Greed, Health Care Reform and the American Recovery Act

Middle America needs to get a grasp on corporate greed, and recognize it as the modern day King George. Two of President Obama’s major initiatives, Health Care Reform and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will fare much better if the working class skeptics see the role corporate greed plays in both issues.

Right wing media fear mongers have convinced Joe Sixpack and his buddies that their enemy in health care is the public option. They believe it will raise costs and lead to socialism, which will take away all of their money and freedom. They fail to look at the fact that their health care benefits have cost more and provided less at the hands of greedy private monopolistic insurance companies for years. Even with the threat of a public option on the table, the insurers are still unsympathetic to small businesses that would like to but cannot afford to supply their employees with decent health insurance. Greed has prompted insurance companies to favor their own profits over the services they provide to small businesses and consumers.

Similarly, polls indicate that Middle America feels the Recovery Act is failing to produce jobs, that it is costing money for no gain. Yet, there is gain; businesses are doing better. But the businesses are keeping the better for themselves. Despite the recent paths to economic recovery, employers are not willing to hire new employees. Current employees are often working longer for less in order to keep the jobs they have. The gloomy outlook in the job market is a result of reluctant employers rather than a failed stimulus package. Greed once again prompts businesses to favor their own corporate security over the well being of their employees and the people of America.

It is naïve to think we can rely on business to rescue us out of the mess they put us in to begin with. We need tea parties that put blame where blame is due: tea parties aimed at right wing legislators and their business cronies who exert their tyranny against the American public. Tell them we want a public option now, one that will reign in corporate greed in the health insurance industry. Tell them we want sanctions now against businesses and banks that have failed to use Recovery Act money to provide jobs and loans to small businesses. This is our time, our chance to legislate against corporate greed and for some financial fairness in our society. Let’s not lose it.

Letter Writing for Health Care Reform

My husband, a cancer researcher, sent letters to all of our legislators last week about health care reform. He is encouraging a letter writing campaign this week to ensure that comprehensive health care legislation is indeed passed, despite the horrific August misinformation blasted on right wing media outlets.

Here is a copy of his letter:

September 3, 2009
Re: Healthcare Public Option - Yes
Dear Senator Spector:

The US pays twice as much for health care yet lags other wealthy nations in such measures as infant mortality and life expectancy, which are among the most widely collected, hence useful, international comparative statistics. For 2006-2010, the USA's life expectancy will lag 38th in the world, lagging last of the G5 (Japan, France, Germany, UK, USA) and just after Chile (35th) and Cuba (37th).[1]

The United States is the only highly industrialized nation without some form of national health insurance. Today, 47 million people in this country have no coverage at all. Furthermore, the United States spends the most for health care among the world's 23 top industrialized nations, including countries in Western Europe, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Yet U.S. citizens have the lowest life expectancy of any of those countries. Furthermore, Medical debt is the principal cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States, weakening the whole economy (2).

The United States spent 15.8 percent of its gross domestic product on health care in 2006. The other 22 highly industrialized nations spent less, ranging from 7.1 percent of annual GDP in Ireland, 8.4 percent in Great Britain and 11 percent in France (2)

Despite its high health care expenditure, the United States had the lowest life expectancy - 78.1 years at birth. Life expectancies in the other 22 countries ranged from 78.4 in Denmark, 80 years in Great Britain and 82.4 in Japan. Yet, health spending per individual is $2,992 in Great Britain, but $7,290 here; and for every 1,000 residents there are 2.5 physicians and 10 nurses in Great Britain compared to 2.4 physicians and 20 nurses in the U.S. (2).

Infant mortality in Great Britain is lower - 4.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births, compared to 6.7 deaths for every 1,000 live births in the United States.” Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States, which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births (3). Yet, "The United States has more neonatologists and neonatal intensive care beds per person than Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, but its newborn death rate is higher than any of those countries," said the annual State of the World's Mothers report (4).

According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the United States is the "only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have health care coverage" (i.e. some kind of insurance) [5].

In summary, our system costs more and works less effectively than health-care systems in 22 other industrialized nations.

