“In my 20 years of practice as a family physician, I have encountered dozens of cases where the main contributing factor to a person’s death was the lack of health insurance for most of their lives.”

A recent academic study showed that about 45,000 people die in the USA every year due to lack of health care. These are deaths that simply DO NOT HAPPEN in other first world countries. This may be part of why most general practitioners are FOR universal healthcare even as the AMA vehemently opposes it.

What are the arguements against universal healthcare? “The government can’t do anything right” …even though Medicare, which is government-run healthcare is twice as efficient as the best of private insurance, delivering the best healthcare at the lowest cost. “You’ll have to wait to see your doctor” …like you don’t wait now! Sure, okay, there will be more people who can see a doctor if we have universal healthcare. God forbid you should have to wait an extra day to see your doc about that hangnail. 45,000 dead people every year is a small price to pay! “There will be death panels” … No, but there ARE DEATH PANELS RIGHT NOW; they are called insurance company bureacrats (why, btw, brag about killing people to boost profits).

Basically, my bottom line is this: If you don’t care about all those people who are dying RIGHT now, EVERY fuckng day because we in America put private profits above human life, then go fuck yourself. I don’t want to hear your bullshit.

The real “DEATH PANELS” are those who – in the name of ‘profits uber alles’ – are willing to let people die and turn a blind eye to it. They are paid off by insurance companies and they don’t give a crap about you. Oh, and this applies to radio talk show hosts, too.

I soon realized that this friend-of-a-friend that I had friended was something of a right winger.  Among the first few postings from him I saw were complaints that people attending Congressional town hall meetings who disagreed with the Democrats were being denied their First Amendment rights.  What I had seen in the TV news coverage of the meetings showed these people not being prevented from speaking, even though their “speaking” consisted of screaming at the top of their lungs, preventing others from exercising their First Amendment rights.  I began to wonder what this guy was talking about.  Had I walked through the Looking Glass?

From there, he went on to talk about how health care reform would result in “rationing.” At that point, I had to jump in.  Since Jeff wrote in complete, grammatical sentences, I made the mistake of thinking he was a guy who would be interested in, you know, facts.  Silly me, how wrong I was.

I explained that my wife has congestive heart failure, a very serious illness and that since we don’t have health insurance, she can’t get the care she needs, care that could well keep her from dying prematurely.  Isn’t that a form of rationing, I asked.  Jeff responded by saying that maybe my wife should go to one of those “better” countries that have universal health care (yes, he used the quotation marks).  I’ll let you absorb that for a moment.

Surprise of surprises, Jeff just happens to have a friend in Canada whose mother also had congestive heart failure.  This “friend’s mother,” for some strange reason, was refused treatment by those rationing bastard Canadian doctors.  She even had enough money to afford private health care but couldn’t get it since private health care doesn’t exist in Canada.  No one would take her money, even to save her life. 

I had suspected all along that this “friend’s mother” was every bit as real as the guy who woke up to find that his kidney had been stolen by a hooker, but I kept my doubts to myself; I knew expressing them would result in a huge slap fight.  I calmly informed Jeff that he was factually incorrect.  I knew this for certain as my friend Sarah, an American citizen, had surgery in Canada several years ago which she paid for out of her own pocket.  I even named the surgeon and said that his clinic was in Montreal.  Sarah went to Canada because this surgeon has an international reputation and he charges several thousand dollars less than any hospital in the U.S. for the same operation.

Now you might think that a “clear thinker” (as Jeff describes himself) would realize that he was simply misinformed about the Canadian health care system and realize that he could therefore be wrong about the effect a similar system would have on the U.S.  In a spectacular display of cognitive dissonance, Jeff conceded that his (possibly apocryphal) “friend’s mother” had been given a health care ration of Zero, but apparently couldn’t see that my wife is going through the same thing in this country.  If a (possibly apocryphal) Canadian dies due to denied health care, it’s a tragedy.  If an American dies for the same reason, it’s OK because who would want to live if living requires *GASP* Universal Health Care?  The rules of logic change when you cross the 49th Parallel, I guess.

Continuing to play along with the story of the “Canadian woman who died because no one would take her money for the private health care that doesn’t exist,” I said that the real cause of her death was ignorance.  I didn’t say she was stupid or unintelligent; I didn’t know the woman (if she even actually existed, that is) so I can have no opinion of her intelligence.  I used the word “ignorant” correctly.  I’m a fairly bright person but there are subjects about which I know little.  I am ignorant about those subjects.  If you live in a country which provides universal health care and you die because you don’t know that fact, you are ignorant.  I’d call that World Class Ignorance.

