Waterloo

Jim DeMint was right, the health care reform bill has been Obama’s Waterloo, Good Ole Boy Jim just didn’t realize that Obama was playing the part of Wellington and the GOP were Napoleon.

Heh, heh.

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Krugman on Health Care

Image by Taekwonweirdo via Flickr

On his own blog Krugman has a post called Health Reform Myths. He addresses the myths and knocks them down - easily. It's easy to do because all of the complaints the right has raised are non-existant. In other words, they are lying.

All they want to do is have Obama fail and they don't want any kind of health care reform anyway, so they lie in order to get their ignorant base all riled up over things that doesn't exist. They think they have succeeded because the polls show a majority of Americans disapproving of the bill, but the fact is when parts of the bill are broken down and polled people like all the individual parts of it.

And a lot of those that don't like it are liberals who think it's a government give-away to health care insurance companies and is lacking a public option. But Krugman says this:

For a real piece of passable legislation, however, it looks very good. It wouldn’t transform our health care system; in fact, Americans whose jobs come with health coverage would see little effect. But it would make a huge difference to the less fortunate among us, even as it would do more to control costs than anything we’ve done before.

This is a reasonable, responsible plan. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

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Health Care Summit

Image by ~C4Chaos via Flickr

I thought this summit thing with the Republicans, Democrats and the President was going to be a farce and it pretty much was, but I was also pleasantly surprised. The one good thing about it was Obama’s performance. He was strong, decisive and in charge, it was clear he had - finally - taken over health care and was going to get it done, no more nonsense. We’ve only been waiting for a year for him to do that, with a lot of people saying he needed to grow a pair.

Well, today he did. He dominated the debate, clearly pushing the Republicans around. He called them all only by their first names, that was absolutely brilliant, McCain really didn't care for that at all. He let them know they were in the White House and he was the president and he trumps all of them. I’ve never seen him be so forceful and commanding before, good show.

And he would not let the Republicans get away with their usual talking points (lies). Every time they told their lies he corrected them, strongly. He was so strong he was barely being polite and made sure he got his point across that the Republican talking point was completely wrong. And he did it over and over again. I’ve been wanting the Democrats in general to do that for years, instead they always just let the Republicans win the propaganda war.

One part that really stood out was when one idiot Republican kept saying how Congress should have high deductible insurance plans along with Health Savings Accounts, that way they would have skin in the game and be more responsible in their health care choices, implying that it would work well for America, too. Obama said that’s easy for him to say because he makes $160,000 a year, but that idea just isn’t viable to the farmer making $40,000 a year. The IR (Idiot Republican) came back and tried to make the point again and Obama slapped him down again and did it several times. The IR came across as this rich guy completely out of touch with 95% of the American public (because he was) while, for the first time since his Inauguration, I saw Obama acting as a true, and impassioned, advocate for the working man, for the struggling middle class. Instead of a supporter of the corporations.

At the end Obama gave a little speech to the press, the gist of which was he appeared to realize that the Republicans were never going to support the health bill, that it wasn’t in their political self-interest to do so. It’s about time he gave up on his idea of bi-partisanship. I’m feeling more hopeful in regards to both Obama and health care reform than I have at any point up until now. It finally looked like he understood the situation and knew what he had to do to get things done.

Hope I’m right this time.

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That is the god-damned death panel, Sarah Palin!

Keith Olbermann said that on his Special Comment last night. He did a brilliant one on health care once again about his dad. He speaks about it the way only one who has gone through it could and I was in tears by the end of it. It was all familiar to me, hell, I even understood most of the medical terminology and procedures he talked about. Anyone who thinks this is hyperbole simply hasn’t been through it, especially with a loved one that you know is going to die, you just don’t know when.

Keith’s theme this time was the death panels the Right has been going on and on about. He had long talks with his dad about what he wanted and with his dad’s doctors, so everyone knew Keith had final say and what his dad’s wishes were. This is what those so-called death panels are, a chance to pay the doctor for having these very necessary discussions. He called these Life Panels. Keith said having all this squared away was the only feeling of comfort he had in the whole thing and that the real death panels were already happening when the insurance companies deny coverage that will save someone’s life.

I know Darcy and I - and her doctor - had these discussions, and I had fully expected for the last 16 years that someday I’d have to step in and tell them to disconnect the breathing machine and pull the intubation tube. I saw my roll as coming in to rescue her from a medical profession that is unable to let someone die when that is the better choice. Darcy’s greatest fear was being on intubation in a nursing home indefinitely.

