I just finished writing a blog entry about Dana; a woman who has been house-bound for eight years due to a string of genetic mutations and chronic symptoms that evaded doctors for years, leading her into catastrophic fight for her life. You can read her story here.
Most all of us have experienced loss, grief or some kind of struggle. I share my art and story to depict how similar we are because there are plenty of divisive traps that prevent us from understanding one another. When we share how we are similar, I feel the gap between us diminishes, opening an opportunity to find common ground.
Below is a rant I posted on my personal media page a few months ago and I have added to it since. Out of fear of backlash, I struggled with the idea of sharing this publicly but this aspect is a part of mine and others’ story. I don't ever post politics on my public media channels SO I’m not trying to be “political” but I need to explain the system to encourage greater understanding for why things are the way they are. It’s difficult to share the health issues that affect us daily without getting into details of how the healthcare system strangles our daily life.
It's sad we cannot cordially discuss issues as well as be open to aspects of an issue we might not be aware of, especially if it challenges what we think we know.
Personally, I don't care about “sides”, I only care about the truth, so I am not writing about one party or person yet prefer to view the system as a whole. So here goes...I'm laying it all out. Get ready for a long and in depth look at our system.
May 2019
I just received a phone call denying much needed prescriptions...again.
As I’ve shared I’ve been going to the doctors for a growing list of chronic symptoms that are still undiagnosed but appear to be autoimmune related. The medications my doctors have prescribed me to combat the heavy pain, neuropathy and now IBS have been denied by insurance for months — no matter what tactic my doctor or I try. A mainstream neuropathy pill would cost me over $600 per month and a prescription used to treat IBS and SIBO, common small intestine bacterial overgrowth, is thousands of dollars.
This is not sustainable over long term.
And this is why our healthcare system is corrupt and my life, and others like me, are a commodity to profit big time from. I could write a book on what I’ve been through in this system we call healthcare (one day I will) and my story isn’t even the worst case scenario. I’ve heard the wretched stories from those with extreme illness and disability that would make you scream and cry if it was your loved one...if it was your dying child.
I want to contribute to changing the system but rarely have time nor energy to do all of the advocacy work I want to do like running for office (I so want to) because I’m either dealing with undiagnosed ailments, guiding myself through a mazed system, dealing with medical professionals who give lucrative pills over proper diagnoses and constantly fighting with private insurance who don’t want to pay for anything — all alongside my daily combats with a progressive genetic disorder that will one day leave me a complete quadriplegic.
I am NOT privileged for wanting or rather needing a real and honest healthcare system.
I did everything I was supposed to in life. I’ve been working since I was 13 years old and financially self-sufficient from young. My parents didn’t buy my cars, they didn’t pay for my car insurance, adult health insurance or college, I did. I put myself through college and at times worked three jobs to do so.
I am NOT privileged.
I did everything I was “supposed” to do but NOTHING I did created this disability and disease infested world I’ve been put by a chance genetic lottery.
Diseases do not care if you “pulled your boot straps up” and this is the true story for so many.
As someone who intimately lives inside our healthcare system I observe how our health is often used as political props. Politicians from BOTH sides of the aisle spread rhetoric to pit the general public against each other on issues that conflict with their donors. And it works. We buy it hook, line and sinker and predictably blame each other, while our double speaking “leaders” evade accountability. So, while the general public attacks each other, our leaders are free to continue NOT working for their constituents rather their own re-election and profitable careers.
How the System Works
Today, America's congress is historically the wealthiest with over 300 multi-millionaires. Collectively congress' gains have outpaced the market, five times the U.S. Median. So it is ironic “privileged” rhetoric comes from CEOs and privileged congressional officials who have made their multi-millions from public office.
Washington routinely tells the public they don't have any money when it is something for the average worker, yet indiscriminately wastes trillions of taxpayer dollars on endless corporate and war welfare.
Washington tells us we are privileged for wanting our taxpayer money to go to Americans yet the Pentagon has been allowed to escape auditing for decades and reportedly “lost” 21 trillion from 1998-2015.
This amount could pay back the current U.S. national debt.
The Defense Department began the very FIRST agency-wide financial audit in its history in 2016, despite receiving hundreds of billions of dollars annually from taxpayers and having more than $2.2 trillion in assets.
Just a couple weeks ago it was announced the Republican-controlled Senate and Democrat-controlled House approved a sweeping bi-partisan budget deal with Pentagon receiving $1.48 trillion under two-year budget deal, significantly more than the Pentagon requested and growing the budget by 90 billion. This $2.7 trillion budget deal, negotiated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, ensures $738 billion for Fiscal Year 2020 and $740 billion for Fiscal Year 2021.
