Yes, another Health Care Reform post

It has been a bad week for those us supporting real reform in Health care insurance. We got stabbed in the back by the Senate and it looks like President Obama is getting the sell out he wanted. Instead of helping the most people – remember the 40 million who have no insurance – it is now a big wet kiss to the insurance industry. I feel used and I am not going to remain silent about it.

I have always known the health care insurance industry is broken. I use to work in the industry and knew first hand how broken and being a customer of health insurance I have experience in dealing with denied payments and tons of paperwork. You know something is wrong when a plan won’t pay to help you lose weight but will pay for you to be in the hospital if you get sick due to being overweight. Or how about knowing smoking is not healthy but your plan will not pay for anything related to quitting.

I am not alone knowing that the system is broken and needs reform – unless you are a congressional Republican or Democrat taking kick backs from the insurance industry that is.

Profit causes thousands of lives a year. Human life should never be a profit point on a ledger.

So I was happy to cast my vote for President Obama and any congress person campaigning to fix health care. I was not naive enough to think it would be easy. I knew some compromise would happen – it is Washington DC after all – and horse trading is the norm. But I was extremely disappointed after Senator Lieberman blew up a Senate version that was barely tolerable into now a bill that is a big blow job to the insurance industry.

It is telling when the White House condemns Howard Dean, who knows more about health care reform than most people, but sends Lieberman a note of thanks for playing Brutus.

The knife in the back hurts.

I really hoped that the Obama administration would be different but I see now that is not the case. They got the bill they wanted the whole time – a blow job for insurance and a kick in the gonads for the rest of us.

There is still a possibility things could change but the people who held my views like Senator Sherrod Brown and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have indicated they will accept the shell of the bill now in the Senate so it looks pretty good we will be stuck with mandates and no public option.

Why?

So Democrats can spin the lie “We passed Health Care reform, Yay us!” during the 2010 election cycle.

I’ll know the truth. Many of us will know the truth.

I could just sit out the election in protest but I probably won’t. I know I will not donate a single penny to anyone associated with stabbing us all in the back and accepting it. I will not volunteer. I am prepared to drop all web contact with Democratic associated groups and unsubscribe to any related groups e-mails. I will mark any US mail from them as “return to sender”.

If I have any opportunity to ask my Congress people why they did this to me I will ask the question and press them to answer it.

Every time they start to say “We passed Health Care Reform, Yay Us!” I will call shenanigans.

The fact is if this bad bill becomes the actual law it will not be “fixed” later. The Medicare expansion will not be added later. Just look at the so-called fixes to the Medicare Part D pharmacy plan that have either been defeated or not introduced since it was passed. The latest is trying to allow reimportation of medication.

Now I know how the religious right felt when President Reagan was elected and blew them off.

I feel used… don’t ask me to like it or be quiet about it.

The President is very lucky that the GOP are hobbled right now.