The United (?) States of America

The year 1965 was an auspicious one in the USA. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare Bill as law of the land. For the first time the USA had a form of "socialized medicine" with our government as the single payer engaged in providing health care for seniors above the age of 65.

If you listened to the doomsday politicians then we were headed for communism and the end of democracy. After many years of effort by the Democratic Party since the Roosevelt era that brought Social Security, the next step to assure health care services for the retired older people of our country was taken. About 55 years had lapsed since Social Security had been signed into law. The voices opposed to both Social Security and Medicare are echoing today from the tongues of those who seem threatened by any Government social program for our citizens.

Seems to me many of us have forgotten or do not truly realize that our country fought together shoulder to shoulder to preserve life, liberty, and happiness about 25 years before Medicare was enacted. Blood was spilled by all who fought against the Nazi hordes that Hitler, Hiro Hito, and Mussolini led during World War II. Americans of all races, religions, ethnicity's, sexual preferences, genders, and skin colors became "almost ONE" and defeated the German/Japanese/Italian Nazi war machines. We and our allies finally prevailed and most of us who lived during that time shared a common bond as Americans, even overcoming some ingrained bigotry in the process. For many years after World War II ended in 1945 our country retained some semblance of bonding and gradually enacted laws that protected the voting rights of all citizens and secured health care for our seniors.

Today the same form of demagoguery that threatened the end of American liberties and rights under our Constitution are at it again. This time instead of Social Security and Medicare their voices rumble against Health Care Reform with vitriolic words used about 75 years ago against Social Security and about 45 years ago against Medicare. There are some differences today as members of Congress and the public who were born more recently than World War II, or the year of enactment of Medicare in 1965, have now embedded fear of social change in their hateful rhetoric by claiming that President Obama is Hitler-like and that death squads will get you if Health Care legislation is passed.

Can you imagine the hate that these utterings symbolize? What would the more than 400,000 US Military personnel who died during World War II think if they were able to raise their voices silenced to preserve our country from the wrath of Hitler and his allies? Hitler and the Nazis were responsible for the deaths of over 6 million human beings during and before World War II. How can anyone in their right mind compare President Obama to Adolph Hitler. Those comparing President Obama to Adolph Hitler must be deranged or as Congressman Barney Franks questioned someone who made such a comparison, " What planet do you live on?".

The death squads that Adolph Hitler used were real and used poison gas, medical experiments, and firing squads to liquidate their innocent victims. Why doesn't the Republican Party officially disavow the hateful dishonest statements that they use to attempt to discredit health care legislation and our President? Are they part of the problem? Have they lost whatever moral compass they had? Democrats and everyone of us are far from perfect, but such disgusting remarks about our President have only been forthcoming from Republican voices opposed to Health Care reform. Does the Republican Party favor hate and dishonesty over rational discussion?

From a Country of hope and solidarity during and after World War II we have morphed into a society divided by hatred and fear of change. We have lost whatever civility we possessed since our nation defeated the greatest threat to democracy and forgot what we once were. We are a broken Country shattered by hate and distrust of one another.

Those of us who are about 80 years old or older can look back at our personal experiences while our country passed through turbulent times. There were and always will be disagreements about social programs and virtually everything else. But when we resort to hateful and threatening actions against one another because of opinions and positions on social issues, we have certainly lost our way as a nation.

Perhaps we must all revisit USA history over the last 100 years, back to President Theodore Roosevelt at least, to renew what we stand for. If we lose our heritage as a country of vast cultural and ethnic difference bonded together by a stronger commonality we are destined to lose everything we once stood for.

Think back long before you were born and seek knowledge about how our country overcame overwhelming differences and even shed blood together to protect each others liberties and our collective freedom. Perhaps we will regain our bearings and move together regardless of when we were born or the socio-economic status we claim. We must if we are to remain "The United States of America"

The Malady of Effervescent Greed Must be Stopped

The financial and unemployment turmoil that we are in the midst of is a symptom of a disease that if allowed to spread will become an incurable plague. The financial turmoil originated when banks were allowed to participate in unregulated investment ploys that amounted to Ponzi schemes that makes Maddoff seem like a piker. Most banks allowed no down payment loans assuming that the prices of real estate would never decline and their loans would always be covered by foreclosures. Then banks and insurance companies participated in another scheme to make money that was even more baseless. They sold insurance or derivatives to individuals that assured payoff even if the loan borrower defaulted. This madness was akin a disease that spread to the brains of everyone participating causing effervescent greed to froth from the mouths of the avaricious money mongers. The average person who is now wallowing in debt and unable to find work represents the innocent victim of this hoax that they believed in because as we have all been told by our leaders that more is better, and the more that you consume the better. Well, the bankers and investment gurus swallowed their own propaganda as did the politicians, and led us all down an unregulated path of economic misery. Can tweaking the system that caused the disease change the outcome? Maybe for the short term, but not for the long haul.

