If Liz were Queen

It is a toss-up regarding which party is offering the most ridiculous “solutions” for health care–the Republicans or the Democrats.

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On the one hand we have  the Republicans and other Conservatives like the Libertarians suggesting that tort reform will solve our health care problems.  The really “progressive” among them suggest that allowing the current health insurance predators to trade across state lines will improve health care.

The only two solutions that the conservatives offer most frequently are the standard cliches:  tort reform and eliminating “frivolous” lawsuits.  Tort reform hurts the American people by taking away their legal rights to file a claim and receive fair compensation when they have been injured at the hands of another and it also accounts for 1/2 of 1% of the total costs of health care in our nation.

A May 2006 study conducted by Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’’s Hospital shows that 97 percent of medical malpractice claims are meritorious . Eighty percent of those claims involved physical injury, which killed or permanently disabled the victim. Sadly, only 56 of these claimants received compensation for their losses.

To listen to conservatives go on and on about tort reform and frivolous lawsuits  you would think not only is tort reform a significant factor, but that tort cases and civil trials are on an alarming rise (the sky is falling).  This is not true. Between 1992 and 2001, the number of civil trials filed in state courts decreased by 47 percent, according to the Department of Justice. The number of tort cases specifically, decreased by 31.8 percent during that same time.

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Selling health insurance across state lines
Selling health insurance across state lines is another cliche solution that conservatives offer.  Allowing health insurance predators to sell health insurance across state lines would not work as advertised and would actually make it harder and more expensive for many Americans to access health coverage, according to a new report released today by the New America Foundation.

BUT don’t take MY word for it and don’t take the word of the conservatives either.  Instead, educate yourselves by reading The New America report, entitled, “Across State Lines Explained: Why Selling Health Insurance Across State Lines is Not the Answer,” found that under across state lines proposals premiums would increase for many people, health insurance benefits would become less generous, and more Americans would likely become uninsured over time.

Consumer watchdog groups and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners — say the provision would erode many state government consumer protections, leave policyholders with inadequate coverage and could actually lead to higher premiums for some people.

Finally, critics say that selling insurance across state lines might not save much money, and point to a 2005 CBO report that says: “if only those benefit mandates imposed by the states with the lowest-cost mandates were in effect in all states, the price of individual health insurance would be reduced by about 5 percent, on average.”

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THE DEMOCRATS’ SOLUTION:  GIVE WALL STREET HEALTH INSURANCE PREDATORS 30 TO 50 MILLION NEW CUSTOMERS

If you think that the Democrats are offering a better solution, you can forget those high hopes.  In my opinion what some of them refer to as their ‘pretty good’ Senate health care bill with its mandated health insurance that they propose for 30 to 50 million Americans to pay to PRIVATE health care insurers is Republicanism on steroids!  Talk about Corporate Welfare for Wall Street!  This competes with some of the conservatives’ stunts and methods in other areas.  For example, Rick Perry’s scheme to take money out of the unemployment tax funds here in Texas and turn it over to multibillion dollar Wall Street firms like Bank of America.

It is in fact, my own personal line (not in sand but in concrete) that I have drawn with the Democratic Party.  The Senate health care bill is the reason that I dropped out of the Democratic Party and am now running against both them AND the Republicans as an Independent.

There plan offers no serious means of stopping the rising health care costs and the gouging of the American people by these Wall Street predators.  American wages across the board from 2001 through 2008 rose on average about 3% while health care premiums that Wall Street health insurance companies charge Americans rose by 78%.  That is nothing but obscene greed.

Until health insurance companies have REAL competition (not merely a shuffling of the chairs on the Titanic by allowing the predators to trade across state lines).  We can expect nothing but more of the same.

It is no solution to allow these crooks to continue to harm and yes even kill ordinary Americans with their policies.  The issue is NOT health care.  The issue is health insurance companies.  They do NOT provide health care.  Doctors and medical professionals do.  A health insurance company is a financial institution–not that different from a bank except that they hold the life and death cards for many Americans.  Health insurance corporations are nothing more than middle men like banks who take our money.  Like bankers, they are nothing more than glorified bookkeepers–and for these simple tasks, they bilk billions of dollars every year from the American people.

The American people need the freedom to found our own citizen owned health care cooperatives.  We would still pay health insurance premiums as we do now.  But instead of paying them to a Wall Street corporate pig, we would be paying them to a company that we, not the government, owned.  These cooperatives would be set up in much the same way that any private health insurance company is run.  The only difference is that its CEO would not be receiving a total compensation package such as that or Aetna’s Ron Williams whose total compensation for 2008 totaled $24,300,112.