This paragraph alone tells you the power that healthcare industry lobbyists have over the federal government.

Still, industry lobbyists say they are not worried. “We trust the White House,” Mr. Kahn said. “We are confident that the Senate Finance Committee will produce a bill we fully can endorse.”

Whatever bill ultimately becomes the reality of all these negotiations, I’m sure,  will be better than the healthcare system we have now. With the mindless-head-in-the-sand opposition that the right wing is putting up any bill is a small victory. It won’t be the best bill however if it does not have the “public option” and instead goes for the non-profit “co-op option.” The reason for this will simply be campaign contributions. Furthermore, if all these lobbyists are working on this bill then why not call of your town hall protesting thugs? Why have Freedom Works and all these people whip up this mob?

Visit: Change Congress

Look out American Medical Association, Phrma, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealthcare, GHI and Blue Cross Blue Shield! There’s a new anti-healthcare group in town. You all are no longer the leaders in denying millions of Americans healthcare claims and hiking up drug costs. Yes, that’s right HAARM is here. The acronym stands for Healthy Americans Against Reforming Medicine and they have a message for all of us.

I also like their list of HAARM-FUL Hereos.

Here’s one…

Most people know Rush Limbaugh as one of the country’s foremost experts on prescription drugs. But Rush is playing a much bigger role in the health care debate than that. Every day he educates his 20 million listeners on the finer points of Obamacare, like the little known tidbit that once this plan passes the government will be able to tell you not only what kind of car to drive but what kind of TV to purchase. Rush will never let the facts get in the way of scaring the bejeezus out of his listeners.

I found this interesting. It would appear all that marketing that pharmaceutical corporations do for new drugs can be smoke and mirrors.

Several recent studies have shown convincingly that older, less expensive drugs work just as well as newer, far more expensive ones. According to a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a decades-old, inexpensive diuretic does as good a job preventing fatal and non-fatal heart attacks as some newer high blood pressure medications.

Posted via email from Jason’s posterous

Screw you Aetna, Humana, GHI, Signa, UnitedHealthcare, Blue Cross and Blue Shield and others (like Phrma) we’re coming for you and we will change this system.

There was talk of an usher who was also a paramedic. He — a polite young man in a dark suit — appeared and took my blood pressure, which was very low as was my pulse. He said calmly that one option was to call an ambulance. I was afraid, I thought I might be dying, I was thinking about my deductible. The number "$2,500" flashed through my mind.  Or was that my maximum "out of pocket"?

I knew for sure that I was enrolled in a $129-per-month emergency and hospitalization plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida. Like everyone, I’d heard that a trip to an emergency room could cost several grand.

"I can’t afford that," I muttered.

"Now isn’t the time to worry about money," my sister responded, slightly scolding.

When it comes to healthcare why should the author’s concern ever come into play?

To their credit, the folks at Blue Cross Blue Shield send their customers concise statements that summarize medical services rendered and billed. According to the one I recently received, the total cost of my fainting emergency: $10,260.

But lucky me. I owe only $2,267. "Your savings: $7,992.87," the summary states. Good thing I paid BCBS $1,500 in premiums over the past year to cover me for emergencies, one of which is now costing me an additional two thousand.

That financial outcome isn’t good enough. We can’t settle for that any longer. In what world is paying two grand for an emergency room visit affordable to a middle class/working-poor family?

It appears that Washington doesn’t even want to include single payer as an option in the universal healthcare coverage debate. The reason for the obstruction is basically tied to the money that the healthcare and pharmaceutical corporations flood campaigns with. This is why we need to change congress.

Eight doctors and other advocates of a national single-payer health care system–which would improve and expand Medicare to everyone–were arrested yesterday when they disrupted a Senate committee meeting on health care reform.

The single-payer advocates wanted to know why experts representing their position were being excluded from the roundtable of 15 witnesses speaking before the Senate Finance Committee’s roundtable on health reform.

Private health insurance corporations and the pharmaceutical industry are the enemy and the obstacles we have to overcome if we want true health care reform.

Too Sick to Work? Need Health Care? Take a Number | CommonDreams.org

After reviewing their cases, the government declared McClain and Frederick too sick to work and started issuing them monthly Social Security disability checks. Then they found out they’d have to wait two years to get health care through Medicare. Even though workers and their employers pay the payroll taxes that fund Medicare, federal law requires disabled workers to wait 24-months before they can begin receiving benefits.

Why does it take twenty four months until someone can start receiving Medicare?