Keith said that his out of pocket expenses were higher for HIM than they were for his dad because Dad had Medicare. The same was true of Darcy, no treatment was ever denied to her because she was on Medicare, in fact, according to her email lung-buddies it was all the people with private insurance who had nothing but problems and had to fight with those companies constantly. Let me assure you that fighting with your insurance company when you’ve just been diagnosed with a fatal disease is horrible. This idea of “socialized medicine” being a big boogie man is pure bullshit and designed to push people’s buttons, to get irrational, emotional reactions from them. Most of the people crying about socialism don’t even know what it is.

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Keith and Health care

Keith Olbermann did another Special Comment, really laying it on the line about the anemic health care bill as it currently stands.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Public Option

This commercial, starring Heather Graham and narrated by Peter Coyote, is the best one I've seen. Very funny and entertaining, yet the imagery truly captures what it is all about. It makes you feel it, which is something often lacking on the left. We get the intellectual bits but not the emotional ones.

Countdown and Health Care

Keith did a full one hour special comment on health care that was very powerful, had me in tears by the end of it. So beware of the video below, it's an hour long (minus commercial time).

You can find them in smaller chunks on the website as well as a transcript to download: Countdown.

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We're Number 37

That's our standing in the world as far as health care, yeah USA!! But the important thing is that the multimillionaire health care CEO's get their profits, even if you have to die to get them. We DEMAND to be #37 and to give huge profits to insurance companies! We are marching in the streets for that.

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The Real Death Panels

Countdown has the story of where the real death panels are, and they already exist today. It's our insurance companies. Research shows that in California alone 22% of medical claims get rejected. How many of those 22% died or went bankrupt from medical expenses no one can afford? No way to know but I know a few people personally, so it happens. The irony is that what the righties are calling "Obama Care" will actually save the lives of those rejected by their own insurance companies. Most of what they say about Obama Care is already true with private insurance. You have an insurance company bureaucrat between you and your doctor and your care is rationed by them. Not based on medical reasons but based purely on trying to make millions of dollars for the insurance companies. Anywhere else if you did not receive the product you have been paying for it would be fraud.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Story of Aetna

Aetna was your average billion dollar health insurance company, but they wanted more. So they brought in a guy named Ron Williams to be the new CEO in 2006. Let’s look at some numbers, shall we?

In 2005, the company had $1.1 billion in earnings.
Aetna's 2007 revenue, reported in 2008, was $27.6 billion.
Aetna's 2008 revenue, reported in 2009, was $31 billion.

Wow!! That was some leap, huh? Bet you wish you had bought Aetna stock back in 2005. How did Ron Williams achieve this phenomenal growth to increase revenue by $26.5 billion in a single year?

He looked at who they were insuring. Any individuals who were costing them a lot of money they got rid of any way they could. Now that’s the American way, isn’t it? Have someone pay lots of money for years, possibly decades, then when it’s time to give them the very thing they had been paying for all this time, cut them loose!! Business as usual or a massive fraud?

Groups were more difficult, they can’t just toss out individuals in groups, that’s kind of the point after all. So Ron looked at which groups were costing Aetna the most money and canceled entire groups. This means entire companies lost their health care because too many of them actually needed that health care the company had been paying for.

So when Ron had trimmed out all the expensive - i.e. sick - people and groups profits went up, so did the stock prices of the company and so did Ron’s bonus checks. He made many millions, all of it by denying health care to sick people. A lot of them probably have died, certainly all suffered some tough times but what the hell, that’s just business and that is what America is all about, right?

He also raised the premiums everyone was paying and cut back on what was covered. Sometimes they get sneaky, they cover drugs but only generics, you'd have to read carefully to catch that one. And they were very careful about only bringing in new people who were healthy. The big one is pre-existing conditions, keeps lots and lots of the very people who need health care the most from getting it, they are the ones forced to go to ER's when something serious could have been prevented by regular visits to their doctor, but they don't have doctors. They can't even pay for the ER visit but hospitals are required by law to treat people when it's an emergency. The hospitals make up the loses by charging more for insured people because that bill will be paid. So everyone's insurance keeps going up because costs keep going up. Don't want to pay for someone else? Guess what, you already are, at the highest possible rate because you are paying for the most expensive medical care there is, ER visits.

Certainly couldn’t be any worse than evil socialism like they have in Canada and Europe - right?

For the record people in those countries would be horrified by this story and it would make them even more thankful they don’t have an American-style health care plan than they already are. And believe me, they ARE already thankful.

