In its latest and desperate attempts to kill off health care reform, insurance industry lobbyists will unleash $1 million in HCR attack ads over the next few days. This is $1 million, by the way, that could be put to far better use such as funding treatments for patients. But who cares about patients?
The ads, which will run on cable, will focus on "setting the record straight about rising health care costs" as the Obama administration goes after big insurers for raising insurance rates.
I betcha the industry's attempts to set the record straight will be a verbatim replay of last summer's fear fest frenzies that were ginned up by the health industry lobbyists and its go to politicians. Why is it that the fear fests surrounding health care reform remind me of another orchestrated event called Iraq?
Fear coupled with deception.
Health insurance CEOs take home record profits while volunteer groups of doctors and nurses will roll up their sleeves to clean out animal stalls, if need be, to set up free health clinics in Republican held states that are hell holes for the jobless and uninsured.
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At least in Texas the city of Houston, in no small part due to Bill White's efforts, had the decency to offer the volunteer doctors and nurses use of a humane, comfortable and clean facility at which they could treat patients in desperate need of care. Despite Bill White's efforts in Houston, however, much of Texas is yet another shining example of a Republican mandated hell hole for the jobless and uninsured.
President Barack Obama is not giving up on health care reform. Unlike most politicians who are elected to serve the people instead of themselves and their sugar daddies, Obama stepped up for those who voted for him. He thumbed his nose at the political risk, the polls, the pundits and 24/7 cable TV with it's plethora of corporate sponsored and crazed wingnut talk shows.
While teabaggers and Republicans have allowed themselves to be manipulated by the sharks who do the heavy lifting for the health care industry CEOs, their bonuses and profit margins, Democrats and others have had it and we are as angry as hell.
We are sick of getting denied the care our premiums are supposed to pay for. We are tired of getting gouged with annual increases because the insurance companies are far more concerned about their profit lines than they are the health of their clients. There is a reason why the expression death by the spreadsheet exists. We are sick to death of the increases in co-pays for both care and prescription drugs. We are infuriated when we realize that a portion of our premiums are siphoned off by lobbying firms whose main purpose is to work for the industry profits and against the health care needs of we the insured patients.
The sharks have so successfully distracted and scared the teabaggers with the notion of the big bad, evil government run health care system that these folks don't realize by opposing health care reform they are opposing their own health care needs and pocket books. Why Republicans and teabaggers think it is OK for the health insurance companies to rob them blind and deny them care whenever whenever it suits their bottom line is beyond my realm of understanding.
In Washington D.C. today thousands rallied against the health care industry outside the Ritz Carlton where the industry's fat cats held a meeting.
Among the protesters was Lillian Allen, a 101-year-old woman from Pittsburgh who is passionate about health care reform. Allen, a regular on the D.C. health care protest scene, told HuffPost: "Everybody ought to have health insurance. What would I do if I didn't have it? I wouldn't be turning 102 in April."
A physician supports the big bad bogeyman called the Public Option. Heaven forbid! The good doctor must be a communist! Or is he a fascist? Or is he a Nazi? To a teabagger he would be all of the above and a socialist to boot.
"I know it from both sides; the system's broken," said Terence Gerace, a doctor and cancer survivor from Washington. "It's a for-profit system. A significant amount of cost goes to executives, and not the providers, and it needs to be rectified. It's an immoral system as it currently stands." Gerace said that at one point he was charged $6,000 for a minor medical test. "The public option is the best way to keep the companies more honest and more competitive," he said.
People are not pre-existing conditions.
Paul Shenkyr, 51, carried a homemade sign reading "My Daughter Is Not a Pre-Existing Condition." He told HuffPost: "I'm here trying to make it difficult for insurance executives to have a meeting. They like to deny health care to people who are pregnant, among others. What kind of a policy is that?"
Imagine the notion of altruism. Republicans and its teabagger wing will have to look up altruism in the dictionary.
A number of protesters said they were content with their current health coverage, but were marching for those who are less fortunate. Ralph Miller, a Vietnam Veteran and D.C. resident, is covered by insurance for veterans as well as federal employees.
"The V.A. program is a really great program. They do a great job," he said. "It makes it kind of strange to hear that government can't run health care programs when they've got Medicare and V.A. going, and those are two of the greatest programs around." Miller was marching for people who aren't covered. "I'd like to see something good for them."
Of course the Billionaires for Wealth Care were on the scene.
A colorful group of mock counter-protesters stood outside of the Ritz dressed in suits and ball gowns. Part of "Billionaires for Wealth Care," they held signs that merely praised the status quo.
"We hate the public option because that would force us to compete," said a man who identified himself as "Max Profit". He was joined by his friends: "Rob Patient", "Zee Roe Compassion" and "Heidi Ductable." "In several markets, there is a near oligarchy with just a couple of insurance companies with 90% of the market share and we love it that way," Profit said.
Comedians joined the average everyday person to protest the oligarchy and fight for the millions of Americans who have no health care coverage.
I wonder what it would take for a Republican to grow a heart?
Thanks to Democrats, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius walked into the lion's den itself. Today she is speaking at the AHIP meeting.
Sebelius to the fat cats:
When Americans have so few choices, can you blame them for being frustrated when their premiums go up ten times faster than the cost of health care? Imagine how folks in Illinois might feel after opening the newspaper to see that profits for major insurance companies went up 56 percent last year only to get a letter the next day saying their premiums are going up by double digits? Can you blame them for thinking the system's broken when their health insurance - which is supposed to protect them from exorbitant health costs - still forces them to pay thousands of dollars out of their pocket each year?
A choice to make.
"So you have a choice.
You can choose to continue your opposition to reform. If you do and reform goes down in defeat, we know what will happen. By next March, premiums will be taking an even bigger bite out of Americans' wages. More Americans will lose the security of employer-sponsored insurance. More small businesses will be forced to shut down or cancel their employees' coverage. Parents and children with preexisting conditions will continue to be shut out of the insurance market. And Americans will continue to live in fear of the next letter from their insurer announcing the latest premium hike.
This strategy may work in the short run. I read that you've been advised that you may still be able to make money off the customers who are afraid to leave or who don't have other insurance options - at least for a while. But this kind of short-term thinking won't work in the long run for the American people or our health care system. It won't work for you.
Then there is your other choice.
You can choose to take the millions of dollars you have stored away for your next round of ads to kill meaningful reform, and use them to start giving Americans some relief from their skyrocketing premiums. Instead of spending your energy attacking the parts of the President's proposal you don't like, you can use it to strengthen the parts you do.
The outcome to this will be interesting to learn. At the very least the American people can know that a handful of politicians in Washington are looking out for us. All have a D behind their names.
By the way, a poll today reveals that only 4% of Americans do not want any change to the existing health care system.
