Who is to blame?

Discussing the US health care system with my Republican friends is like (quoting Barney Frank) arguing with a dining room table. Oblivious to the fact that the United States comes in # 37 according to the World Health Organization, one of those friends praised the capitalistic system when it comes to our health care. Considering she gets her "news" from Rush Limbaugh and FOX we have to excuse her ignorance - or do we?

Her enthusiastic endorsement of capitalism made my stomach turn knowing that people have died while being objected to the greed of insurance companies.

Michael Moore had been vilified by many Republicans but most publicly by John McCain. That might be the reason why people on the right did not watch his movie SICKO, where they would have found out about the fight and suffering of people who actually had insurance and became sick.

Are these people dismissing the plight of sick people because they don't care or because they don't believe their stories? Is it a lack of compassion or imagination? My guess is, it is both. But it comes with the territory of being human that tragedy could easily and anytime happen to them personally or to somebody they love.

So who is to blame for the state of our health care? The Republicans in power who obviously have a financial stake in the current system? Or their constituents who still believe that they have been served well by the right even after years of proven incompetence (think: Katrina), lies (think: the Iraq war) and wasting our taxes (check: deficit) and still support and vote for them?

You have the right to say anything you want ....

How useful is your right to free speech?

Listening to the well organized but ignorant crowd in some town hall meetings I could hear people compare our President to Hitler, furthermore people are allowed to spread blatant lies like the one about "death panels". It is their right and they take advantage of it.

But when you get sick, private insurance companies can deny you payment for treatments. Think about it, you have the right to say the most outrageous things but absolutely no right to get treated when you get sick wether you are insured or not!

Imagine, you have the right to say anything you want, you just don't have the right for a life saving medical treatment - not even when you are insured!

Insurance companies are the problem

For a long time it is clear to me, what the biggest problem in our health care system is. It is the power health insurance companies have. The law is obviously on their side, we the "consumers" are not treated fairly. Who created these laws that allow the insurance industry to take advantage of sick people? Why is it so difficult to change this injustice? Why is even President Obama careful not to step on their toes?

In other countries, like France or Germany private insurances are providing coverage alongside government programs but they are heavily regulated. They would not be allowed for example to revoke a persons coverage because they got sick, which to me is absolutely absurd, wrong, unfair and plain evil.

I wonder how people who work for these companies sleep at night after they denied a very sick person the help they deserve after paying the premium every month.

How can anybody feel safein this country?

the lie about "death panels"

Republican Tim Price was asked by John King of CNN if the lies about the "death panels" will eventually hurt their cause. That question was answered by Tim Price with another lie: the bill mandates, dictates a conversation between doctor and patient about end of life care every five years.

NOT TRUE!

see for yourself: page 425

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