In 1993 health insurance companies paid out $.95 in actual health care for every dollar they took in. In 2007 the average is now $.79 for every dollar. Have that go up by a penny and the company’s stock price will fall, have it go down by a penny and stocks will rise. A company’s only motivation today is to pay as little in actual health care as possible.

Nothing personal, just business. Perhaps health care shouldn’t be business as usual? Perhaps profit isn’t the most important thing in the world. I wonder how many people will call me socialist because of that one sentence?

The Public Health Care Option

Image via Wikipedia

Well, it looks like Obama and the Democrats are going to let us all down again, no single payer plan will even be talked about, they are just going to try and have a public option. This means that most likely people will be able to sign up for Medicare since that is already in place.

Darcy had Medicare and she got the best treatment of any of her online lung buddies, who were all told their private insurance didn't cover organ transplants. Darcy never had a problem getting anything covered in 16 years while her friends had to fight tooth and nail over and over again just to stay alive - and not all of them succeeded.

The idiot Republicans keep trying to stop a public option while telling all of us how horrible government run health care is. What are they worried about? If government health care was so bad they should welcome the public option so we can all experience how bad it is. If the Republicans are even slightly right then all a public option would do is let private insurance win the competition hands down and end the argument.

So why aren't they all for it? Because they are lying like crazy and every one of them knows it. They know that the public option will blow private insurers out of the water, that over time everyone will get tired of paying big bucks for inferior care and will move over to Medicare and all those fabulously wealth CEO's of private insurance companies will lose their billions of dollars in bonuses and salaries.

Yes, it's true. They are willing to let you and everyone else who can't afford health insurance die from cancer and a dozen other serious illnesses, and let everyone else pay for the most expensive health care in the world, just so their friends can make some big bucks and will then give some to them as campaign contributions. 20,000 people die every year in this country because they don't have insurance and it's been happening for nearly 20 years, since the last time they pulled the wool over the public's eyes and shot down health care reform in 1993. All that blood and suffering is on their hands. And you know what? They are laughing all the way to the bank. Laughing at all of the public who fell for their crap last time and will do so again this time.

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The Defining Moment

Cover via AmazonJonathan Alter, who has been on Countdown and Rachel Maddow Show often as well as on many progressive radio shows, wrote a book called "The Defining Moment: Franklin Roosevelt and the First Hundred Days". It's been said that Obama read the book several times and was very impressed, and he has used the phrase "This Is The Defining Moment" several times.

This is something I've wanted to see, that Obama realized that we are in a situation eerily similar to when FDR entered the presidency in 1932. It's important because FDR gave us 50 years of prosperity and a large middle class for the very first time. It only started falling apart when Reagan came into office and started dismantling all of it, which has led us directly to where we are now.

My favorite economist Paul Krugman wrote a long article on this called "What Obama Must Do" and brought up what FDR did. Image by Getty Images via DaylifeBut he had more detail:

The last president to face a similar mess was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and you can learn a lot from his example. That doesn't mean, however, that you should do everything FDR did. On the contrary, you have to take care to emulate his successes, but avoid repeating his mistakes.

He then goes on to say that creating universal health care would be his biggest legacy:

Back in 1993, when the Clintons tried and failed to create a universal health care system, Republican strategists like William Kristol (now my colleague at The New York Times) urged their party to oppose any reform on political grounds; they argued that a successful health care program, by conveying the message that government can actually serve the public interest, would fundamentally shift American politics in a progressive direction. They were right — and the same considerations that made conservatives so opposed to health care reform should make you determined to make it happen.

Think for a moment about what Kristol said - they should oppose health care not because it is bad for America but because it is good for America. It would destroy their myth of government always bad and turn us in a proghressive path. He was perfectlyt willing to let people die due to lack of health care in order to advance the Republican political agenda. This is why I call Republicans evil.

Universal health care, then, should be your biggest priority after rescuing the economy. Providing coverage for all Americans can be for your administration what Social Security was for the New Deal. But the New Deal achieved something else: It made America a middle-class society. Under FDR, America went through what labor historians call the Great Compression, a dramatic rise in wages for ordinary workers that greatly reduced income inequality. Before the Great Compression, America was a society of rich and poor; afterward it was a society in which most people, rightly, considered themselves middle class. It may be hard to match that achievement today, but you can, at least, move the country in the right direction.

