KILL THE POOR

(this was cross posted from reverend manny, thank you reverend!)
The Health insurance racket is a money beast that will not die. ThinkProgress just revealed that the Health “Industry” pumped over $86 million into the Chamber of Commerce to kill Health Care Reform. What is often forgotten is that there is another price to pay. It’s the price paid by those too poor to afford the health protection racket run by the health insurance companies and Big Pharma.
For example, in Arizona, about 98 patients who were waiting on organ transplants were short on their bills. So, doing the neighborly and humane thing, the Arizona state government agreed to pick up their bills. In the face of a $1.5 bil budget deficit, another 4.5 million to save nearly a hundred lives is a micro-drop in the karmic bucket.
But then, instead of raising taxes to make up for the budget gap created by insanely low taxes, Arizona instead decided to go back on its promise to those 98 families that thought they’d get a few more years to spend with their loved ones. Here it is from Truth-out
If you happen to be sick and poor and are among the 98 people in Arizona who are awaiting state-funded organ transplants, you’ve just been handed a death sentence.
This morning, NPR reported on cuts to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), the statewide health care provider for poor and disabled people. AHCCCS said it would pay for organ transplant procedures, then went back and reversed itself, citing risk evidence that critics say was tailored to give them cover for this unthinkable action.
Instead of trying to save the lives of these people, who had been told that they had a chance to spend a few more years with their families, the Arizona legislature has chosen to take away their hope in order to save an estimated $4.5 million.
Facing a projected $1.5 billion budget deficit, the state of Arizona has decided to make poor people pay with their lives instead of making rich people pay with their treasure.
Jan Brewer, paranoia-freak and Prison Industry lackey, is the hyper right-wing governor of Arizona. Her response? Blame it on Obama.
Republicans, with the financial help of the health racket, are in fact on a no-holds-barred attack on any government-provided or subsidized healthcare. Republican Senator and “Minority” (ha!) Leader Mitch McConnell is hoping to enlist the help of billionaire conservative legal creation, the Federalist Society, in fighting healthcare reform. Apparently it wasn’t enough to fraudulently present politicians with corporate-sponsored “citizen outrage.”
No such authentic rage can exist because it’s a painful and obvious fact how bad and expensive healthcare has become in America.
For all that money, though, a recent study by the Commonwealth Fund of the 11 modernized rich countries ranked America 11th in healthcare.
WASHINGTON: Americans are the most likely to go without health care because of the cost and to have trouble paying medical bills even when insured, a survey of 11 wealthy countries found on Thursday.
“The US stands out for the most negative insurance-related experiences,” the New York-based Commonwealth Fund, the private foundation that carried out the study, said in an accompanying statement.
The study found that a third of US adults “went without recommended care, did not see a doctor when sick, or failed to fill prescriptions because of costs,” it said.
That compares to as few as five to six per cent in the Netherlands and Britain, according to the study.
A fifth of Americans had “major problems” paying medical bills, compared to nine per cent in France, the next highest country, two per cent in Britain, three per cent in Germany and four per cent in the Netherlands, it said.
Americans were also the most likely to have disputes with their insurance providers or discover insurance would not pay as they had expected.
These are the same “Providers” that pretended to support Obama’s campaign for health care reform while duplicitously funding a wide and corrupt attempt to stall, break or reverse all health care reform.
The truth is, that despite all their high-paid whining, 2010 was a record-setting year for Health Insurance Companies.
The six largest investor-owned health insurance companies saw a 22 percent increase in combined net income in the third quarter, putting them on pace to break profit records for 2010.
According to S.E.C. figures compiled by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which lobbied Congress to pass March’s healthcare overhaul, the top six insurers made a total of $3.4 billion in profits during Q3, or $611 million more than they did during the same period last year.
So relax America… might that cough kill you? Sure.
But perhaps you forgot our national motto?
KILL, KILL, KILL THE POOR!