Amazing how lightening fast Washington comes up with money and legislation when it is socialism for the rich. We are inching towards an annual 1 trillion dollar budget for war and nowhere do I ever see congress nor a president contemplate the deficit and/or if we have money when it comes to weapons of mass destruction.
This record annual military spending outdoes previous record holder of 723 billion under Obama in 2010 which greatly contradicts republican rhetoric that Obama 'depleted' the military. His foreign policy, in fact, depicts the opposite as his foreign policy dwarfed many former republicans' record as he continued and even expanded many of Bush's policies.
Contrary to public perception that only republicans waste monstrous amounts of cash on war, military spending is very much bi-partisan and most budgets and wars wouldn't be approved without a bi-partisan (democrat) vote.
In 2018, Democrats voted along with Republicans in not only approving but DOUBLING Trump's military increase spending request, achieving just under $700 billion annual spending deal. And leading democrats like Pelosi and Schumer stated, “In negotiations Congressional Democrats have been fighting for increases in funding for defense.”
And yet U.S. spends more on its military than 144 other countries combined and our annual budget is often the next 15 largest military countries COMBINED.
In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower famously ends his presidential term by warning the nation about the increasing power of the military-industrial complex. Sadly, much of Eisenhower’s fears have come true, including the escalation of the nuclear arms race.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist...the conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.”
We unwaveringly support dropping billions of dollars in missiles and bombs that inherently murder women, children and families who make less than a dollar a day and have nothing to do with the reason we say we are invading.
We unwaveringly invest in horrific weapons that are illegal and banned throughout most of the world like cluster bombs, yet never seem to have money for basic essential societal building blocks like education and health.
Millions of people are dying of hunger, including veterans, yet pouring billions into the development of weapons remains our highest and expensive priority.
In 2017, we so easily launched 59 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian air base that was heralded with glee by both republicans, democrats and the corporate-owned media as “beautiful!”. These 59 missiles, at 1.5 million a pop, were dropped in less than in an hour with no concrete evidence for our claims, and cost American taxpayers around $88.5 million. This single bombing literally did nothing as the Syrian air base was up and running by morning. The only thing this $88.5 million did was garner major profits for missile manufacturer and major military-industrial complex lobbyist, Raytheon.
In 2018, we launched 118 Tomahawk missiles over Syria again. This single launch added over $10 billion value to Raytheon's stock.
War is good business for missile manufacturers. War is good business for MANY special interests within the military-industrial complex who “donate” to both republicans and democrats.
Washington easily finds the trillions for questionable wars and foreign policy antics stemming from interests in gaining geopolitical or economic dominance over other nations. Every administration increases their predecessors war budget. EVERY one of them. War and regime changes shrouded in secrecy, including true motives, is an industry.
The Iraq and Afghanistan war will reportedly cost Americans over $4.79 to $6 trillion when you add in the interest.
Never-ending wars and regime changes with trillion dollar price tags are mostly bi-partisan, just check the voting records.
In 2015, Washington so easily found a trillion to upgrade our massive nuclear stockpile that could, as is, easily destroy the world several times over.
Largely backed by Congress we found $1.5 trillion for Pentagon's F-35 fighter jet; the most expensive and error ridden project in history of US military. This project began in 2001 and is years behind schedule, billions over budget and doesn't even work, yet I don't hear concern about the deficit from Congress or the last several presidents this project has existed under.
According to recent ‘Cost of War’ report the Pentagon spends about $250 million a day for war and the Iraq war cost $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, for 8 years. The money spent on ONE day of war could have “bought homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity”.
By 2033 the U.S. will be paying $59 billion a year to its veterans injured in these wars.
Washington tells us we don't have the money except the last two years 60 of the largest multi-billion dollar companies paid ZERO dollars in taxes, yet received multi-million dollar refunds while they shipped jobs overseas and laid off employees. In 2018 Washington gave away nearly a trillion in free socialism for the corporate rich which continues to widen our multi-trillion dollar deficit.
The last two years Amazon has been gifted with -1 percent tax rate.
The administration's reasoning for this enormous gift was American companies would bring back trillions of dollars in cash they had stashed overseas and it would cut deficit by a trillion dollars. No such thing happened.
Contrary to popular belief, which isn’t so popular anymore, corporate welfare for the rich does not create jobs.
Every modern administration had corporations who pay zero dollars in taxes under their tax law, some more than others. From 2008 - 2015 an average 30 of the biggest corporations escaped taxes each year.
