Health Care Deformed
Just how powerful are the medical-pharmaceutical-insurance special interests that oppose health care reform? More powerful than ever, and their power grows daily.
During the Clinton administration these special interests were able to squash attempts at health care reform as if the President and First Lady were as insignificant and powerless as gnats. Their power grew.
Under the corrupt leadership of George Bush, the special interests crafted health care reform legislation that expressly prohibited Medicare from negotiating drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. This, according to the US House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, caused pharmaceutical industry profits to soar by over $8 billion in the six months after January 1, 2006, when the Medicare drug program went into effect.
Recently, President Obama called “health care reform the single most important thing we can do for America's long-term fiscal health. That is a fact.”
And now, in spite of that fact, he is backing away from the single payer option, the ONLY possible solution to this fiscal meltdown.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill) recently said of the banks…"these are still the most powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill. And frankly, they own the place.” The same can be said of the lobbies for the medical-pharmaceutical-industrial complex. That is how powerful these special interests are.
Is it becoming clear to me that the only thing, I repeat: THE ONLY THING, that will get Americans the health care reform we need to prevent, not only individuals and families, but small and large businesses, municipalities, cities, states and the US government from going bust is the kind of mass public demonstrations of the Anti-war and Civil Rights Movements and those that are happening in Iran as we speak.
Nothing short of that will get our corporate-owned politicians to do the work of the people over the interests of the medical-insurance-pharmaceutical industrial complex.
To believe anything else flies in the face of the 100 year history of health care reform and is to live in a fantasy.
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2 comments:
Things have got way out of hand in this country. To think that, rallies and demostrations would be the only course of action is crazy to me. But what choice do we people really have?
In a country founded on the principles of freedom and equal rights, it seems to me those rights are being controlled by lobbying efforts. I'm sure the original intent of freedom, was NOT to allow for dominate one-sided corporate control through lobbying.
The lobbying present in Washington DC didn't happen overnight. We the people allowed it to happen. Therefore we the people of the United States of America need to change it.
For years many groups have tried to fight the good fight, some even with mass demostrations, however these groups are no match for lobbyist with unlimited bank rolls, fringe benefits, and political hand holds.
The answers are unclear and quite upsetting to think about. We will most likely be forced into a mold that will propetuate the lobbying efforts made by corporate America. I'd like to think our efforts could be heard and make a difference...but I'm NOT sure they will.
Discouraged,
J Peck
two things we all can do:
1. call your senators, congressmen and the white house as often as possible about EVERY issue that concern you.
2. fight for campaign finance reform!
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