I grew up on a farm in rural southern Iowa. I have spent most of my career as a clinical faculty member in a tertiary academic medical center, and my father-in-law was the hospital administrator in a 600-bed hospital in north Jersey. I have seen health care in this country from the inside and from the outside. The U.S. should have universal health care coverage with both public option and private option components. It would be a tragedy to waste this opportunity to enact universal health care coverage.

The principle apparent reason that the general public does not seem solidly behind major renovation of our health care system and adoption of universal health care coverage is that behind the scenes, executives and spokesmen from insurance and pharmaceutical companies discourage reforms that might lower their significant annual profits.

I urge you to vote for the public option in the health care reform bill in Congress. Thank you.


References:
1. Recent Trends in Infant Mortality in the United States, Marian F. MacDorman, Ph.D., and T.J. Mathews, M.S., National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Data Brief, No. 9, October 2008

2. “Health care in the United States”, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

3.CNN,May102006, http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/

4. State of the World’s Mothers 2006, Saving the Lives of
Mothers and Newborns, Save the Children Foundation, www.savethechildren.org/publications/mothers/2006/SOWM_2006_final.pdf

5. Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations, Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Science, 2004-01-14. Retrieved 2007-10-22.

Boycott Whole Foods

My liberal butt just got whacked, my liberal brain ransacked. John Mackey, president of Whole Foods, is pushing against public options in health care reform. He thinks that private programs, which currently leave 46 million people uninsured, are the way to go. He thinks that high health care deductibles for people, regardless of their income, will go a long way to solving the health care crisis.

Sorry Mr. Mackey. How many employees working for Whole Foods can afford a $2,500 deductible?

Thirty years ago, as a young mother, I had to leave a job because the inadequate health insurance at my job failed to pay for necessary services for my three year old disabled daughter. A public option would have enabled me to continue employment uninterrupted.

Now, I am fortunate to be more comfortable financially. I would be willing to pay more in taxes to support a public option health care plan. What truly bothers me is paying more to a private plan that has high deductibles, low coverages and uses MY MONEY to pay a few people at the top.

I can speak with my food store choices, and until you and your company can gain empathy for the 46 million uninsured Americans and the many more underinsured Americans whose insurance premiums pad the pockets of wealthy health insurance execs my food dollars will go elsewhere.

Enough is Enough

Years ago my mother was convinced that Medicare would turn the USA into a communist country. Now, at 91, she uses it gratefully. My recently deceased father-in-law was the same; swore Medicare would make us all communists, but then swore by it when it helped extend his life to 90.

I, on the other hand, spent one year with minimal health care. Fortunately, I was able to change jobs in 1984 to obtain adequate health insurance for my family. I had a disabled daughter and flimsy medical coverage that paid for little of her care at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Luckily, I was able to find a job with a good private health care plan. Millions, however, are unable to obtain any health care and are sick or dying as a result. They would be well served to have a national health program as an option.

Where are the outcries about deaths caused by a society unwilling to see that everyone has health care? Where is the outrage about the needless suffering of so many fellow Americans?

Why aren’t the radicals out there screaming “murder” when a young uninsured woman dies of cancer? Or when a middle aged uninsured man dies of kidney disease? Where is the hype to stop “murdering” so many of our uninsured citizens? The private sector insurance business has failed these people miserably while some private insurance executives have rolled big time in the money we pay as premiums. It is time to try something different.

We spend more on health care now than any nation in the world, yet rank 37th out of 191 countries in health care according to the World Health Organization. Canadians outlive Americans by two years, despite all of the American criticisms about socialized medicine. True, we are better service providers and insurers for certain specialty diseases than any other country. But then, aren’t we smart enough to overhaul the system so it is accessible to all, yet retain our excellent specialty care? Aren’t we obligated to do just that if we are, as we claim, the most moral country on Earth?

The time is now to act outrageously indignant that any American anywhere would shout out against giving another American a fair chance at life saving health care. I am fed up with ignorant people rudely interrupting health care town hall meetings geared to helping tweak the President’s health care plan. Those of us in favor of the plan, including myself, are screaming back: “Haters, move out of the way. We want good health care now for all Americans. We will not be stopped by your ignorance.”