Over the last 30 years, 15 of the largest US corporations accepted 3.9 trillion in corporate welfare plus 108 billion in government handouts in form of federal contracts. These are the same companies who stash trillions of dollars offshore while benefiting from trillions in government support.
American taxpayers, like you and I, pay the taxes these billion and trillion dollar corporations don't pay. The last two years I paid more taxes than multi-billion dollar company Amazon did.
Imagine what we could have done with this money.
Washington tells us they don't have any money yet without our permission ANNUALLY sends billions of our taxpayer money to foreign countries like Israel who MUST use our gift on war. Israel, by the way, provides their citizens universal healthcare. The irony.
This annual tradition was made possible in 1973 by American taxpayers due to one of the most powerful and influential lobbying groups in Washington and annual payments have been on schedule ever since under both parties.
In 2007, we committed another 38 billion to them for military use. This is only one of the countries we supply arms and military spending for.
Our taxpayer money funds banks — who receive federal loans at zero percent interest and free bailouts — corporations and EXTREMELY profitable military-industrial complex that fuel wars and regime changes. In this world military-industrial complex depends on never-ending wars and continuous strife to keep the industry rich and powerful because peace garners ZERO profits.
Our government finds the billions and trillions to ratchet up our debt/deficit yet mysteriously only claim concern for it when people ask for their taxpayer money to work for ALL Americans and not just their donors. Yet we have been convinced that, “No way, I’m not paying for some lazy person’s healthcare” yet consent to socialism for the rich..
The problem with the perception that sick people are lazy is that illness or disability can happen to any of us.
None of us are immune.
Personally, I would rather my tax dollars go towards someone’s life and health than trillion dollar wars and endless murder we so easily sign up for.
I deeply encourage everyone to read many books about the real face of our foreign policy, it’s not like they say it is on night-time news.
* * *
It should be no secret that our political system is heavily influenced/owned by corporations, lobbyists and special interests like banks, fossil fuels, big pharma, Wall Street and the military-industrial complex.
Most social and economic grievances derive from the construction of legalized bribery and legalized extortion we know as campaign finance laws.
So, why can outside (domestic and foreign) sources bribe and control Washington?
In 1976 a Supreme Court case called Buckley v. Vallejo ruled that “money equals speech” and any sort of limit on campaign donations and expenditures constituted a limit on the First Amendment right to freedom of speech (See what they did there…?).
This was dreadful, because in 1886 a Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. ruled that Corporations were “persons” who were also entitled to the protections of the Constitution, so bound together these two cases meant that corporations and their lobbyists could give to political campaigns in unlimited amounts.
And, Citizens United furthered this by allowing unlimited and anonymous donations. And this is how corporations and our government passed legalized bribery.
If you want proof to how prolific legalized bribery affects Washington, look at a Princeton data research over 20 years that depicts how the most UNPOPULAR policies held at national level (30%) by the bottom 90% has a 90% chance of being passed by our congress, and the most POPULAR policies held at national level (70-90%) by the bottom 90% has a 30% chance of being passed by congress.
So, basically our opinion literally doesn't matter.
The problem is NOT that we don’t have money and more like Washington has other (profitable) priorities when allocating our taxpayer money that don’t benefit you and I, rather the top.
How our Healthcare System Works
America has the most expensive, wasteful and ineffectual healthcare system in the world. The NUMBER ONE reason for personal bankruptcy in America is healthcare. We spend the most per person yet exhibit poor health outcomes with the lowest percentage of our population covered and declining life-span that is shorter than 30 other countries.
One of our major downfalls (of private, for-profit insurance) is overly high administrative costs that account for 20-30 percent of healthcare spending which dwarfs most all countries.
Forty-five thousand adults die each year because they do not have insurance, and 84,000 Americans die each year from preventable illnesses.
Even with insurance, Americans can’t afford their medical bills.
We also have the most outrageous pharmaceutical costs in the world with prolific mark-ups. The main reason for all this, as I mentioned above, is the system has been riddled with legalized corruption and bribery for decades.
Our healthcare system dogs the sick and disabled with rhetoric and lies given by corrupt figures of class who have wealth and good health. And that rhetoric trickles down to the public as the middle-class and the poor battle each other, rather than the top who is responsible.
We live in a country where any person sharing how the system has shattered lives is reduced to rhetoric like, “You're privileged” or “Pull your boot straps up”.
This rhetoric stems from corporate owned media, special interests and BOTH sides (republicans and democrats) of the corporate-owned political aisle who take equal briberies from private insurance and pharmaceutical companies in exchange for making sure this obscenely profitable status quo continues.
