[Marxism] Donna Smith speaks truth to power: The Coming Health Care Scam

[Jon Flanders <jonathan.flanders@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Published on Sunday, May 17, 2009 by CommonDreams

Middle Class Healthcare Reform? Bend Overâ
by Donna Smith

It's coming. You and me and every middle class, working person in this  
nation is about to start handing over more and more of their hard  
earned cash to the private insurance industry, courtesy of our own  
elected members of Congress and our very popular President. Fire up  
those Treasury Department presses. We're going to be printing and  
providing money for insurance companies like no bail-out we've seen  
yet this economic crisis cycle.

The healthcare legislation under design and so far under wraps for the  
American people is slowly being leaked via carefully staged forum and  
meetings and a few well-timed hearings and grand press announcements.  
Much of the work is still going on behind closed doors in private  
meetings attended by those who are deemed appropriate participants and  
industry friends.

Remember how open these proceedings were to be following all the  
Clinton plan debacles of the early 90s? Well, today's stagings are far  
more sophisticated and planned out. So learning did occur by the  
industry giants and their political friends over these last 17 years,  
I will give them that.

And what do we know so far about what middle class Americans can  
expect from the legislation being privately crafted?

First, no matter what percentage of your take home pay it takes, you  
will be legally required to buy private health insurance. Second, if  
all you can afford is a policy that leaves you financially exposed to  
bankruptcy and foreclosure, then you will still be legally required to  
purchase that private insurance product. Third, should you fail to buy  
a policy, you will pay a fine.

Like it so far? Feeling free and protected? Like the choices so far?  
It gets better.

The private, for-profit insurance industry has made concessions we are  
asked to celebrate. First, they'll issue every one of us a policy  
provided every one of us is legally forced to buy coverage. Second,  
they stop discriminating against women because they have uteruses and  
child-bearing capacity, provided we all have to buy their product. And  
third, and this was a real coup according to our leaders, the  
insurance companies, medical equipment folks and providers will slow  
the rate of increase in charging for their products to charge just a  
bit less in terms of percentages of overall costs than they had  
planned to do and as is predicted. Laughable concessions sold as real  
compromise.

It's as if we've been beaten a few times every month by an abuser  
whose violence and anger is increasing over time, and we know by  
calculating the trend that we'll be beaten daily within a very short  
time. Up steps the abuser to say, "Wait. I will still have to beat you  
more than I do now, but I think I can hold it to 25 times a month  
instead of every day." That's the sort of promises we're supposed to  
see as victories with the healthcare industry involvement in crafting  
the legislation that will determine our families' financial well-being  
and matters of life and death.

Let me spell this out for families like mine. You've been getting  
overcharged for underinsurance for many years and you've seen the  
costs out of your own pocket rise to the point where it is truly  
driving whether or not you even try to seek care when ill. You've seen  
premiums rise and coverage shrink in employer based coverage, and  
14,000 of you a day are losing those employer based benefits in this  
stinking economy.

And most importantly to me and millions of other middle class folks,  
when you do get sick and need care, you are forced to see only those  
doctors and providers your insurance company says you can and those  
providers can only give you the insurance company says they can give  
you. That's the way our insurance companies want it now and  
forevermore, and that's what they are going to get.

Feeling free? Your choices broadening? Your costs lowering?

Wait. There's more. In order to make sure every single American buys  
the private products from insurance companies and knowing some  
families won't make enough to afford what is offered, we'll all chip  
in and pay our taxes to subsidize those who cannot afford to buy the  
pricey plans. So, when each of us calculates our own monthly costs for  
healthcare, we'll need to factor in not only our own health insurance  
premium, our co-pays and deductibles, our medications and other out-of- 
pocket costs, but also the percentage of our payroll taxes dedicated  
to pay for the subsidies for low-income folks, the agencies to collect  
the fines paid by health-insurance-mandate-evaders, and the agency  
envisioned to be our clearing house for selling us the private product  
we're all forced to buy. If our real costs are added up, there will be  
a substantial increase for most middle class families.

These folks are really hoping you will not do the math. They think  
middle class folks are too dumb to figure it out.

Let me repeat. This Congress and this President are about to give us  
healthcare reform that will make the middle class burden for payment  
higher and will even more deeply restrict personal choices in medical  
care. And they are about to do it all with great fanfare claiming just  
the opposite.

No doubt many of you have feared really looking at a single payer  
approach as something scary and restrictive of your personal freedoms.  
I can promise you that nothing could be further from the truth. In  
fact, your freedom to choose would be greatly enhanced under a  
publicly funded, privately delivered national program. Greatly  
enhanced freedom. Lowered costs as we each pay the percentage we can  
afford from our income. Greatly enhanced choice of providers - no more  
being told who is in-network or out. No more risk of financial ruin if  
medical care is not approved by a profit-driven entity. And no more  
being told a service we already received isn't covered after all - the  
great bait and switch the health insurance industry is allowed to do  
all the time, leaving so many people with bills they never even knew  
they were accepting responsibility to pay.

I like being free to choose. And if this healthcare reform plan  
restricts my freedom, takes my hard-earned money and makes my life  
more difficult, I won't have any problem at all assigning blame to the  
folks who forced it on me.

Look, what's the old saying about excrement rolling downhill? This  
president is very popular. He won't get blamed when middle class folks  
figure out the ruse. And the Senate is pretty safe, as they get to sit  
for six years before answering to the people - and they get oodles of  
cash from the industry to make sure they are comfy, cozy. It's the  
U.S. House of Representatives - the people's house, they say - that  
will take the hit when the moms and dads of this nation figure it out  
that they didn't get healthcare reform at all. The middle class will  
get a huge burden to bail-out the health insurance and healthcare  
industry under the plan moving so carefully but swiftly through the  
process.

The kicker? When it's finally unveiled in all its bi-partisan glory,  
it'll be sold as a human rights victory. And on that day, 60 more  
American families will bury a loved one denied care. And on the day  
after that, 60 more will die. And the day after that, they'll be a big  
damn party paid for by you and by me for all of those who helped craft  
the monstrosity. And the insurance industry CEO salaries will be  
enhanced by your money paid to them. Bail-out bonanza for Karen  
Ignagni and America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry very fond of  
its government entitlements.

Costs will be successfully shifted even more heavily onto the backs of  
America's middle class workers. I mean, middle class chumps. And then,  
my fellow worker-bees, it will be mid-term election time again.

Donna Smith is a community organizer for the California Nurses  
Association and National Co-Chair for the Progressive Democrats of  
America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/17-0






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