We cannot cure the disease of greed by turning off one spigot while allowing many others to continue to spew polluted water. Temporary measures will slow the greed disease in banking and investments, but only long enough to curtail the economic decline. Then the cycle will resume because we have been conditioned to the not so subliminal message that more consumption cures everything. In other words, the more you spend the better, unless what it costs is greater than all your asset values combined. Then you are told that you are not qualified. I am referring to the priceless asset, your health. If you are destitute or barely below the poverty line, you may get rudimentary health care, if you can find it nearby. If you are middle class and have lost your job and depend upon unemployment insurance you are probably unqualified for Medicaid or equivalent care. The millions of recently unemployed who had rudimentary health care will soon have nothing.

Our health care system that denies life-saving and preventive care to at least one quarter of our people, and rations it (by having HMO administrators decide the care you are entitled to, not doctors telling you what you need) to most of the rest of us, is another example of effervescent greed that is about to cause the next great crisis in the USA.

Medical care in our country use to be available to virtually everyone when family doctors provided care and non-profit hospitals dominated the scene. Doctors made house calls and took care of the poor and needy even if they could not pay. Then, in the late 1950's the practice of medicine started to change. Corporate entities and insurance companies decided that they were missing a gargantuan profit opportunity. Health Maintenance Organizations started to replace the family doctor and profit-making hospitals replaced non-profit ones. Medical specialization grew exponentially and even doctors decided that more profit was very nice. House calls ceased. The needy and poor were left to get sick and were denied life-saving treatments that they could not pay for. As the profit making motive drove medical care the price consumers paid for treatments and care also increased at a rate that far exceeded the general rate of inflation. Prices for doctors and hospital care escalated by at least twice the compounded rate of general inflation.

The escalating costs to companies who offered health care benefits to their employees became too expensive for the employers so they introduced co-payments and monthly deductions from pay checks to help cover their costs and loss of profits.Some companies dropped health plans completely. Retiree health benefits were often eliminated even though they were promised upon employment. Wile all these changes occurred fewer people were able to pay for their medical care and the state and federal government provided aid for those who could not pay. Eventually government aid became insufficient to overcome the profit-driven medical industry prices that had the most influential lobby in Washington DC and state capitols.

The CEO's and executives of the major HMO's and pharmaceutical companies thrived as did their top executives and large stock investors as the profits ballooned. HMO executive pay and bonuses went sky high as they are now. Some of the highest paid corporate executives are CEO's of HMO's many of whom are paid over $100 million dollars annually plus stock options and bonuses. The health care industry is now one of the most profitable businesses in the USA simply because it has morphed from care based upon the Hippocratic oath to care based upon maximizing profits. Major corporation control doctors who are often paid bonuses by restricting the extent of care. Most doctors are now employees or managed by HMO's and insurance companies whose real purpose is to generate profits, and health care is secondary.

The consequences of this transformation of health care in our country is that about 100 million of our people are provided inadequate medical care or no health care at all, and the number is growing daily. This is the result of the same effervescent greed that has devastated our economic wellbeing. We are on the precipice of becoming engulfed in an even more devastating disaster, one that truly determines the balance between life and death: affordable health care for all citizens. If greed is allowed to continue to dominate health care as it has for banking and investments we will soon see our sick country becoming sicker and more destitute than any financial upheaval could ever cause.

What can the average citizen do to prevent profit from deciding your health? Stop the HMO's, drug companies, and their armies of lobbyists from dictating the future of health care. Demand that the profit motive be removed from our health care delivery system and insist that a universal health care plan be created that provides health care for all citizens regardless of economic status. Return health care to the days when the Hippocratic Oath was the driving force and the purpose of medicine. Stop profit making corporations and organizations from spreading the "Malady of Effervescent Greed" that has already done irreparable harm to many millions of our people. Millions more will soon lose whatever health care coverage they had as Cobra is terminated or becomes too expensive to pay for without a job.

Act now. Call your elected representatives in the House and Senate. Contact President Obama. Start organizing and participate in a "People's March on Washington for Universal, Non-Profit, Health Care". Tell the politicians that you won't allow any more back-room deals with the health care lobbyists and their profit-driven health-care corporations! We the people must win our right to have Universal Health Care without greedy profit making corporations determining your eligibility and amount of care.