I went to Occupy Wall Street the other day. It's remarkable. I haven't seen anything like this since the 1960s during the peak of the Vietnam War. Something is happening, it's real, you can feel it in the air.
This extraordinary collection of photos published in The Atlantic, from around the United States, will scare the 1% and their politician (from both parties) enablers.
You should see the tour buses pass by on Broadway, packed with tourists from around the world, their fists hoisted in the air in solidarity. Most of these tourists have affordable health care in their industrialized countries, we don't.
We are told, the protestors are angry. No, no, it's way, way worse than anger. Garden variety anger can be contained, what's happening is uncontainable. Anger is the understatement of the century. This is way, way bigger than anger, this is a fight for survival. Our country is in free fall. Either we change it, or we're finished.
So here's another reason why we must continue to occupy Wall Street. Here's why we won't go away.
I got my health insurance renewal. Here are the horrifying numbers.
The premium is up from $500 a month, yeah you heard me, I'm paying $500 a month. My renewal is $565 a month. That's a 13% increase. But that's just the beginning.
My office visit co-pay has increased from $50 to $60 per visit, that's a 20% increase! So now I pay another $60 for every office visit, this is on top of my monthly premium. And I'm one of the lucky ones. I live in New York, and the bastards have to sell to anyone who can pay for their junk products. Most Americans with the list of pre-existing conditions that I have, would be told, go away, we won't insure you.
And now we're learning that high deductible junk insurance will become the norm.
Very simply, my friends, the reason for this is because, high deductible junk insurance is how the for-profit health insurers make more profits. They make their profits on the backs of the 99%, who can only afford to buy their junk products.
It's really and truly that simple. They sell us (the 99%) a very, defective product, which may be somewhat more 'affordable', than any of their other defective products, but which requires such high out-of-pocket costs, that we (the 99%) don't use it. So the insurers collect our premiums, and we have an insurance policy which is essentially worthless.
And all this is happening as incomes plummet.
The middle class is being pummeled, destroyed. Our income is dropping precipitously, as health insurance premiums, and everything else we need for simple survival is sharply escalating.
Between June 2009, when the recession officially ended, and June 2011, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 6.7 percent, to $49,909, according to a study by two former Census Bureau officials. During the recession — from December 2007 to June 2009 — household income fell 3.2 percent.
The media is confused. They're scratching their collective feeble heads. What's the message of OWS, they ask?
1. It's not Occupy Wall Street any longer, it's spreading organically to every nook and cranny of this county.
2. The enemy is government owned by the corporate special interests, which gives us defective legislation which benefits Wall Street not the American people, like the Affordable Care Act.
3. Wall Street has not been punished, not one arrest for causing the collapse of world economies and throwing millions around the world out of work.
4. Why is the United States the only industrialized country with for-profit healthcare, where you have to be part of the 1% to even get care?
Message to the government, be scared, the people/the peasants are restless.
