track with a frenzied mob in your face? Hate-sport always foments a louder fan base than reason.
It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out the facts are on the side of Greater Good:
* About 14,000 Americans a day are losing their health insurance.
* A million American families are bankrupted by medical expenses every year. Most of us are one catastrophic illness away from losing everything we own.
* Between 2000-2007: Health Insurance Company profits rose by 428%; premiums for coverage went up 87%; the top ten insurance companies posted profits of $2.4 billion in 2000...their profits in 2007 had risen to $12.9 billion.
* In 2007, CEOs of the top ten publicly traded insurance companies collected a combined $118.6 million in compensation. This translates to an average annual salary of $11.9 million per CEO. And that would be an annual salary 468 times larger than the average American worker pulled in ($25,434).
* Insurance execs make mega-profits by rejecting applicants due to pre-existing conditions and/or family history, by rescinding coverage after disease is diagnosed, by raising rates and co-pays on the sick.
Health insurance has become a greedy, price-gouging service for the healthy or wealthy American only. Sick folks? Do not apply; and we can deny your claims or dump you any time we decide you might be a threat to our wildly spiraling profit margin. We’ll ration your care as we see fit. You don’t get this rich paying out claims to losers.
Facts are facts. Simple, sane logic mandates serious health care reform in this country.
But there’s a lot of private wealth riding on the Corporate Cash horse. Enough wealth that there’s plenty to spend in an effort to kill off Greater Good. The HealthCare-Industrial Complex has been spending about $1.4 million a day on Capitol Hill to stop any real reform at all. When you’re making billions, what’s a few tens of millions?
"Death Panel" fear-mongers are hollering "The government will pull the plug on Grandma!" to scare folks into violently rejecting reform. Others scream that reform will end Medicare or that a public option will mean the rationing of health care.
Here’s what the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) says in response to those claims:
* There is no provision of any piece of legislation that would promote euthanasia of any kind.
* Medicare will not be ended, and no benefits or services will be cut.
* No legislation in Congress would mandate the rationing of care. Period.
The hot-button, anti-reform threat du jour is certainly the "Government Death Panel Will Kill Ya" claim. Where did a stinking lie like that begin? Who first made such a claim, twisting coverage of the consult cost for a Living Will into a Death Squad Knocking At Your Door? Who stood to profit from using that particular scare/hate tactic to defeat humane health care reform?
Her name is Betsy McCaughey. She’s a GOP supporter/contributor. She’s also a health company executive with deep financial roots in the current health care industry: Cantel Medical Corporation and the biotech company Genta. There’s no profit in reducing the cost of health care for Betsy and others like her.
And if you believe what they’re telling you, honey, your money’s on the wrong horse.
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