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) — Aetna Inc. dropped as much as 20 percent in New York trading after the health insurer said quarterly profit fell 44 percent, pulled down by investment losses tied to the global financial crisis. The company, the third-largest U.S. medical benefits provider, reduced its earnings goals for the year because of turmoil in capital markets and warned that the falling value of its stock holdings could curb 2009 earnings. Third-quarter net income declined to $277.3 million, or 58 cents a share, the Hartford, Connecticut-based company said today in a statement.

As one of the health insurance corporations which have been the major obstacle to getting universal healthcare in our country; I’m glad to see them in some fiscal pain right now. Even people who have insurance through these corporations often have their claims denied for treatment or surgery they really need. Truthfully, I don’t think these sort of corporations should even exist. We should have a single-payer plan and cut all of them out. Well, I guess if after single-payer were instituted and there were some people who could afford to have private insurance and wanted to pay for it; then they could remain for that purpose.

Update: I’m also happy to see that Cigna is feeling the pain as well.

I think this campaign and website called Generics Are Powerful Medicine is really needed especially in the tough economic climate we’re now facing. I will mention that for too long there have been thousands if not millions of people in this country who have struggled to pay for their prescriptions. While generic drugs will not  solve the problem it does allow people to save money when purchasing drugs. If there is a generic available for a drug that was prescribed to you  why not take it? 

Another reason to take generic drugs is because Big Pharma is really against it:

GPM was established with $613,000 in funding from cy pres awards from the settlements of lawsuits with Smith Kline Beecham and Glaxo-Smith-Kline. These pharmaceutical firms allegedly used illegal tactics to prevent generic versions of the drugs, Augmentin and Relafen respectively, from entering the market.

In a fleeting moment I decided to search Google News for any word of what John Edwards had been up to since all the details of the scandal broke. Instead I came across a recent AP story on his wife Elizabeth and I was moved when I read the following excerpt.

“Those who gave me a calendar in March of 2007 are going to have to revise their dates,” Edwards said with a smile during a round-table discussion of health care in Carrboro, near her home.

Once breast cancer spreads to the bone, it’s no longer curable. Doctors and treatment can keep it in check for years unless the tumor is aggressive.

To be human is to experience pain and sadness. I am a pessimist when it comes to things like this. I truly feel there is more sadness than happiness in life. If not for disease and other illnesses—we as humans engage in such horrid acts as war and genocide. It’s a miracale that we even got through the Cold War, but I know that that’s far from the end of nuclear weapons. 

I have issues when it comes to death and sickness. I’ve been told that this can be attributed to the death of my father when I was 14 (as well as the anxiety disorder I’ve had under control since 2003). To me because there is death it really taints anytihng that can be considered happy and good in life. It’ s really weird because I can be very positive on a lot of other things. I’m not a depressing person to be around by any means. Many people say that I’m calm and relaxed. I also consider myself an activist/progressive/fighter. While the world can be horrible to me I still wish to fight for people and makes things the best I possibly can. 

Which is why I also found this part of the AP story very powerful as well.

Edwards has made health care her life’s work since the cancer diagnosis, and her personal memoir takes readers into the intimate moments of her battle with the disease. She aided her husband in putting together his health care proposal and has criticized both presidential nominees for their policies, although McCain has been her target to a far greater degree.

It says that she plans to campaign against McCain’s healthcare plan. Honestly, that plan alone shold deny Senator McCain the presidency. How can any family buy healthcare with a five thousand dollar tax credit? It’s not enough and the evil health insurance corporations can still deny you coverage. We need a single-payer solution! In the closing days of this campaign I’d love to see Elizabeth Edwards on television and writing Op-Ed’s for newspapers on how the McCain plan will continue to do us harm on the healthcare front. If anyone in the “big time” media happens to read my little post on the blogosphere, I’d say that you should strongly consider getting her on the air and in print. She has a lot to say.

It is because healthcare has beomce so unaffordable for millions of Americans, that it was inevitable that this would happen.

New Yorker Danelle New, 29, was suffering from epilepsy, the residual effect of a car accident during high school. She suffered grand mal seizures lasting up to 20 minutes, which she says western doctors could not explain or understand. “My body would build up resistances to the pharmaceutical drugs and they would no longer work, which forced me to try and find other ways to solve the problem.”

New traveled to India in 2004, and has been seizure-free since. “It was a significant cost savings, as I had already spent thousands of dollars in medical expenses, not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars spent by my insurance company,” she says. This included a five-day hospital stay and medications that cost more than $700 a month.

In India, she spent $1,200 for successful therapy with “less than two months of prescription medication,” she adds.

This is like people heading over to Canada to buy their prescriptions. I do find it interesting that the health insurance industry and private hospitals in America can now feel the pain as people are able to get care for less. Even if it means traveling! This is one instance where the marketplace may work against some of these moneyed interests.