Big Pharma in America is one of the most powerful industries in the world. Nowhere else in the world do the drug and medical device industries have as much power and make as much money as in the U.S.
Twenty years ago drug lobbyists assured Mitch McConnell they would contribute if he pledged to not allow medicare to negotiate drugs. Over a million dollars later Mitch McConnell is still blocking any effort to lower drug prices.
Nine out of 10 members of the House of Representatives and all but three of the US’s 100 senators have taken campaign contributions from pharmaceutical companies. Yes. Even liberals. Yes. Even Obama and the Clintons.
As recent as this year, establishment Democrat officials say they are for healthcare reform but in secret are meeting with private insurance to ensure no reform will happen. Despite leading establishment democrats suddenly saying they want change it was just in 2016 these same officials screamed that it would, “Never, ever happen”.
And this is what their private face truly wants.
Like republicans, these same democrats perform tactics to diffuse reform like in 2016 when they, with republicans, blocked a bill for cheaper prescriptions or in 2009 when Democratic leadership in the Senate actively worked to keep the public option from being included in the Senate health bill.
Sometimes I don’t liberals realize democrats are now taking as much lobbyist and special interest money as republicans. In fact, Clinton took the MOST big pharma AND Wall Street money in 2016 elections and Obama overwhelmingly took the MOST big pharma (over 20 million) AND Wall Street money in 2008, three times more than his opponent McCain, which is why we basically got an updated 2006 republican health law known as ACA (aka Obamacare) instead of the overwhelmingly popular Medicare-for-all (aka Universal healthcare, Single Payer) he campaigned on.
Now, granted republicans obstruct and block anything and everything just because in a two party system this is what you are supposed to do but there is more to it than that.
This is not “negative” yet acts that can easily be fact-checked online. I think we sometimes mix up negative with negative acts. I point out both sides, including mine, because we are under the falsehood that Democrat leadership is for a revolutionary change in our healthcare system when the centrist establishment side of democrats can be just as complicit and actively work against any grassroots campaigns pushing for change. We already know republican leadership has never been for a non-profit healthcare system and have espoused rhetoric against it for decades. They have always supported corporate welfare for their donors while they tell their constituents a different message. This corrupt system is a bi-partisan effort and conservatives do the exact same.
Affordable Care Act’s (aka Obamacare) original template was drafted by Stephen Butler of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and Republican governor, Mitt Romney, passed it in 2006 in Massachusetts.
While Affordable Care Act is better than nothing it still is market-based healthcare designed to be profitable and proved to be overly expensive. The industries that profit from our current health care system wrote the ACA legislation, heavily influencing the regulations, receiving waivers and exempting them from provisions in the law. This subsidized, private insurance made sure to protect and enhance their profits and omit caps, and is more costly and less effective than government.
The ACA continues the trend of unaffordable healthcare by pushing skimpy health plans with low coverage and restricted networks. People can only get the amount of healthcare they can afford, rather than what they need. It’s just another for-profit market-based healthcare business that continues to institutionalize classism.
In 2008 the failings of our healthcare system was at epic proportions, therefore a major topic of the 2008 presidential elections which is why the healthcare industry poured over 20 million into Oabma’s Campaign and in 2009 spent record amounts (over 27 million) on lobbying for influence over ACA.
Republican leadership have railed against ACA but for partisan reasons and not the reasons I just listed. They are often blatantly dishonest in their criticism with their biggest claim being that ACA (Obamacare) is socialized medicine when it’s not. It’s still basically private insurance which is why it’s so expensive.
Under the proposed Trumpcare Plan Big Pharma would have received a $28 billion tax break and more expensive than ACA. Trumpcarewas NOT a bill for the people, either. It was a bill for the 1 percent and industry fat-cats.
In 2018, five big pharmaceuticals saved a combined $6 billion. Another 10 are going to save $76 billion total in taxes on offshore revenue showing that republicans side with their buyers over the sick, veterans, seniors and the disabled.
Both sides are wrong about ACA. This grandstanding and rhetoric permeates our system in which ANYTHING the opposition does is terrible and will be undone because in the end the name of the game is jockeying and undercutting for ultimate control. This predictable boxing match ultimately means nothing ever gets done because the objective is winning and profiting rather than working together to fix the most prevalent (and costly) issues in America today.
Congress makes sure they get annual raises and contain and elevate their own personal “free” universal healthcare plan they demand from taxpayers yet simultaneously work against the public in providing a more honest and less predatory healthcare system. Rather than using our taxpayer money on the general American public, it’s used on a selected segment of society and the special interests of the obscenely wealthy.