What caused the Great Compression? That's a complicated story, but one important factor was the rise of organized labor: Union membership tripled between 1935 and 1945. Unions not only negotiated better wages for their own members, they also enhanced the bargaining power of workers throughout the economy. At the time, conservatives warned that wage gains would have disastrous economic effects — that the rise of unions would cripple employment and economic growth. But in fact, the Great Compression was followed by the great postwar boom, which doubled American living standards over the course of a generation.

So we need health care and robust unions, the very things Republicans fight tooth and nail to stop. I very much recommend reading all of Krugman's article. It is long but easy to read and chock full of details. You will understand just how bad off we really are right now and what needs to be done to fix it.

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Divided We Fail

This is something from AARP where they are trying to end partisanship in the federal government. They want Democrats and Republicans to work together for common goals. Here is what they say their goals are:

We believe that access to health care and long-term financial security are basic needs that all Americans share.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it? All of us united in doing the best for our country and the people in it. There is one basic flaw in that reasoning - the entire reason we don’t have universal health care or financial security right now is because the Republicans have been fighting it tooth and nail for the last 40 years. How do you ally yourself with the very people who have caused this problem in the first place?

The Republicans’ big break came with Ronald Reagan, he launched modern Republicanism and it has culminated in it’s highest form with George Bush. The main principal of this movement? Funnel wealth upwards from the poor and middle class to the top one percent. And they have been doing it, it’s accomplished because all they have to do it yell “The Democrat will raise your taxes” and people get upset. No one don’t even bothers to check out if it’s true or false, it’s like a little panic button the Republicans have been hitting for so long it’s now become automatic.

Bush lowered your taxes (although he lowered them more for the wealthy). Has this made you better off? The price of gas alone negates whatever small tax cuts you might have gotten and that is just one thing, there are many, many more things that have cost you dearly. And it is so much better having your money going to Exxon than the government, right? The dollar is now worth one third less than what it was when Bush came into office, this means everything from overseas now costs more so prices are rising everywhere because we no longer manufacture anything in this country.

Another beauty of a scheme, Reagan lowered regulations that prevented corporations from moving their operations overseas for the very cheap labor and lack of unions, so all the corps did just that, now that the dollar has dropped they are making even more because all overseas holdings have increased in value and they get more money for all imports.

And with everyone scared about losing their jobs and health insurance - or actually losing them, we are too poor and desperate on a daily basis to make a fuss and fight back. So very few marches and protests these days, and when there are the media, all owned by corporations, don’t cover it.

Bottom line is there can’t be any unity - unity just means we will be screwed again because the Republicans are responsible for the way things are right now. They will continue to fight against the very things we want to the bitter end. The only hope we have to bring back a strong middle class in this country is to get rid of the Republicans and put in Democrats. Sure, Democrats are flawed but they are all we have to work with. Even minor changes in the laws can make huge differences in the American way of life, which is rapidly disappearing. Another 4 years of a Republican President will end the American Experiment in Liberty and doom us to being a third world country for decades to come.

Worse Than 9/11

We are in the middle of a holocaust yet few seem very concerned, especially those in government who can actually do something about it. Here is a story from California Healthline:

The report estimates that 19,900 Californians between ages 25 and 64 died because of a lack of health insurance between 2000 and 2006 (Families USA release, 4/3). The report estimated that 3,100 adult Californians died in 2006 because they were uninsured and either could not pay for the necessary care or received treatment too late.

3,100 dead in California alone just in the year 2006. That's equal to the toll of 9/11 but no one seems to care. This happens every year and in every state so 3,100 barely scratches the surface. Where is the outrage? Where are the annual memorials? Where are the troops, taking revenge and making sure this can't ever happen again?

And isn't it ironic that we can't do anything about this but we CAN spend $341.4 million per day in Iraq. Why? The answer is simple, guys like George Bush don't care about the little people. Those who claim to not believe in evolution DO believe in social evolution, that the fit survive. Which means if you can't afford health insurance you deserve to die.

And the worst part of it all is that a large portion of America has bought this absurdity. It's better to spend all our resources killing Iraqis than taking care of our own. But mention 9/11 and these hypocrites turn into drama queens.

Walmart - The Worst

On Keith Olbermann's Worst Person's last night he gave the gold to Walmart for a truly unbelievable story. It seems one of their employees, Deborah Shank, got into a bad car accident and received brain damage so bad she is in a nursing home for the rest of her life and has no memory past the most recent minutes. She had insurance at Walmart and the bills were paid. The family sued the driver and was rewarded $470,000. Walmart then turned around and sued Deborah Shank to get the money to cover her medical expenses, they won and got the money back so now Deborah Shank's husband has to struggle to pay her outrageous medical bills.