Instead of conceding that he was factually incorrect about Canadian health care, Jeff sniffed that he knew that any debate with a liberal would eventually result in the liberal calling someone ignorant. 

The really sad thing here is that, even though he was presented with actual FACTS, Jeff has, consciously or unconsciously, decided to remain–yes, I’m going to say it–IGNORANT on this subject.

The point of this little story is not that some guy who I don’t know and will probably never meet doesn’t know what he’s talking about with regard to the real world consequences of America’s shitty health care.  The problem is that he’s just one of millions of America citizens who don’t know diddly and still think they are informed enough to have an opinion.  These are the people you see screaming at the town hall meetings on the TV cable “news” shows.  They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about…and thanks to the Democrats who can’t or won’t fight back against the tide of stupidity, they’re winning the debate.

It would be laughable if it didn’t have the possibility of killing my wife (and millions of other Americans) prematurely.  I guess I should be glad that my wife doesn’t have to put up with  *GASP* Universal Health Care–you know, the only thing that has the realistic possibility of saving her life.

As we have said, however, America does not have a health care system, it has a health care INDUSTRY. That means that they are in business to make profits, not take care of sick people. As such, insurance companies aren’t in business to pay your claim when you get sick. They are in the business of trying to figure out how to AVOID paying your claims. It’s always profits not people – one hundred percent of the time. Try not to forget this, okay?

They may try to call your newly-discovered cancer an “undisclosed pre-existing condition” or they may say that any treatment is experimental and therefore not covered. If they can’t do that, they’ll just cancel your policy.

Don’t kid yourself, it happens all the time. It is the inevitable result of a for-profit, pay-or-die system. And that is also why even the biggest, most fanatical knuckle-dragging wingnuts in other western democracies would never advocate that their countries adopt our system. They may be wingnuts, but they’re not crazy!

HHS: Insurance Companies Encourage Employees to “Revoke Sick People’s Health Coverage”

‘You might have known that insurers can deny health coverage based on preexisting medical conditions, but here’s something else to worry about: They can take away the coverage you thought you had when actually need it’

Another blog gives a good breakdown of why American healthcare is so expensive and yet so bad: Where the money goes in the US health care system.

If you haven’t figured it out already, ALL of the scare stories and ALL of the crazy yelling town hall people are health insurance company-backed bullshit.

The people are shills. They are lying about being constituents, LYING about being ‘non-partisan’ – and the money behind all this AstroTurf (fake grassroots) comes from people with a dog in the fight; the health insurance industry.

Lies built on lies, and parroted by sleazy amoral radio and television talking heads.

So now we know, these people don’t give a shit about you, and they think you should just die if you aren’t rich. They’re bought and paid for by billionaires who also think you should die if you aren’t in their club. I hope all these sick fucks rot in hell. If there was an ounce of justice in the world, they WOULD!

To get the best healthcare in the world, you should be at least a millionaire. If you aren’t a millionaire, the next best thing is to be a citizen of any industrialized nation in the world EXCEPT the United States. If that’s not an option and you are stuck in the good ol USA, try running for congress. They get the best healthcare in America… of course, they are mostly millionaires too so it’s kind of a wash. If you can’t get into congress, try to get on Medicare… yes, government-run healthcare is the BEST you can do in America. Lastly, there’s private health insurance. Just bear in mind – as the examples show – when the chips are down they will try to do everything legal and otherwise to avoid paying, and if you end up dying as a result, that’s an extra bonus for THEM.

Some ‘conservatives’ (read, pro-oligarchy folk) have tried to redefine the term ‘free market’ to mean only one that doesn’t involve “government interference.” I can’t blame them, I guess, everyone wants to make their position sound as good and as reasonable as possible.

It’s false, however.

A free market isn’t just a market lacking government regulation. Here is the ACTUAL definition: A “free market” is a market in which sellers, under no undue pressure to sell, proffer their goods/services to buyers who are under no compulsion to buy. This is critical; change any element of this formula and you are no longer talking about free market.