* * *
There are so many avenues special interest and lobbyists, like private insurance and big pharma, are ensured a front seat at the decision table.
Like scientific research. Not much different than our political system, science and research can also be corrupted and it is all the time.
I’ve had personal insight into how treatment development works with my own disorder. I know a little bit about how it works.
Scientific review or research of any treatment is often paid for by the (pharma) company selling the product, which should be a conflict of interest. And then everything filters through a congress where BOTH conservatives and liberals are bought by private insurance and big pharma, another conflict of interest. And then at LEAST one big pharma CEO or representative of most all major pharmaceutical companies sits on the board of EVERY single corporate-owned media network.
This union between Big Pharma and the mainstream corporate media is a textbook example of a symbiotic relationship. “Big Pharma depends upon Big Media to present a positive image of the industry, while Big Media receives billions of dollars from Big Pharma for advertising.” This relationship even means running paid for “research” or propaganda aimed at squashing any meaningful legislation reform.
* * *
In 2016, pharmaceutical companies spent over $6 billion on multimedia advertising.
Did you know the United States and New Zealand are the only countries in the world to allow direct advertising of prescriptions to the public? It’s called DTS (direct-to-consumer) and this was gifted to big pharma in 1985. Even physicians take issue with DTS.
Drug TV advertising is bad for a number of reasons. For one, marketing costs play in fueling escalating drug prices and also inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate. Pharma companies spend 19 times more on marketing than research which is what you and I are really paying for — a corporation’s advertising platform — when we need pills.
In 1997, drug companies spent roughly $17.1 billion on marketing for prescription drugs. By 2016, that figure was $26.9 billion. The total US spending on prescription drugs catapulted from $116.4 billion to $329 billion as they shelled out $2.5 billion into lobbying and funding members of Congress over the span of ten years (1998-2012).
Of the nearly $30 billion that health companies spend on medical marketing each year, around 68 percent (or about $20 billion) goes to schmoozing doctors and other medical professionals to persuade them to prescribe their product.
You can't even imagine how engrained our system is with this kind of dark money and influence that controls our system; preventing any real reform that could level the playing field more fairly.
There are two big pharma lobbyists for every Congress member.
The pharmaceutical industry has spent nearly a billion to deter lawmakers from passing legislation that restricts patient access to opioids.
Most of the public isn’t even aware that corporations write MANY of our legislations and bills, not the politicians’ office. Many regulations that govern banking sector and energy are written by corporations. In fact several former congress members have admitted to never even reading the actual policy, instead the corporate lawyer of special interest hands the politician the policy and they submit it, acting more like a middle(wo)men.
Are you following what I’m getting at? It’s a big club and we aren’t a part of it and therefor our lives and health is purely a business to be profited from.
I could talk and write about this subject all day. There is so much to the medical system and how it intersects money, power and our political system so I deeply urge you to do your own research and never rely on one source or network.
* * *
Big pharma increases the prices of their drugs at 10 times the rate of inflation.
A few outrageous examples of pharmaceutical costs is the HIV drug that costs $8 in Australia, yet $2,000 dollars in the US.
Or the life-saving epipen that underwent a 500 percent price hike, making it $600 in America when it’s than $70 dollars around the world.
The cost to manufacture insulin for diabetes costs $6 to make in Canada and costs $32 for the Canadian public.
In the US manufacturing costs $6 for the same insulin yet the public pays $400-$500. As a result people with diabetes are cutting back on their insulin dose or resorting to cheaper versions. College students who experience an over 1120 percent markup in college education compared to boomers (this statistic is from 2012, higher today) and 1041 percent rise in textbook costs since 1977 are reportedly forced to choose between insulin or food .
Both these options of either rationing or cutting back have caused deaths. Many deaths.
With obscenely high college costs, 601 percent rise in medical costs and 244 percent increase in food among times of shrinking incomes and few pay raises over the last ten years, it’s no wonder why the younger generation is angry as they feel the financial strangling by the greedy.
The U.S. median household income hasn’t risen since the end of Reagan administration, which means an ever-shrinking middle-class is a real thing.
My generation is different the boomer generation. We are experiencing unique financial conditions caused by the ENTIRE system moving to the right over the last few decades with establishment interests buying more privileged seats at the congressional table. We are no longer in the boomer generation of pension security, instead our generation has a healthy fear of Washington completely gutting our social security and Medicare by the time we are of retirement age, as they have been clamoring to do for years, especially republicans.
