That nutty, greedy 19%
No one could be surprised at recent polls showing 81% of the American people believe the country is going to hell in a hand-basket. We know who those people are, because we are those people. But I’m more interested in that 19% who think everything in peachy.
You begin, of course, with Bush Administration political appointees, the oil companies and defense contractors.
Next come those who subscribe to the Weekly Standard and Wall Street Journal, listeners to right-wing radio, and viewers of Fox News.
Then you go to all those lenders and speculators who guessed wrong on the housing market, lost billions, but were bailed out by a federal government that never fails to feel corporate pain.
But the really big chunk of the nutty, greedy 19% is found in the healthcare industry. For the nation’s HMOs and PPOs and their drug company co-conspirators, is this a wonderful country or not? They ride herd on the most wasteful, dysfunctional health care system in the western world and rack up obscene profits. As insurance premiums soar and millions more are priced out of coverage, they simply hire more people to deny claims, knowing that “value” is in the paper-work, not the patients.
Things have gotten so bad that just the other day a new survey revealed that 59% of doctors now support universal health care. “As doctors, we find that our patients suffer because of increasing deductibles, co-payments, and restrictions on patient care,” said Dr. Ronald Ackermann. “More and more, physicians are turning to national health insurance as a solution to this problem.”
The conventional political wisdom is that won’t happen. The health insurance lobby is so powerful on Capitol Hill that even with doctors on board, “Medicare for all” doesn’t have a prayer. Medicare itself is under fire by the Bush Administration that keeps urging funding cuts to help pay for the war in Iraq.
To see how times have changed, one of Medicare’s staunchest defenders is the American Medical Association. Dr. Nancy Nielsen, AMA’s president-elect, has asked Congress “to preserve access to healthcare for the millions of senior and disabled Americans who rely on Medicare.” This July, payments to physicians caring for Medicare patients will be slashed. “These real cuts have serious consequences as physicians will be forced to limit the new Medicare patients they can treat this year,” said Nielsen.
When President Lyndon Johnson pushed for Medicare legislation in 1965, AMA was bitterly opposed. Their lobbyists thought they had LBJ in a corner when they told him his Medicare bill was flawed, that it wouldn’t even cover the most vulnerable Americans—those under 65 who were poor. LBJ slapped his big hand on his desk and said, in effect, “by golly, you guys are right. How could I have overlooked that?” A week later, he introduced Medicaid legislation. Congress made history by approving both Medicare and Medicaid, easing the medical suffering for millions of poor and elderly Americans.
With AMA and an overwhelming percentage of the American people in support, why can’t the next Congress face down the trillion-dollar insurance and drugs lobbies and pass universal health care?
In any crime scene, the advice is “follow the money”. And with this crime, it isn’t just that nutty, greedy 19% that is the problem.
You begin, of course, with Bush Administration political appointees, the oil companies and defense contractors.
Next come those who subscribe to the Weekly Standard and Wall Street Journal, listeners to right-wing radio, and viewers of Fox News.
Then you go to all those lenders and speculators who guessed wrong on the housing market, lost billions, but were bailed out by a federal government that never fails to feel corporate pain.
But the really big chunk of the nutty, greedy 19% is found in the healthcare industry. For the nation’s HMOs and PPOs and their drug company co-conspirators, is this a wonderful country or not? They ride herd on the most wasteful, dysfunctional health care system in the western world and rack up obscene profits. As insurance premiums soar and millions more are priced out of coverage, they simply hire more people to deny claims, knowing that “value” is in the paper-work, not the patients.
Things have gotten so bad that just the other day a new survey revealed that 59% of doctors now support universal health care. “As doctors, we find that our patients suffer because of increasing deductibles, co-payments, and restrictions on patient care,” said Dr. Ronald Ackermann. “More and more, physicians are turning to national health insurance as a solution to this problem.”
The conventional political wisdom is that won’t happen. The health insurance lobby is so powerful on Capitol Hill that even with doctors on board, “Medicare for all” doesn’t have a prayer. Medicare itself is under fire by the Bush Administration that keeps urging funding cuts to help pay for the war in Iraq.
To see how times have changed, one of Medicare’s staunchest defenders is the American Medical Association. Dr. Nancy Nielsen, AMA’s president-elect, has asked Congress “to preserve access to healthcare for the millions of senior and disabled Americans who rely on Medicare.” This July, payments to physicians caring for Medicare patients will be slashed. “These real cuts have serious consequences as physicians will be forced to limit the new Medicare patients they can treat this year,” said Nielsen.
When President Lyndon Johnson pushed for Medicare legislation in 1965, AMA was bitterly opposed. Their lobbyists thought they had LBJ in a corner when they told him his Medicare bill was flawed, that it wouldn’t even cover the most vulnerable Americans—those under 65 who were poor. LBJ slapped his big hand on his desk and said, in effect, “by golly, you guys are right. How could I have overlooked that?” A week later, he introduced Medicaid legislation. Congress made history by approving both Medicare and Medicaid, easing the medical suffering for millions of poor and elderly Americans.
With AMA and an overwhelming percentage of the American people in support, why can’t the next Congress face down the trillion-dollar insurance and drugs lobbies and pass universal health care?
In any crime scene, the advice is “follow the money”. And with this crime, it isn’t just that nutty, greedy 19% that is the problem.
posted by Victor Kamber | 11:32 AM
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