You Can Die so I Can Have a Mercedes

I’ve been watching the health care insurance reform circus going on in this country. I call it a circus because there just isn’t another word to describe it. And, the ringmaster is pretty much absent.

Why are we willing to spend millions to rescue a single American held hostage by pirates on the high seas, but we aren’t willing to save so many Americans here at home? Why aren’t we willing to try to make this work?

I wonder what these good senators and representatives are really thinking as they stand up and declare that they just can’t support a public option (a strong one) or reform at all. Is the money from the insurance companies so important? Is the job so important?

Is it more important than:
- the millions that do not have insurance?
- families that can’t afford a $50 antibiotic for a sick child until they are so ill that the only recourse for them is to go to an emergency room and spend thousands?
- a woman with breast cancer that is told her policy has been cancelled because she had allergies as a child or, heaven forbid, an abusive spouse broke her arm?
- A family forced into bankruptcy because the insurance decides treatment that has been accepted as standard for years is determined by their insurance company to be experimental?
- a small business owner has to discontinue health coverage for their employees because the cost of premiums over the last few years has quadrupled and eaten all profits?
- people are dying by the tens of thousands every year in this country because they just can’t afford or even get coverage?

Is any of that acceptable?

Is it acceptable to give the insurance companies and their shareholders more and more and more of this country’s wealth every year while telling millions we can’t afford for them to see a doctor? Isn’t it more cost effective to treat when it will cost only $100 instead of waiting until it will cost $3,000?

Is it acceptable that an American child, or any child, should be told that they need to die so that someone can have a Mercedes or a fat bonus? Apparently in this America, it is.




And now for something completely different…

There is an ad, actually two, about the proposed tax on juice drinks and soft drinks. This very severe looking woman is complaining about this tax on juice drinks (not juices) and soft drinks (you know, Pepsi, Coke, Dr. Pepper, etc.). She says that families are already having difficulties in the current economy, so the government shouldn’t be adding more taxes on such things.

Now, I might be wrong, but if people are having difficulties in this economy, why the hell is anyone buying any kind of drinks that are loaded with high fructose corn syrup, sugar, various artificial flavorings, colorings and preservatives? Give your family something real, like water, real juice or milk? What are they thinking other than hoping to make their families obese and/or diabetic?

Don’t they realize that they won’t be able to afford healthcare soon? It could quite possibly be that the consumption of juice drinks and sodas will be one of the new pre-existing conditions that will be used to deny healthcare coverage in the next couple of years. The questionnaire will include detailed questions about what you eat and drink and feed your kids. The big health insurance companies will file the information away and use it to deny coverage once you present with high blood sugar levels or your fat kids tip the scales at the 115 percentile.

Oops, too bad you didn’t want a public option. Too bad you shouted down health care reform. So sad.