The current administration is trying to cut social security and turn Medicare into a copay system, if voted in, and already slashed both 6 months into his administration despite promising not to touch either (and pro Universal Healthcare) on his 2016 campaign trail.
I understand budget and personally I am fiscally conservative but remember Washington has no problems handing out a trillion in corporate welfare and more billions in tax breaks for the rich nor did they have a problem recently committing 1.5 trillion for an overly bloated military spending increase. The budget is only talked about by congress when it’s issues that affect everyday.
Cutting from everyday Americans is a way of making up the numbers when Washington gifts high amount of socialism for the rich.
The money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is us.
* * *
For months I've been waiting for a treatment plan for SIBO, a common small intestine bacterial overgrowth condition, but denied by insurance for months. My stomach has continued to worsen while I’ve been waiting. This 9-day treatment plan costs thousands in America, yet $50 overseas.
I had a friend with ALS who was denied treatment that would slow down the progression by 30 percent. There is no way the average American can afford the tens of thousands required for this treatment.
I had a friend diagnosed with stage 2 cancer and insurance wouldn't cover treatment until they reached stage 4. In this case it was ACA (Obamacare) that came to the rescue and provided her treatment (doesn’t mean it’s not a flawed system). But this person ultimately passed away after the cancer came back.
“It is in moments of illness that we are compelled to recognize that we live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom, whole worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body.”
I could share stories like this for days.
So how can I as a disabled and sick individual caught in the raptures of greed and lies overcome such a corrupt system? I'm already sick and losing function 24/7 with little energy to fight yet seem to constantly find myself caught in the bureaucracy of healthcare profiting off of my life.
It is people like Dana and I who are cut by the words of the healthy and privileged. Society has been taught the sick and disabled are privileged and the current healthcare is perfectly fine as is. But you can’t understand what it’s like to be truly sick and sitting at death's door in a system that treats patient care as the last concern and money as the first. You can’t understand giving birth to a child either born with severe genetic mutations or an illness and what this does to the emotional and financial state of parents and families.
* * *
This reminds me of a story from 1962. Have you ever heard of Tommy Douglas?
Tommy Douglas was a former Canadian Baptist Minister turned politician during the Great Depression. Today, Douglas is considered “The Greatest Canadian” in their history. Douglas is why Canada was the first North American country to adopt Universal Healthcare (aka Single Payer, Medicare-for-All) and also why Canada completely changed the tone of their government.
Now, I'm not here to debate over Universal Healthcare, more so the horrendous corruption and misinformation that has built our healthcare system. And, I recognize that even though every developed nation in the world, except the US, puts their taxpayer money into a non-predatory universal healthcare system, it doesn't mean it's a perfect system. Canada has their issues. But at least it’s a system meant to try and include everyone. No system is perfect, especially when opposing forces use money and influence to sabotage any success.
But Douglas’ story shows the lengths special interests will go in spreading propaganda when they profit from a corrupt status quo.
As a preacher Douglas had been horrified and angered by the destitution that the economic depression and drought had wrought in his province. He believed role of government had the responsibility to improve the lives of ordinary people and that every Canadian deserved the right to have quality healthcare, regardless of their economic or social situation. He and fellow Canadians wondered why federal government had so much trouble solving the country’s ills but conveniently found endless funds when war erupted (sound familiar?).
In Douglas’ quest to instill a democratic socialized healthcare system he fought the intense propaganda from BOTH the corporate right (conservatives) and left (democrat). The left and right employed rhetoric like, “if a national healthcare system is implemented people would die”, “you’ll lose your healthcare”, “you shouldn't have to pay for sick people", "Government takeover”, “Red Scare”, “Communist” and both sides fear mongered the public by comparing Douglas to Hitler.
Sound familiar?
The left and right knew once Universal Healthcare went through it would never be repealed and they were right, it hasn’t because the Canadian public loves it. Is it perfect? No. But neither is ours, and even farther from perfection.
Canada has a socialized healthcare system and they are not communists or under a dictatorship. They are also as free as the US and yet the rest of the world doesn’t hate them for their "freedoms".
Canadians have had Universal Healthcare since the 60s and the only reason why it succeeded was because Tommy Douglas began a third party. Historically, it is difficult to fix two major parties that answer to big money and have become corrupt. You need a multi-party system to keep the two parties in check otherwise legislation will always revert.
Also, we are still the only developed nation to be limited to a two party system (by design), a system our founding fathers spoke venomously against, calling it “the greatest political evil under our constitution”.
And, yet only two (corporate-owned) parties have been allowed to control Washington for over a hundred years. We expect a country of 327 million to fit in two boxes when countries like Iceland, with a 340, 843 population, have NINE parties to choose from.
