Letters to the Editor
droogoy
Published Letters: 590 Editor's Choice: 9
-
The real gamesters
[Read the article: "Sicko"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]curmudgeon 2 wrote:
"Hasn't any of the socialist readers of Salon noticed what Bush and his corporate allies have done to the government? He is not paticularly exceptional. In our large and diverse country chicanery is the norm, and always will be. After all, Part D of Medicare is socialized medicine US style. It is fraud on a massive scale."
Part D is not "socialized" medicine on a massive scale. Indeed, if one examines the changes since the odious 2003 Medicare Act, one can see it is well on the way to privatization. The exploitative Pharma-HMO deal (that according to Goldman-Sachs is designed to deliver $13 billion in profits over ten years) is part of that constellation.
"Socialized Medicare" would mean: one fixed co-pay for ALL drugs, not stupendous payouts and bills that quickly bring seniors into poverty and having to beg family for help. It would mean comprehensive service, including for eyes and DENTAL - no omissions. It would include a fixed rate payout as opposed constantly increasing expenses and costs for Part B.
If you think this is socialized medicine, you haven't been to Norway or Sweden.
Another thing, don't conflate the predators in this situation! The vermin and parasites preying on Medicare (and other delivery systems) aren't run of the mill people who are dogging it, but your typical arch-corporate villains. Always out to make an extra buck. Three or so years ago the Wall Street Journal even featured a piece about one of these vultures that predated Medicare: Columbia HCA.
So don't make people believe that ordinary folk are into this gamesterism when they aren't. The way to reduce such predation is to implement harsh punitive measures. In the case of COlumbia HCA, once found out all their top personnel ought to have been given ten year sentences, and ALL the siphoned off money paid back. No exceptions. What they actually got was a slap on the wrist.
That predation exists in a captialist, for -profit system should not suprise anyone. That little or nothing is done to reduce it should. At least the AARP is now encouraging seniors to report medical inflation of costs when and where they appear, with a view to further investigation.
This is a start, but harsh punishment is also needed - of the for and type already meted out for corporate and investment chicanery to the honchos at Enron, Adelphia, and Worldcom (Bernie Ebbers).
The sooner we start beating the butts of the predators, the sooner it will stop, and send unmistaken messages to other would-be parasites to not even think about it!
-
Dreaming on
[Read the article: "Sicko"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]curmudgeon 2 wrote:
"The secret of good health is careful avoidance of the medical system, except in cases of acute and life-threatening sickness. The system is actually pretty good at taking care of those problems."
You are freaking dreaming! The "system" (if it can be dignified by that name) is designed to avoid those problems and largely DENY care. HMOs now find cause to deny care for any acute problem IF they can find the most remote "cause" that Mr or Mrs X didn't fully report ALL background health problems. If they just left out a sneezing fit ten yrs. ago they can now be denied care.
In addition, your careful avoidance scenario really only works for ten percent of problems if that. It doesn't work if your employer doesn't confer benefits and co-workers bring in some horrible form of rotavirus, or flu - and you are already terribly susceptible because of emphysema or whatever. It doesn't work also if someone with MRSA comes in contact with you and transfers the bug to you.
It doesn't work if you are driving carefully and are then rear ended or otherwise hit by a drunk driver, who causes such extensive damage you end up with tens of thousands in hospital bills.
It doesn't work if you or a loved one are a victim of a drive by, because some fool or fools are unloading weapons indisciminately. It doesn't work if you go to a restaurant, and the food was contaminated by E Coli and now you must pay the piper for yourself or a loved one to get back to decent health.
"Avoidance" works nicely if you never eat out, never go out and do anything or drive anywhere. In other words, a rich dork living in a gated castle some place.
When you refer to "corrupt people" also kindly keep it in focus. It is NOT "throughout society" but mainly at the upper, privileged level of predators - the rich fucks who think they are entitled to any and everything. These are the ones who need to be cut down to size. There is no widespread "corrupt culture" there IS a corrupt segment- mostly those already in the upper 0.00001% of income who are peeling off $15.6 million a year in Bush tax cuts. (According to the Economic Policy Inst/.)
Lastly, who is going to "punish" the ne'er do wells? Well, who meted out punishment to the cast of investment scheisters? The same way punishment could be meted to those pirates, it CAN be meted out to health care pirates. All that is needed is the will to do so.
I also keep hearing this bunkum about the divergent population of the U.S. making it "impossible" to have single payer health care. This is just another bloody excuse, but which the weak minded buy. Steffi Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein shot that down in their 'Health Affairs' journal article published in August, 2002.
The recent incident of a woman left to die in the hallway of an LA hospital ought to be a wake up call for every right minded American. In no civilized nation with advanced pretensions could such an incident occur - but we see it does occur in barbaric ones, like the U.S., which health care based on profit.
It is time to fucking wake up and stop making damnable excuses for the "system" to act like a vampire or parasite for the most vulnerable.