MONEY TALKS, PRINCIPLES WALK

MONEY TALKS, PRINCIPLES WALK

The media now informs us that the Government-sponsored alternative to the corporate health insurance companies is dead. If this is true, it represents a crime against the public that makes the Teapot Dome Scandal look like pilferage of Girl Scout Cookies. If the lobbyists for the Insurance Companies pull this one off, they will:
1. Escape meaningful competition in health care insurance
2. Continue their horrendous abuses of the public and physicians (particularly the elderly and chronic pain patients)
3. Gain another 40 million insured by compelling through federal law that they all acquire their insurance from these mega-corporations
4. Gain another half trillion dollars in annual revenues
5. Preserve their criminal overhead rate which varies from 32% (acknowledged) to 50 to 70% (hidden)
6. Demonstrate that swiftboating works with a credible public susceptible to tabloid mentality and incapable of critical and independent analysis
7. Prove that the Congress is owned by lobbyists, political contributions and cronyism
8. Reveal that the Congress (our purported representatives) doesn't give a damn about the people and arrogantly ignores our rights and the government's obligations
9. Seriously raises the question whether it is time for a political revolution in the Congress, such as we have already had in the Presidency. I say that every member of Congress who votes to fold under to the Insurance Companies needs to be voted out of office, and that only candidates who guarantee to serve the needs of the people, not the Trillionaire Insurance Companies, be returned to Washington.
There is still time. EVERY citizen should call, e-mail and FAX their Senators and Representatives and tell them that this an unacceptable crime against the people.

J.S. Hochman MD
Executive Director
The national Foundation for the Treatment of Pain