After Douglas’ triumph the AMA was worried Canada’s Universal Healthcare would spark change in U.S. and ever since then (60s) the U.S. government has done it’s best to avoid Universal Healthcare by spewing rhetoric, despite most of the country polling in favor of Universal healthcare since Reagan.
* * *
What I want to know is why can our government knowingly poison a community's water systems, like Flint, causing life-long health issues like possible brain damage, behavioral problems, lower IQs, developmental delays and even death, for some, yet not have have an affordable healthcare system?
Truth be told many water systems around the country are toxic, contributing to health issues.
But our government refuses to move away from dirty energy, like cancer-causing benzene found in fossil fuel oil, and spreads propaganda and lies to avoid change and we are left to foot the bill and fend for ourselves.
If we think the rise of cancer and autoimmune diseases falls out of the sky, it doesn’t. Only 10 percent of cancers are genetic and less than 30 percent of autoimmune diseases are genetic which means cancer and autoimmune diseases are due to our lifestyle and environment like toxic energy, pollution and cancer-causing pesticides and chemicals in our food. But I don’t hear our government and organizations who profess “cures” talking about preventative measures to combat cancer with cleaner energy, cleaner environment and cleaner food. I get angry when I see officials up there claiming to cure cancer if you vote them in (impossible) yet they vote for hazardous conditions and block any efforts towards cleaner energy.
So how can I as a disabled and sick individual caught in the raptures of greed and lies overcome such a corrupt system? I'm already sick and losing function 24/7 with little energy to fight yet seem to constantly find myself caught in the bureaucracy of healthcare profiting off of my life.
It is people like Dana and I who are cut by the words of the healthy and privileged. Society has been taught the sick and disabled are privileged and the current healthcare is perfectly fine as is. But you can’t understand what it’s like to be truly sick and sitting at death's door in a system that treats patient care as the last concern and money as the first. You can’t understand giving birth to a child either born with severe genetic mutations or an illness and what this does to the emotional and financial state of parents and families.
* * *
This reminds me of a story from 1962. Have you ever heard of Tommy Douglas?
Tommy Douglas was a former Canadian Baptist Minister turned politician during the Great Depression. Today, Douglas is considered “The Greatest Canadian” in their history. Douglas is why Canada was the first North American country to adopt Universal Healthcare (aka Single Payer, Medicare-for-All) and also why Canada changed the tone of their government.
Now, I'm not here to debate over Universal Healthcare, more so the horrendous corruption and misinformation that has built our healthcare system.
I recognize that even though every developed nation in the world, except the US, puts their taxpayer money into a non-predatory universal healthcare system, it doesn't mean it's a perfect system. Canada has their issues. But at least it’s meant to include everyone. No system is perfect especially when opposing forces use money and influence to sabotage any success.
But Douglas’ story is good because shows the lengths special interests will go in spreading propaganda when they profit from a corrupt status quo.
As a preacher Douglas had been horrified and angered by the destitution that the economic depression and drought had wrought in his province. He believed role of government had the responsibility to improve the lives of ordinary people and that every Canadian deserved the right to have quality healthcare, regardless of their economic or social situation. He and fellow Canadians wondered why federal government had so much trouble solving the country’s ills but conveniently found endless funds when war erupted (sound familiar?).
In Douglas’ quest to instill a democratic socialized healthcare system he fought the intense propaganda from BOTH the corporate right (conservatives) and left (democrat). The Corporate left and right employed rhetoric like, “if a national healthcare system was implemented people would die”, “you’ll lose your healthcare”, “you shouldn't have to pay for sick people", "Government takeover”, “Red Scare”, “Communist” and both sides fear mongered the public by comparing Douglas to Hitler. Sound familiar?
The left and right knew once Universal Healthcare went through it would never be repealed and they were right, it hasn’t because the Canadian public loves it.
Is it perfect? No. But neither is ours, and even farther from perfection.
Canada has a socialized healthcare system and they’re not communists or under a dictatorship. They are also as free as the U.S. and yet the rest of the world doesn’t hate them for their "freedoms", and maybe that is because they focus on their people over war.
Canadians have had Universal Healthcare since the 60s and the only reason why it succeeded was because Tommy Douglas began a third party. Historically, it is difficult to fix two major parties that answer to big money and have become corrupt. You need a multi-party system to keep the two parties in check otherwise legislation will always revert.
Also, we are still the only developed nation to be limited to a two party system (by design), a system our founding fathers spoke venomously against, calling it “the greatest political evil under our constitution”.
