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Sometimes, the most effective way to explain the need for a Government-paid health care system, for those who actually do not support, or understand, it, is not to tell why it would be better, but just to go over some of the outrageous practices that are typical right now, under the corporate-run system. Once you really think of the implications of the fact that the entire system is an investment opportunity, and that its sole motive is profit-making on its stocks, profit-making for all involved corporations, than you start to realize many of the situations that will never go away, and also understand the reason for so much of the corporate secrecy. One of the biggest things about the problem is, as many people (Dennis Kucinich, etc.) have mentioned, we actually already pay the exhorbitant rates of a world-class system of medical care--but we don't get it. We are only paying endless "fees," price-gouging, premiums, co-pays, "penalties," "processing fees," etc., etc., and it all goes to them.
Ted Kennedy, one of the great champions of health care reform, gave a speech several months ago, (on C-SPAN), about this issue. Apart from the huge waste of money spent on advertising and other attempts of corporations to destroy each other, and huge amounts wasted on executive pay, bonuses, investments that don't work, etc., part of the speech was on something Kennedy had investigated. It turns out, the insurance industry spends more money--by many times over--and has a larger staff of full-time lawyers, for the sole purpose of devising ways to DENY claims, than they do for paying all claims each year. A complete theft of millions of dollars, with no consequences!
Because it is a profit-making system, and not health care, we get countless diet drugs, "impotence" drugs, and sickening amounts of cosmetic plastic surgery, and no coverage at all for most plans, for dental care or mental health. Vital and necessary medical practices such as geriatric care are finding it hard to even find people to serve there, because it is so reliant on long-term relationships with patients, and not "glamour" careers, prestige, and quick-bucks for single surgeries. The proliferation of separate specialties, highly paid, sometimes threatens the patient's health, as these people are not coordinated and do not communicate information to each other. Under certain circumstances, it is hard to even find a general practitioner to organize the care of a patient.
Hospitals do not operate as servants of the patient's health, but as profit centers, and that accounts for many recent Congressional hearings on some of their scandals. Hundreds of thousands of people die each year, and hospitals lose millions of dollars each year, because of the horrific effects of bacterial infections that patients get in hospitals--not from other patients, but because hospitals do not do a good job of cleaning surfaces, (an EXPENSE), and doctors and other staff do not wash their hands! A huge loss of money, and needless further care of illnesses, because they are so cheap and sloppy on cleaning! Hospitals spend far more on each and every one of them getting all the latest multi-million dollar scanning equipment that all the other hospitals in the same area already have, (a potential big-bucks moneymaker), than making basic care available by making it more affordable.
Most people are aware of how insurance/hospitals have unconscionably cut down on the amount of time patients are allowed to stay in the hospital following surgery--sometimes, people who are still groggy and feeling pain are discharged the same day. Today, I heard a hearing on C-SPAN with one panellist, a woman who had had, I think, breast cancer surgery, sent home almost immediately, even though she was not ready. The recovery from surgery involved a complicated procedure of draining tubes from her chest, and measuring something or other accurately (I didn't catch the first part, and am not familiar with this procedure). Something went wrong--as they were not TRAINED MEDICAL STAFF, and it became infected, turning to a horrible staph infection that nearly killed her. There were other stories of exactly the same result of this early discharge, so they can make even more money. I had never before heard of people discharged, when they actually still needed observation, and might have deathly consequences. Of course, everyone is familiar with the disgusting way women who have just given birth are treated--what once was a week or two in a hospital, a generation or two ago, now is sometimes a release on the same day.
People are familiar by now, with the typical refusal to order tests that are needed, because they take away from profits, or an the other hand, the ordering of tests that are not needed, and then it turns out there is a financial relationship between the doctor/clinic and the testing lab--all for profit, not medicine. Under a commercial system, the cost of everything--prescriptions, medical equipment, surgery, everything--skyrockets until it is unaffordable, and far beyond its actual cost, while Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, meanwhile, have extremely efficient operating/cost systems, far better than the corporate world. It is the complete death of an attitude of public service, to introduce the concept of profit, and of a stratified, owner-provider/customer approach.
On and on and on it goes.
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