Is the bill going to go through?
Or has the hysteria and propaganda effectively worked?
It's working far too well for comfort. A coworker just the other day started talking about Palin's "death panels;" she said that they may not
call it a death panel, but there will be a decision made on how long to continue care.
She's right - except the decision will be made by the patient, their family, and their doctor, like it always has. Nobody, anywhere, at all, is actually proposing euthanasia or refusing life-extending treatment or treatment to reduce suffering.
All of the lies about wait times (we have wait times now, too) or reduced coverage (awfully hard to argue with a public option, since all it can do is raise coverage to a minimum level while everyone who wants private coverage can act like nothing happened) continue to sway the unthoughtful.
The level of untruth being spread around in "they'll kill your grandmother" ads and the like is absolutely staggaring, as is the effort being put into disrupting any outlet that could clear up such distortions and lies. The town hall meetings have so far been a mass of screaming with very little actual debate.
People are afraid, really. Half of the country doesn't think there's a real problem, except that their premiums have gone up in the past few years. The lie that the US has the best healthcare in the world is still believed even by people who should know better.
It could go either way. Personally, I'm more worried that the bill will pass in such a mangled state that we'll actually mess things up
worse. No public option, but with mandatory coverage for all - the health insurer's wet dream as every person in the country is forced by law to buy insurance from them.
The facts of healthcare in the US are pretty dismal.
Despite all of the talk about "competition," the fact is most people with health insurance have little or no choice in their provider; their employer makes that decision for them. I was able to choose between two carriers with two levels of coverage from each with my employer. Private insurance away from an employer is a joke - it's far too expensive (and in my case not an option - my girlfriend has a pre-existing condition that will automatically get her rejected with a private plan, so I had to add her on my insurance as a domestic partner).
I pay almost 10% of my
gross income for health coverage for myself and my girlfriend. Since she's a Domestic Partner, the portion I
and my employer pay for her are taxable. Every quarter, I pay about another $200 or so in taxes to cover my employer's portion. That's before any actual trips to the doctor; premiums only. We pay almost another $100 monthly in prescriptions, plus regular $20 copays for doctor visits.
People with pre-existing conditions are regularly refused coverage. In many cases, insurers will deny coverage that is supposed to be covered because it cuts into their profits. If you have HIV/AIDS, you'd better find a local charity or other program set up to help you. Private insurance will be far too expensive if they'll take you at all. Here in California, there are government programs that help HIV/AIDS patients with their drug costs. These government programs don't exist everywhere; people right now, today, die due to lack of coverage because they cannot afford necessary medical care (I use HIV/AIDS as an example because someone close to me has the disease and so I've seen a lot of it for myself; I imagine many other serious conditions are similar).
Hospitals are forced to give lifesaving treatments to the uninsured, but they don't have to do anything preventative. In other words, they'll save your life if you have a heart attack, but they won't do anything about the underlying condition unless you pay.
Many people are underinsured and don't even realize it. Their coverage doesn't provide enough - it just makes them think they're safe. In some cases couples have had to divorce, because one partner was being hounded so badly by medical collections agencies that only by dividing their income through divorce could they retain their assets.
Our healthcare decisions are already made by beaurocrats, except these beaurocrats' motivation is profit, not your health. There are
worse than death panels right now - Sarah Palin may be able to afford treatment and care for her disabled child for the rest of his life, but that's nto the case with most children with developmental disabilities. What do you think happens after the parents can no longer afford treatment, or die?
We need a public option. Personally, I'd rather nationalize all of the healthcare providers and set up a single-payer system, turning what citizens and employers pay now as premiums into taxes (and raising them as necessary) to cover everyone in the country. It shouldn't cost $20,000 to have a baby. People shouldn;t have to worry about healthcare if they get laid off, or feel forced to remain with an employer because they can't afford the 6-month wait for a new employer's benefits to kick in. People shouldn't die becasue they couldn't afford lifesaving treatments.
Private insurance is a protection racket in the US: pay us, or you're going to die. It's an inherently predatory and broken system if the goal is increasing the health and wellbeing of the population.
In the US, we have adequate healthcare - as long as you have the money to pay for it.
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