Now let's be clear here, although this sounds about as awful as it can be Walmart has done nothing illegal or unusual - whether or not it is right goes to the heart of the greedy and corrupt culture that now exists in America, profits over people is the new golden rule. It is standard practice that money rewarded in a law suit for medical bills goes to the insurance company that paid those bills while the suit was ongoing. If you have medical insurance this will be in your contract somewhere.

And it gets worse, Deborah's son was killed in Iraq last week.

This is all over the news yet Walmart, as usual, has a tin ear for what is going on. People who hear this story say they will never shop in a Walmart again. This doesn't affect me as I already don't shop at Walmart and haven't for years and don't intend to ever do so. It is amazing that Walmart cannot see that to give the woman back her money would be the cheapest positive publicity they ever had. They don't want to set a precedent, you see. If they give the money back in one case suddenly anyone that this has ever happened to at Walmart will demand their money back and will have a case. It might actually cost them a couple of million dollars and your low prices will go right out the window and we can't have that now can we? And just imagine how many poor children will be out of work in China if Walmart has to cut back on their orders.

Keith put them in Worst Person's again tonight and says he will continue to do so. He must like tilting at windmills.

In 2007, the retail giant reported net sales in the third quarter of $90 billion.

Hell of a Day

That was yesterday and it isn't going to get any better for days. If I was a superstitious man I'd say the universe was out to get us and Darcy agreed that it sure seemed like that. For the 6 months when she was mostly in the hospital and we weren't sure if she would live annoying crap kept happening, exactly when we (mostly me) didn't want to deal with it. Things like my very reliable Camry breaking down twice, which makes 3 times in the 11 years I've had it. And 3 or 4 annoying things would happen every week.

Yesterday was a doozie. Started out with Darcy waking up with a bad tooth-ache. She's had this for over a week and has been taking Amoxicillin, because she's immune compromised such things can be very dangerous. We went to the dentist last Monday and he couldn't find the infection. He thought the anti-biotic had taken care of it and it would just go away. So waking up with it swollen and hurting on Sunday was bad, especially since she had to be in the hospital Monday morning for an operation. So we went to the dentist's office and saw another of the 20 dentists they had there (I really hated the place as soon as we saw it). After waiting 2 hours the dentist comes in, takes one look at the x-rays, the very same ones the other doc saw on Monday, and immediately said she had a massive infection in a tooth that had a root canal done to it. That it called for major surgery because it was in the bone. At this point all we know is that one of these dentists is completely incompetent but don't know which one. Probably be both.

Earlier in the day we got a call from the home where my mom is staying, saying she went to the dentist with a tooth ache but it was so bad he sent her to the hospital for oral surgery. ARRGGHH!

Back to Darcy's dentist, who now refuses to operate until she has Darcy's doc sign off on it because she has so many serious conditions. This is standard procedure and Darcy had told them to get that last Monday when we were first in but the doc said he didn't need it and they hadn't done anything. I'm holding my temper, all I want at this point is to get out and never set foot in there again but Darcy is chewing them out big time. Her closing shot was “If anything bad happens it's your fault.” When we got to the car a little old Asian lady had followed us out and in broken English tried to say it was our fault they didn't have her doctor's permission to operate. At which point I lost it and started screaming at her at the top of my lungs, this didn't faze her at all and she just kept trying to insist it was our fault not theirs and I just drove off with her still talking. Her son must own the place.

So here it is Monday morning and Darcy has to head over at 7am to get her arm operated on, which should have been done 2 months ago but the docs blew it. They had put a fistula in her arm for the dialysis, but it needed 6 weeks to grow and they went ahead with emergency dialysis by putting a plastic tube down a vein in her neck. This is bad because it is more prone to infection than the fistula but we had no choice. By the end of November the vein surgeon wanted to operate again and move the fistula to a better position. It had already been 6 weeks at that point, now it's 2 months later and we'll have to wait for this operation to heal and the whole idea had been to get off the plastic tube as soon as humanly possible.

And I forgot to mention that when I went to turn the TV on so I could record the playoff games our very expensive HDTV was dead. This is a problem because the thing weighs a ton, I can't even lift half of it, it takes 2 VERY strong guys to move it with difficulty. In the meantime we can't watch any of our recorded shows and sitting down to watch TV at night is our time together since even going out to dinner is a major effort. The shows will keep recording and our DVR will just start erasing older shows automatically as the hard drive gets filled to capacity. And who the hell needs to deal with this now!

