The DE-volution of "Health Care Reform"

Written 6 months ago…

(The update written today is around the middle)

One thing I don't get is, 12 Percent of the workforce is unemployed, a fifth of those employed are underemployed, a third works at service sector jobs that offer no insurance, and a quarter of those employed still make less than enough to transcend the poverty line...how is 75 percent of the population happy with their insurance plan??? So where are these “I’m happy with my plan” polls coming from? Is this sometype of underhanded polling counting temporary insurance plans? Medicaid? Free Clinics? By this standard that would mean more than everyone with a medical care option likes it, which they don’t. Also, isn’t medicaid, medicare, clinics, temp plans are all part of the commie, liberal, public option so shouldn’t that be taken off the stats for pro-insurance, pro-status quo option? I’m asthmatic, I have no insurance. In college I worked a variety of service sector jobs. One of which offered an insurance plan, which was cut from me after one quarter of coverage because I was .6 hours less than I needed for full time status and was quoted in a paycheck as Negative 450.00 to cover the coverage I thought I had but was taken away from me literally a week before the next quarterly review period0. Obviously I cut that plan and had the balance set to zero BUT that meant I took 50 to 100.00 pay cuts to cover my health care plan, (which I didn’t even need to use while I had it) for every pay check which I never got back. So at this point, I still need check ups, out of pocket, and inhalers (which range from 80.00 to 250.00) I opt for cheap-o generics which still need a script, hence an office visit every time. This is for basic care. I literally have two cruddy contacts left, which I can’t get again since my mom’s vision plan ran out for me 4 years ago and my two year plan I stretch to now ran out. Even as a full time educator, because I work 2 less hours at a specialized education plan, I have no benefits. My last job intentionally cut every employees hours to an hour less than part time to prevent unemployment claims and any form of benefits, (which they cut vision and hearing from even the management staff) They did this by offering financial incentives to the MOD staff if they kept us all “undertime.” They blamed it on “time-and-a-half” issues but for someone like me, after tax that meant they’d pay me 2.50 instead of 1.25, remember, after tax. I’ve worked at seven restaurants and none offered health care plans except one, these are mostly staffed by adults and young adults, who have families, who make enough to pay their bills and little more. What are these people supposed to do? They work hard, they do necessary jobs, they work all day. This isn’t some lazy group looking for a handout. There are hundreds of thousands of people like this. Don’t even try the “they should have studied harder” argument. Hell, quite a few were trying to pay for college so they could study harder! And regardless of how one studied, you mean to say you want these people cooking your food, washing dishes and waiting tables while they are sick? So this group, and I only bring them up because I was a part of it, and I assure you there are many others, needs to exist to serve you but they shouldn’t be provided or at least offered a way to keep themselves heatlhy? Eh, they make less than me, they do physical labor, so they are expendable, right? Hell, the message you get when hired at this glorious 2.83 hr job is that you are expendable, don’t get sick because you need written medical proof you are sick so that 200 bucks you made over the last couple of days needs to be spent on going to the doctor to get him or her to sign your form to testify to the obvious fact you have strep throat or influenza. Because a stupid, liar of a restaurant worker is incapable of being able to know if he/she has a cold. What’s the message here? Its practically extortion or else come into a food service location with your contagum and infect god knows who with god knows what. Is that what we think and/or prefer? What about the 500,000 people, laid off just this month alone? It wasn’t their fault unbridled greed and self-serving corporate masters sold this country out. What of the legions of state workers put out of work who lost their benefit packages. What of severed retirment health care packages and pensions that were gutted in favor of kickbacks and pay-offs for gag-orders, hush-money, illegal campaign contributions to help elect the same people who are allowing these mass layoffs within their home states, etc.? The myth of the welfare state which was coined by the political spindoctors of the Reagan/Montdale elections as it was then is clearly fictitious. There was a massive GOP smear campaign to stigmatize and associate the word welfare with ghetto, black, criminal. It was calculatingly used to draw on racial fear, bigotry and intolerance. However the military spending surge and outsourced defense contracts to fund some of the biggest terrorist states of the twentieth century were signed sealed and delivered which made a few rich and everyone else out on their asses got the ball rolling, Hell, a quarter of this DOD money could have taken care of the welfare state and got it on the right track. The smear campaign worked. By the election time polls indicated although 80 percent of people thought “social improvement spending was necessary and they were willing to pay taxes to do this”, 70 percent were not willing to spend on “welfare” which was the exact same thing however the latter was what the Reaganites officially renamed it. The faltering party of unrestricted free capital is at it again, repainting a revolutionary reform program as a communist conspiracy which, in all actuality, was from the brain trust of Richard Nixon. The whole "our taxes are going to go up" is baseless considering if the DHHS becomes a major purchaser and provider of care, treatment and rx's, the new competitive angle will drive the skyrocketing prices down so the money you pay in taxes will drastically reduce the premiums you pay.

