Monday, August 24, 2009

What Have We Become? – Death Squads!?!


This is just absolutely ridiculous! That we as a society have stooped to this level is abominable. Shame on us! If this is the only way for some to get their point across with misinformation and the selling of fear, then we should be ashamed. What happened to good old debates? Yes, even then each side would have their own slant, but not a total distortion of the facts.

If we took a poll today, I doubt if 50% of the people could accurately relate what ‘end of life counseling’ or ‘single-payer system’ means.

Before we even get into that, what’s being discussed as healthcare reform is in reality health insurance reform. The insurance companies have run amok. I have no problem with a corporation making a profit. That’s capitalism as it should be. But you want to talk about death squads, well they are the real culprits. Insurance companies make life and death decisions about what coverages they will allow us based on the cost-benefit, but not to the insured, to the corporation and of course their good old actuarial tables. Yet, they have deep pockets (profiting from us) and lobbyists so all we are hearing is the rhetoric that they are spewing, which carries very little truth.

Pres. Obama did not say that government would make decisions about who gets care. Actually, quite the opposite. He said, "I don’t want bureaucracies making those decisions." He also said, "The point is we want to use science, we want doctors and medical experts to be making decisions that all too often right now are driven by skewed policies, by outdated means of reimbursement, or by insurance companies."

I think it’s very important for seniors to have counseling in regard to options, especially when it comes to Hospice care. I used them when I knew it was time for my mother. They were there for pain management and their goal was to make her comfortable so she could pass, when the time came, in her own home, not in a hospital bed with strangers, tubes and machines.

Comparing a single-payer system to socialism is absurd. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. A socialized health care system is one in which all health care facilities and personnel are owned and operated by the government. A single-payer system refers to the funding of health care, not the services rendered. An example of such in the U.S. is Medicare. It is a single-payer system, not socialized medicine.

The difference between our present single-payer system, Medicare, and that of other countries such as a Canada, is that ours is for seniors and the disabled whereas theirs is a universal health care. In simplistic terms, we are just talking about our system, but on a larger scale.

People! Take the initiative to research what is being discussed instead of listening to pundits. It doesn’t take long to Google any of these topics mentioned here. The news is now big entertainment. With the proliferation of all the channels on the television, all these so-called pundits need to attract viewers. The majority can’t do that by just giving us the facts & letting us come to our own conclusions. It’s about sensationalism, whether it be from the right, left or middle.

While researching this post, I came across a very informative site www.FactCheck.org. It is produced by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Want to learn more about Health Care and debunk some of the myths, check it out.

Till next time….Marc It Sold!

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