But it seems to me it is largely the capitalist scammers who benefit which create the mess - In this country the government does bow to the corporate lobbyists in large part because of politicians need for campaign funds. Providers like nursing homes, for instance, have lots of influence at the state level to get lucrative contracts and certainly not all of them are interested in the people who should be getting the benefit of their services. It is always a battle to see that peoples interests are put over profits.
I know earlier I said it would be better to expand Medicaid and Medicare (than to go with the private voucher system) - but I've foremost supported a complete overhaul of the health care system and support the single payer system. It seems though that a single payer system may be corrupted as well. It may not be possible to acheive a decent health care system until we can get campaigns publically financed and big money lobbying curbed at both the state and federal levels because these elements in the present political environment not only perpetuate the current rotten dynamics but stand to corrupt any health care reforms or postive changes we manage to impose on the system.
Marta
Chuck Grimes wrote:
> Marta,
>
> Explain to Joe Noonan all the various ways that large health
> corporations from hospitals and HMO's to physician groups, residential
> to skill nursing facilities, to the giant equipment manufactures, drug
> industry, and private insurance industries are the beneficiaries to
> the federal billions.
>
> The poor slobs who are bleeding or rotting to death are just the
> delivery mechanism in these transactions.
>
> I am too fed-up with these slime to bother any more. Here's an
> example. The fed and states don't administer either the fed or
> their own state programs directly, but contract them out to guess who?
> Private insurance industry. They take a cut, hire 5.00/hr drones to
> deny requested services and then let the beneficiary appeal--more
> likely a hospital administration of other 5.00/hr people in
> collections.
>
> While a lot of dollars change hands up in the offices, down in the
> street they are paying, and bleeding and dying as usual.
>
> This health business is really, really, really rotten to the core and
> was designed that way in the first place. If people thought the WTO
> wasn't worth reforming, they should investigate the US health care
> industry.
>
> Chuck Grimes
-- Marta Russell author Los Angeles, CA Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract http://www.commoncouragepress.com/