(The UPDATE)

THAT argument was penned six months ago, Since then (actually a week ago) The monumental Health Care Bill passed against a tidal wave of resistance heralded by ignorance, racism and lies. The democrats got their way in their usual spine-less, under the table, passive aggressive demeanor through undoubtedly a campaign of threats, brides and extortion to get a dozen or so “undecideds” to change their mind on the 11th hour before the voting took place after a half dozen congressional lawmakers officially announced they were not seeking re-election completely out of the blue (considering their power is finally completely in power after 8 terrible years)

The bill was a complete watered down shame of legislation in the guise of “health-care” reform when it was essentially Bureaucrat driven insurance regulation and expansion. I really am skeptical considering this is in no shape or form what I was arguing for months ago or what Obama promised when he was campaigning so fervently a year and a half ago.

I see this as new regulations against the poor, being anti-small business owner and worker. Forcing business to provide insurance or fire workers and forcing people to either purchase coverage they cannot afford or expand their already shitty insurance programs. The tax burden will go up regardless of what we were told and the insurance companies simply cannot be as big of an asshole that they have been but, trust me, I’m sure they will find a way around it.

People confuse Health Insurance with Quality Health Care which they will quickly find will not be synonymous. Preventive Medicine will still be put on the back burner. The overcrowding and shoddy performance of hospitals will expand from the ER to the Office and O.Rs. If our health care staffs were already overworked, they will be even more exhausted. If this happens, quality of care will go down and law suits will get even more out of control. This is merely an expansion of the already proven horrible HMO program. Maybe I am wrong but Maria and I very much doubt it.

Now here is how the Universal Health Care system could have literally fixed everything. I may be incorrect but based on what I know about economics, this is what I think could happen.

If a universal program was implemented, the insurance industry would actually have a good program to compete with. They would have to lessen prices and expand coverage. Through these provisions, the cost of pharmaceuticals would go down. Cheaper prices would leave more capitol to pay health care staff and better quality of care. Better quality would reduce accidents and law suits which would lower the cost of malpractice coverage. Now considering your average family spends around 60 percent of their disposable income on health care this would be drastically reduced, hence opening up their purchasing power to the extended markets. If the power of a dollar was that expanded, business would be able to sell more and require more workers. From the business stand point, if they could cover employees much cheaper, their overhead would greatly reduce and open them up to hire more workers and not send jobs overseas. (A big reason they do this is to get around health care provisions and requirements) More hiring would end under and un-employment. Much of the mark-up we face in this country on everything from food to cars to computers comes from businesses having to provide health-care plans and health care costs (retirement plans, pensions, etc). An easy example would be that a car made in this country is 5,000 dollars more as opposed to one produced in Canada. See the difference? So… If things are cheaper to produce, companies were able to hire AND save money, purchasing power went up and people went back to work, would that completely end Stagflation and end the Recession????


This isn’t some socialist conspiracy, this is totally sound economics that would equate to capitalism made right…. But, unfortunately, one single industry was able to infect the minds of everyone from the workers to the leaders that this is not only bad but is a dangerous threat to our way of life… Get real.