Who Is Reforming Health Care?

Today on Facebook, many people updated their profile statuses proclaiming that no one should be alllowed to die or go untreated because they cannot afford it. And we should not go broke from our medical expenses. I completely agree.

In my opinion, we can state our opinion all we want.

We can debate how the system is being taxed by Medicare and Medicaid fraud by doctors and patients. (Which by the way, any doctor receiving Medicaid payments will guffah at the notion of it, as they waive a $5.00 or $20.00 check infront of you for a patient visit and the denial of necessary tests.)

We can argue the ineffectiveness of COBRA costs, HMO defuncts and PPO scams.

We can argue socialized medicine vs. having a choice.

Why is it that we the American people do not get to vote for a choice? Just as we voted to elect government officials ?

We do not get to vote on this one. We get to answer news polls, web polls, bombard our elected officials with Tweets, posts, emails, letters and petitions. We can only hope they listen.

For over 40 years, elected officials have tap danced campaign promises, have had their campaigns funded by Big Pharma, Insurance Conglomerates and special interest groups and when it comes down to decision time, the outcome is really no big deal.

I am not going to knock the small leaps along the way like being given a Patient Bill of Rights, being allowed to be stabilized for emergency care when you have no insurance, and the right to be raped by a near 300% mark-up of COBRA premiums. I wont even knock Illinois Kid Care which has remained mostly invisible from the more premium pediatric practices. We have had some small accomplishments along the way.

Yet when it comes time to lobby to reduce insurance premiums, the health care conglomerates cry they have increased due to medical fraud. Medical special interest groups cry about the ever so increasing red-tape to get claims paid to fund hospitals to keep them going. The blame gets pushed back and forth. Yet, Health care claims administrators are highly compensated with commissions in excess of $70K and more when they deny authorization of what they deem as " unnecessary medical treatments".

Our government cuts Medicare expenditures and charges seniors nearly $1800 a year for Medicare and Medicare Part D combined , yet pays $22,000 -$40,000 a year for prison inmates to be housed. Even if the inmate is released in one month, the prison still collects the entire amount.

I have decided not to react by jumping on any bandwagon to choose socialized vs. private health care. Because, When I comb through the origin of campaign funds received by elected officials , I know that the decision will not be made by me, I will not have a say.

One of the major players who will have a say is the largest contributor to the Obama Campaign, The University of California. U of C contributed $1,591,395 to the campaign. They have made it tranparent that they are ready to step in to the decision process as they outline of this PDF link.

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/healthreform.pdf

Another major player is the subtle media out out there by the second largest contributor to the presidential campaign Goldman Sachs. Randall Stanicky from Goldman Sachs has announced his prediction that Teva will experience strong growth through 2012. Teva is a generic drug maker from Isreal. The generic drug agenda will definitely be sprinkled throughout health care reform.

http://www.huliq.com/1/83252/health-insurance-reform-benefit-generic-makers

We can also look for some variations of the plan to include some input modeled after the state of Massachussets.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/20/romney.health.care/

The Obama campaigns third largest contributor Harvard University, has stated its favor for the model of near- universal health care coverage. In Massachusetts people in the state are required to buy private insurance, and the poor get subsidies.

As quoted by Robert Blendon with the Harvard University School of Public Health, ""Seven in 10 people in the state support the program, and no more than one in 10 would repeal it."

Going down the list of each contributor, everyone has some agenda into the proposed health care reform, either directly or being the indirect liason for some one else who wants a piece of the pie.

So, I will wait and see how the pie is divided up. All in all, I am sure it will equate to dollars and cents in favor of the contributor.