A Plea To My Neighbors

I'm composing this as a Letter to the Editor in my local paper. It's long so it will probably be several.

I've been listening to this so-called "debate" about health care and I have been appalled at the misinformation, disinformation, distortion, outright lies and manipulation going around. To be frank, most of the junk is coming from the Republican Party and conservative talk, but really, they are just acting as conduits for the health care industrial complex. Lord knows how much Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and their ilk are being paid to spread the corporate word.

What we do know is that over the past ten years the so-called health care industry has spent over five billion dollars lobbying congress. That's five hundred million a year or more than a million dollars per congress critter per year. That's also five billion dollars they did not spend on health care for patients. Over that same time the CEO's of these companies have also walked away with billions, most infamously William McGuire from United Healthcare Group, who personally collected a cool one billion seven hundred million dollars in compensation when he retired, so he bought a 136 foot yacht and called it "The Golden Parachute". Exactly what did he produce to deserve those riches?

You see, to channel these fortunes into their own pockets these executives were telling their employees to to deny payment, delay care, and outright canceling or rescinding policies that people had paid on for years, using the excuse of so-called "pre-existing conditions" - like the woman whose policy was rescinded when she needed treatment for breast cancer because she was treated for acne when she was sixteen. Many people have experienced "Treatment Denied" or "Claim Denied" from insurance companies, or other techniques to not pay out. Employees are rated on how much they deny care and huge bonuses are paid to more senior managers. It is in everyone's financial interest in the insurance company to deny care. The phrase, "death by spreadsheet," was coined for a reason. Even when the health crisis doesn't result in death, it can result in bankruptcy. Sixty percent of bankruptcies are now caused by medical debt. Seventy five percent of those thought they had insurance until they needed to seriously use it.

The insurance company public relations firms are complaining about how awful it will be to have government bureaucrats between us and our doctors. But I'll take the government bureaucrat any day whose mission is to get me health care over the corporate bureaucrat whose job depends on denying it. As much as any serial killer, mafia, or gang of terrorists, these companies, executives and stockholders are directly responsible for the death and misery of countless thousands.

Above the five hundred million being spent as usual on lobbyists, there's still plenty of cash to hire an additional three hundred fifty former congress ritters and their staffs to draw on the personal connections these people have with present members of Congress. They're paying out something like one and a half million dollars a day extra for these people, an average of four thousand dollars per person per day. Pretty good pay in this economy. This figure does not include the "campaign contribution" bribes being made. Could there be any greater evidence that our government has become the wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America, and that our representatives are simply corrupt. Do you think these people are ever going to act in our interest?

Which brings us to our esteemed congressman, Jack Kingston. I went to the congressman's website to see what his position was in all of this. Needless to say, he was against reform. Government take over of health care, he calls it. Yet he'll not tell you that the top three industries contributing to this cycle's campaign chest are Insurance, Lobbyists, and Health Professionals, or that his single largest campaign contributor is Aflac. You don't think this affects his stance in any way, do you?

Congressman Kingston, along with a number of other Republicans are touting a study by the "non-partisan" Lewin Group that says if a public option is included in the health care bill that one hundred fourteen million Americans are going to "lose their coverage." At least that's what the congressman claims in bold, red and underlined lettering. One wonders why he didn't go all the way to the hysteric ALL CAPITALS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!! So he want's you to think he's saying one hundred fourteen million will be without insurance – maybe you. When one actually reads the report one realizes that people are migrating from private plans to the public plan actually increasing the gross number insured. It's flat out deception on the part of the congressman.

Finally, who is the Lewin Group? About thirty seconds on the web and we find that the Lewin Group is a subsidiary of Ingenix, a company that produces software that's designed to limit insurance company payouts. It was so good that it was bought by United HealthCare Group. Early this year United Healthcare had to pay a four hundred million dollar settlement with the federal government for fraud related to that software. So this criminal company (that compensated a ceo one point seven billion dollars) has a subsidiary company putting out a report designed to make us fear a government run health insurance plan. What's amazing is that they're not even subtle about it.