Viewpoints: Letters / Opinions
The American Corporate Health Care Act
By Michael Spence
March 13, 2017
Monday AM
Today [Thursday] the Speaker of the House of the US Congress declared that the health care legislation he is promoting will face trouble in the senate if it is not passed as written.
What Mr Ryan is missing is the legislation he is promoting is going to meet with total revolt among the people of the United States. It is understandable that this should happen since he and others in their self-important marble tower offices in Washington DC are completely out of touch with the people they are supposed to represent.
The people of this nation have heard and seen the finger-pointing and childish accusations flow from the many attempts to discredit President Obama over Obamacare for eight years now. They have repeated those accusations and diatribes so many times that they somehow believe them. Protected by their own single-payer socialized medical care, they are ignorant of a whole nation out here that actually lives under the dark shroud of the privatized American health care system. What most Americans will know shortly, if they already do not, is that the worst aspects of the Affordable Care Act were created by the US Congress, not President Obama.
Our nation ranks below 30 other developed nations in longevity of its citizens. This, in large part because of the poor health care system we have. We have the largest GDP of any nation on earth, and 17 percent of it goes to the monstrosity created by our government for the health care of our people. Much if not all of the problem is the protectionist policies for health insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations in the USA, If the US Congress would simply have the backbone to open those industries to across-state and international competition, the American people would likely have better health care.
The Congress' latest effort repeats the self-congratulatory statement that the new health care act will save money. The only way it will save money is by having millions of Americans avoid health care altogether. As everyone except a few leaders in Washington DC knows, people who are young tend to have fewer ailments than older folks. The real disasters strike when those young people get older. So this latest effort is just another way to kick the can down the road while giving billions of dollars in market protection to a few rich insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
The American people are not amused! We are getting robbed by this system. People in most other developed nations of the world get PRIVATE health insurance at one tenth the cost of US private providers. In most of these nations the citizens do not know want the word deductible means, because they don't have any! In the United States, under the algorithms used by of corporate insurance companies, the deductibles will keep going up until all those companies do is collect premiums!
Pharmaceutical companies keep Congress under control with their propaganda about recovery of research and development costs. In the real world out side of Washington DC; car companies, computer companies, and many many others all have research and development costs. So why are those pharmaceutical corporations protected from International competition while other companies are not?
It is time for the US Congress to come out of their propaganda bubbles and face the reality that all the rest of us live with every day. Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Protectionism is a shame and an embarrassment to all Americans.
Michael Spence
Ketchikan, Alaska
Received March 09, 2017
- Published March 13, 2017
About: "a concerned citizen and longtime buyer of private health insurance"
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