HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY'S WAR ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC
"This is a serious thing. It is a war on the American public being conducted, orchestrated, and thus far won by the health insurance industry." Dr. Sydney Wolfe
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Backtrack a couple of months to when activists who have long advocated for single-payer universal health care were fighting to be allowed a seat at the table supposedly dedicated to health care reform legislation in Washington. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana), chairman the Senate Committee on Finance and among what Time calls the "top 10 health-care-reform players" (they actually name 11), from the beginning blocked the single-payer option from being included in discussions. As the historian Arthur Schlesinger said, the best way to win an argument against an opponent is to leave him or her out of the debate. Baucus is working on behalf of the special interests, and receives more in campaign contributions from the medical and insurance industry than anyone else in Congress. Just as Israel is conducting a mind war on the people of the United States in order to preserve its position as the favorite stepchild of the U.S. (favored more than any of the 50 states), the medical and insurance industry are conducting a blitzkrieg propaganda campaign against us now. Humans are only valuable to that industry in so far as it is possible to somehow exploit us for a profit. It's an amoral industry, just like Wall Street is. In fact, as Wendell Potter explained so well on Bill Moyers Journal, it's controlled by Wall Street.
As we know, for most of us, representative government is nonexeistent at this time. Most members of Congress see their constituents not as the voters but the special interests, who are paying for the mindwar against us. As we also know, the best way to fight these predatory propagandists is for us to help each other be informed and to take action--action that we know from experience means more than calls and e-mails to Washington and signing petitions, but should also include direct action.
Watch Bill Moyers' disccussion with Public Citizen's Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Physicians for a National Health Program's Dr. David Himmelstein on the political and logistical feasibility of health care reform.
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