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Wednesday 23 September 2009
GOP Favors Public Option For Property, Not People

But people? Providing a public option so people can buy health insurance through the federal government is “socialism,” according to Senator John Kyl, the Republican senator from Arizona, a desert state where flash floods are as permanent a feature of reality as sickness and injury. Will someone ask Kyl why he favors what he calls socialist policies for property, but not people?

And what about the denial of coverage you paid for, which so enraged Lott that he filed a lawsuit against his insurer, State Farm? Lott, like others, was told that their policies would cover the modest damage like broken windows and torn roofs caused by the hurricane’s winds, but not the sturgeof storm waters, even though the window drove those waters into Lott’s living room.

Health insurance companies have found more than 1,400 reasons they can retroactively take away health insurance benefits from people, Congressional investigators found after digging through the fine print of insurance contracts. (You, of course, have read and understand every word in your health insurance contract, right?) A woman who had acne was denied breast cancer coverage, for example, though she later got her coverage restored.

And health insurance companies have become masters at digging up excuses to rescind policies, as shown by the recent hearings held by Representative Henry Waxman, who chairs the House subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

For-profit health insurers literally reward doctors who deny costly care to people, making corporate-run death panels a lucrative enterprise. As recounted in my book FREE LUNCH,  Dr. Linda Peeno denied a heart transplant to a man she never met even though she was certain it would cause him to die. She did so in Kentucky, where she had a medical license, by stamping “denied” on a form even though the man was in California, where she was not licensed. Humana, one of the biggest for-profit health insurers, rewarded her and Dr. Peeneo got a conscious that caused her to stop that work and start working to end such abominations.

We have elevated property above human lives. That members of Congress who frequently proclaim their religious faith and cite the Bible as their guide would put property above people suggests they need to actually read the texts they claim guide them. Neither Jesus nor the Old Testament prophets ever put property first. They did however denounce those who did, labeling their deeds with a simple word: evil.

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