For the People: A Mercy Killing.
In several conversations about health care legislation over the course of the past year, I argued for taking whatever we could get. I reasoned that a defeat now would likely be a defeat forever, as national health care would face its second consecutive failure under its second consecutive Democratic president, and would strengthen the argument that the people of the U.S. would never accept national socialized medical care. I have theorized that the smallest victory now would establish a base camp of sorts that future legislators could work to move toward more all-encompassing health care coverage.
Today, I am of a different mind. The health “insurance reform” that the Senate has crapped out is a vile, dishonest rape of the notion that Americans will see any sort of relief from the corporate, for-profit machinery of the insurance industry. The bill must die.
President Obama’s stated desire for a reform of our health care system was predicated on the belief that no person in America, the richest country in the world, should go without needed medical care. No person should be unable to afford that care, and no person should be made poor by paying for care. Those ideas are sensible and obvious, and I don’t understand how so many people have been convinced to argue against them, but we’re now beyond that point of the conversation.
Our elected representatives have done our country a great disservice in moving to finalize this piece of legislation. Through gross campaigns of misinformation on one side of the aisle and spineless, cowardly compromise on the other, Congress has boldly pledged its allegiance to the true enemy of the American people, corporate industry.
Three crucial points have been conceded to the insurance industry that completely undermine the heart of the reform originally verbalized by the president.
First and foremost, the complete elimination of a government-run public option guarantees that insurance companies will face no outside pressure to keep costs low and offer substantial coverage. The notion that these companies will compete with one another to control costs is absurd, and fails completely when one realizes that bigger companies will merely buy up the weaker companies until we are left with only two or three mega-corps, completely in control of the entire industry.
Second, the refusal to allow Americans to buy FDA-approved drugs from outside the U.S. at lower costs benefits no one except pharmaceutical companies collecting astronomical profits by overcharging U.S. consumers. Our lawmakers have effectively stated that they know Americans are being grossly overcharged, and they are o.k. with that.
Third, allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines will allow those companies to relocate their corporate headquarters to states with corporate-friendly laws and fewer consumer protections. This provides the insurance industry with another layer of armor to protect against customer complaints and legal action.
The only winner if this law goes through is the insurance industry. They get 30 million new customers, by law. The winner if this law doesn’t go through? It’s still the insurance industry, as they continue doing business as usual, maximizing profit by minimizing the money they spend to heal people. The loss in either scenario is reserved for the people, as we continue to pay top dollar for what we have now or the less-regulated, more expensive, weaker coverage that they’re allowed to sell us once they’ve been “reformed”.
This reform bill is a slap in the face. I no longer feel that we can move forward taking anything that we can get. The United States could and should have a national single-payer health care system for all of its citizens. We’re not going to get it right now, but it doesn’t mean that we should let Congress get away with bending us over and violating our trust. We must hope that some of the Congressional progressives show mercy on the American people and kill the proposal. If the loss now equates to a loss forever, I sadly accept that loss. A victory under the currently proposed terms is a more insidious defeat.
Jake Negovan strives to shine a light on truth and hypocrisy when the mainstream media overlooks those small details. “…For the People,” Jake’s column, is his platform to address the issues that our country faces as we continue growing toward a society of equality.
