By Deb Baumann
I was born and raised with socialized medicine. During the time my parents were raising five children on a shoestring budget, we kids shared rooms, shared clothes, shared toys, and no one could stretch a food dollar farther than my mom.
But by golly, we never lacked health care. Regular checkups at the doctor, regular dental visits, and whenever one of us rambunctious sports-obsessed kids broke a bone or required emergency care or hospitalization we got it. My parents never worried about paying the medical bills. Heck, they never even saw a medical bill.
Our family enjoyed full dental and medical benefits, courtesy of the U.S. government.
Where did this wonder of socialized medicine occur? Right here in the US of A.
I was a military brat.
Recently, I was talking to a friend about an emergency surgery and hospital stay. When she told me how much it cost her, I was shocked. “I thought you had health insurance!” I exclaimed. “We do,” she replied. But even someone who is paying for health insurance can still be stuck with thousands upon thousands of dollars to pay. And she is one of the “lucky” ones! She has insurance!
I have a better understanding of what my co-workers used to say, during the year I lived and worked in Canada: “How do you Americans stand it? Never knowing when the day will come that an accident or medical diagnosis could ruin your life financially?”
And yet, rude mobs are disrupting town halls across America, screaming, “We don”t want socialized medicine!” They have been whipped into this hysteria by deliberate misinformation and outright lies, a campaign of deception financed by the insurance industry.
Insurance companies do not want Americans to have a choice. Any choice will result in less profit for the insurance industry. Any competition will challenge insurers to lower their own rates and provide better service (heaven forbid!)
Even scarier for the insurance industry, if the public option is implemented and it proves to be successful … Well, you can see how much the insurance industry could lose. They may have to get real jobs. Instead of continuing their present status as parasitic bloodsuckers who devour one-third of all health care dollars spent in America, while providing nothing in the way of actual, useful and necessary services.
The insurance industry has held Americans financially hostage for too long. Don”t believe the lies and deception campaign designed to derail what is best for Americans. The insurance industry is spending obscenely huge amounts of money to defeat real health care reform. And not because they have our best interests at heart.
Deb Baumann
Upper Lake
