HEALTH CARE SAUSAGE MACHINE

Published on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 by Brave New Films

WATCH THE VIDEO:

The Health Insurance Racket

CIGNAs Edward Hanway spends his holidays in a $13 million beach house in New Jersey. Meanwhile, regular Americans are routinely denied coverage for the care they need when they need it most.

Welcome to the American health insurance industry. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for their families, big insurance companies get rich by denying coverage to patients. Now theyre sending lobbyists to Washington, DC to twist the arms of lawmakers to oppose reform of the status quo. Why? Because the status quo pays.

http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/09/15-0

The Private Mandate Sausage Machine While the political process in Washington suffers through its grotesque pantomime on health care, let us prepare our neighborhoods, our communities, our states for the eventual triumph of single payer health care.Please sign the petition for a single payer system. Download, print and circulate the petition among friends and neighbors.   Dear Friends, It is said one should not ask how sausage or laws are made. Are you concerned about a public option? Let me share with you some insight about health care legislation which may not be good for your health. A lesson in politics. The Kucinich Prediction: Here’s what’s going to happen … House will make a big deal about keeping/putting a public option in HR3200 because it competes with insurance companies and will keep insurance rates low. The White House will refer to the President’s speech last week where he spoke favorably of the public option. The Senate will kill the competitive public option in favor of non-competitive “co-ops”. Senate leaders like Kent Conrad have said the votes to pass a public option were never there in the Senate. The bill will come to a House-Senate Conference Committee without the public option. House Democrats will be told to support the conference report on the legislation to support the President. The bill will pass, not with a “public option” but with a private mandate requiring 30 million uninsured to buy private health insurance (if one doesn’t already have it). If you are broke, you may get a subsidy. If you are not broke, you will get a fine if you do not purchase insurance. This legislative sausage will be celebrated as a new breakthrough and will be packaged as health insurance reform. However, the bill may require a Surgeon General’s warning label: Your Money or Your Life! The bill that Congress passes may pale in comparison to the bill that millions of Americans will get every month/year for having or not having private health insurance. It will take four years for the new legislation to go into effect. During that time we are going to build a constituency of millions in support of real health care, a constituency which will be recognized and a cause which is right and just: Health Care as a Civil Right. Join our efforts. Sign the petition. Contribute. http://kucinich.us/hcpetition  Insure a democratic future. Thank you.