My mom, as of last night, was resting comfortably but one side of her face was swollen up. Her doc is Dr. Saran and I said that I hope he can wrap this up quickly. Darcy didn't laugh, she thinks the love of puns is a basic, male genetic flaw. But I'm going to have to go over to her hospital after Darcy gets out of surgery - they are going to keep her overnight - Darcy that is, Mom has already been kept overnight.

And I'm pretty sure a couple of emergency rushes are supposed to come in today at work. I'm sure they will call me when that happens.

Health Care

Here is a story on American Prospect by Ezra Klein. Supposed to be about Hillary but seems to be more about Edwards. He says we have Edwards to thank for getting Obama and Hillary to come out with health insurance plans as far towards universal coverage as they have. Without him they would have been much more timid. One of the reasons I support Edwards:

Edwards was perhaps an unlikely candidate to push the health care conversation forward. In 2004, his primary campaign released a plan that didn't even pretend to cover every America -- it sought little more than coverage for kids. But freed from the (partly self-imposed) strictures of his 2004 role as the southern moderate, Edwards' 2008 campaign has been far bolder in its policy. Exhibit A is his health care plan, released long before that of any other major candidate, which achieves full coverage, offers a public insurance option, regulates the insurers, and much more. It is easily the most impressive health care reform proposal adopted by a national Democrat in 15 years.

I saw him speak about health care at one of the debates and he was very passionate about it and seems to really understand what the problems are and the cost in money, suffering and lives with our current health care system. How much any candidate can do remains to be seen, I think a lot of that will depend on how many Democrats get elected to congress.

Hillary Health Care

My friend, Long Live the Village Green has a post about Hillary's new health care plan. Like most of us she is still trying to figure it out because many things aren't spelled out:

At lunch I checked my Faithless (Atheist and Agnostic) Group email and found a posting from one of our members about Hillary Clinton's newly revealed health plan. He was outraged. In his words, "This isn't universal health care, this is mandatory health insurance. Health insurance is not health care. Millions of people who have insurance aren't getting the health care they require because the insurance companies decide what gets covered. And this nation values the private sanctity of the insurance companies more than health care."

I'm on that same list and share those concerns but supposedly part of her plan is government subsidies to the insurance companies to make sure the cost of insurance is reasonable. Also she has the option of joining Medicare, which I think must be either free or low cost, but she doesn't say. There is something about insurance payments always being a percentage of your income.

Hillary may not have the best plan but any step to universal health care in this country is a good one. And for those who think the government can only be terrible with these things I have to point out my wife Darcy. Diagnosed with a fatal lung disease 14 years ago and needing a transplant, she had to go on Medicare. She was part of an online group of people waiting for lungs and the stories of all of them were terrible. Every single time those with private insurance were initially turned down for the transplant. Some would just give up at that point and die, others would fight and most of the time would finally get approval, but a fight with your insurance company is the last thing someone with a fatal illness should have the face.

But Darcy was the only one who didn't have any problems, because she had Medicare - government insurance. Those who think private insurance will work better than the government has never had to put their insurance to the test.

After the transplant there are tons of very expensive drugs one has to take, totaling around $5,000 per month, far beyond what any working person can afford. Once again, Darcy had no problem but those with private insurance got messed with every step of the way. One had her insurance company sold to an HMO who only allowed a limit of $250 a month for meds. She's dead now.

This is the concern of the writer above, it is still private insurance and they will still try to get out of having to pay for anything expensive. There has a to be a way around that.

SICKO

Michael Moore's new movie opened yesterday, I hope everyone goes to see it, health care is the worst crisis we face in America today.

Here's his site:
An Awesome First Night for "Sicko"

And here my friend Long Live the Village Green does a review:
Long Live the Village Green

Because Darcy's been sick for the past 14 years I've had a lot of experience with health care. She gets Medicare and Medi-cal, do I have horror stories? You bet, but none are as bad as the people she's emailed with who have had the same lung disease. All those people had private insurance and not one of them got approved for a lung transplant. Some fought hard and finally got one, some just gave up and died, when you have a fatal lung disease it can be hard to get yourself into the fray. One did OK because she was rich, she signed a guarantee of payment with the hospital then hired her lawyer to sue the insurance company, after which they were happy to insure her.

I haven't seen the movie, Darcy's been sick all day, we never get out to the movies any more. We'll see it on DVD.