Health care is not (and cannot become) a free market for two reasons:
1) Supply is artificially restricted by the government and the AMA. The scarcity of medical care drives up the cost. This is completely artificial. You might say “Well, they have to! You can’t have just anyone practicing medicine!” Fine, I agree, but that means that health care CANNOT EVER be a free market, because of the artificial restriction of supply.
2) Not only is supply artificially low, but buyers are under EXTREME compulsion to buy. What, that thought never occurred to you!?!? If you need lifesaving medical care, you either get it or you die! End of story.

No free market exists in health care. And you just agreed in item one that you cannot turn it into a free market.

You could change item 1 by stripping the AMA of its ability to tell medical schools how many doctors they can graduate every year AND letting anyone sell medical services who wants to do so. So then you could choose between the really expensive guy who went to medical school and Joe the Plumber who sells antibiotics out of the back of his truck. This would take care of half the problem.

BUT, you can’t do anything about item 2: People will still need lifesaving care and as long as it is a LIFE OR DEATH NEED, the medical health care system will NEVER follow free market rules.

Sometimes people say, “yeah but we need food, too! And you don’t want the government regulating that.” Food has multiple sources and you can even grow your own, so supply isn’t artificially limited as it is with healthcare. And even so, the government does, in fact, regulate prices through farm subsidies and other methods. We have a cheap food policy in the USA. Some people think that’s bad. Whatever, we need an affordable healthcare policy and it needs to be effective in balancing the artificial (but necessary) limitation on supply.

No free market in healthcare and the people who say they want a free market really don’t (they still want limited doctors, limited medicines, etc.) so what we have is a monopolistic utility, ["monopolistic" because the government & AMA tell you who can provide the services and a "utility" because consumers NEED and are compelled to buy the services from only a few government-approved providers]. As with all monopolistic utilities consumers have no choice except to pay whatever price is demanded.

Now in most other utilities, government as the representatives of the people recognizes the unfair power that the supplier has over the consumer and acts to tightly regulate pricing. For medicine, those with an agenda having NOTHING to do with anyone’s best interest are still trying to pretend that there is some kind of free market solution.

It’s bullshit. When you figure out a way we can all buy medicine from our local supermarket in the same way we buy potato chips AND you figure out a system where people are NEVER compelled to seek medical care to LIVE – THEN and only then will you have free market healthcare.

The rest is all pure phony bullshit spewed by people who only care about profit-taking for the super rich and don’t give a shit about the average person. It’s a fact, and I just proved it!

Some probably-paid talk show callers have been claiming expertise and saying that the problem with health care is that people get too much of it. =The solution, these ersatz listeners claim, is to get rid of medicare and all government price controls and let the “free market” decide. Yes, that’s right, people are dying every day for lack of health care – and America is the ONLY industrialized nation where that happens – and the conservative “solution” is to make health care even more expensive so that you stupid consumers won’t use it as much!!!

Look, those of you who are driven by ideology need to understand that free market rules are a bit like the laws of thermodynamics: Yes, they work – but they apply only in a vacuum, under ideal conditions that seldom exist in real life. You need to blow off the ideology and start looking at reality. We’ll all be better off if you do.

Carl is dead because he had the misfortune to be an American.  Allow me to explain.

Carl was a diabetic.  Because of his health concerns, he didn’t work much in recent years.  As a result, his income was low.  This past winter, I got an email from him in which he told me that, because his heating bills were so high, he would have to forgo buying insulin that month. 

If he lived in any other industrialized nation on Earth, he wouldn’t have had to make that terrible choice.  In any other country, he would have been a member of a national health system which would have made the medicine he desperately needed available to him, regardless of his income level.

On a personal level, I have become disgusted with politicians who talk endlessly about how “compassionate” and “caring” America is while they work behind the scenes to deny American citizens like my friend Carl vital medicines and access to medical professionals because a national health care system would conflict with the interests of the wealthy corporations that fund their election campaigns.

Any politician who won’t support a national health care system should be run out of public office, especially if he accepts money from the pharmaceutical or medical industries, in my opinion.  Carl Baker was just one of the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Americans who die before their time each year, thanks to the bottomless greed of our immoral politicians. 

I will miss the discussions Carl and I had several times a week via email about current events in the Lehigh Valley and nationally.  I will miss his funny rants about the injustices he perceived in society.  My friend was taken away because rich, powerful, greedy people lie when they tell us how much they care about us.  They don’t.  They care about themselves first, foremost and only.  This MUST change.

I miss my friend.

I shouldn’t have to.