And, yet only two (corporate-owned) parties have been allowed to control Washington for over a hundred years. We expect a country of 327 million to fit in two boxes when countries like Iceland with a 340, 843 population have NINE parties to choose from.
After Douglas’ triumph the AMA was worried Canada’s Universal Healthcare would spark change in U.S. and ever since then (60s) the U.S. government has done it’s best to avoid Universal Healthcare via rhetoric, despite most of the country polling in favor of Universal healthcare since Reagan.
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What I want to know is why can our government knowingly poison a community's water systems, like Flint, causing life-long health issues like possible brain damage, behavioral problems, lower IQs, developmental delays and even death for some, yet not have have an affordable healthcare system?
Truth be told many water systems around the country are toxic, contributing to health issues.
Our government refuses to move away from dirty cancer-causing energy, like cancer-causing benzene found in fossil fuel oil, and spreads propaganda and lies to avoid change and yet we are left to foot the bill and fend for ourselves.
If we think the rise of cancer and autoimmune diseases falls out of the sky, it doesn’t. Only 10 percent of cancers are genetic and less than 30 percent of autoimmune diseases are genetic which means cancer and autoimmune diseases are due to our lifestyle and environment like toxic energy, pollution and cancer-causing pesticides and chemicals in our food. But I don’t hear our government and organizations who profess “cures” talking about preventative measures to combat cancer with cleaner energy, cleaner environment and cleaner food. I get angry when I see officials up there claiming to cure cancer if you vote them in (impossible) yet they vote for hazardous conditions and block any efforts towards cleaner energy.
“The best way to reduce the cost of medicare is to reduce the illness.”
Something needs to change. The public needs to unite on systemic issues, not fall for the designed divide that locks us up in two party cages. When we are against each other, the top and the system benefits and grows “bigly”.
If healthcare wasn’t under the thumb of a for-profit system then drug prices and insurance could be negotiated and possibly cap the financial stranglehold pharma, private insurance and hospitals currently have over us.
I’ve heard countless stories of couples and families forced to go into financial debt due to sudden illness or disability. Having a disease, illness or disability can put any middle-class to wealthy household in financial ruins, so imagine those at the very bottom. Imagine those who are sick and disabled who, by in large, are usually at poverty level because they either can't work or face constant job discrimination.
You can’t imagine what it’s like living in a world filled with constant sickness and disability but forced to use what strength you have left to fight such a corrupt and unproductive system just to find some answers or relief.
Sometimes it’s easier to just give up and many do.
Citizens in the richest country in the world shouldn't have to take out a loan or spend months and years researching for grants and nonprofit assistance just to receive simple prescriptions like I’ve had to do.
The rhetoric from the top is changing the system would be “unfair” to private health insurance, yet the unfairness they are allowed to push onto the public is green-lit.
A few months ago my husband had to go to the ER for kidney stones. He was there for two hours and walked out with a $5,000 dollar bill. Precisely why he tossed around the idea of not going to the ER in the first place but the pain was too unbearable.
We shouldn’t have to avoid hospitals out of fear of of financial repercussions. Doing so only increases national medical care expenses, but this is what many Americans have to do.
They avoid care to avoid the bills.
American Health care costs have risen faster than the average annual income. Hospitals are hiking up healthcare costs more than 1,000 percent – over 10 times the costs allowed by Medicare — and for the same services.
The latest crippling medical bill story was Liv Cannon who had spinal surgery for chronic pain. She had Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance and was verified she was within network. But after her surgery Cannon was hit with a $90,000 bill. This cost was due to neuromonitoring provided by outside company and out-of-network. She was never told about this service.
According to Journal of Medical Association, out of network billing for privately insured patients is becoming common and with 43% receiving of insured patients receiving emergency out of network care, costs have skyrocketed nearly 200 percent. People being treated aren’t allowed to ask questions when they’re being treated and oddly the chances of seeing out of network doctors is extremely common.
The paradigm isn't red versus blue, it's everyday Americans versus a system that has overwhelmingly allowed corporations to buy control.
So, why is so much of our system defined and framed by Left/Right terms, resembling the tribal nature of football teams? Why do we resemble a never-ending game of back and forth that gets us nowhere, only higher deficits and vanishing rights and middle-class?
Inherently, people are tribal. We like being on the “good team”. This innate tribal instinct has greatly been used against us and I get why a limited two-party system has worked.
Think of sports teams. It’s a great feeling, that rush of competition and razzing the other side. It’s great feeling like we are the “winners” or “the good guys”. There’s a certain amount of self-identity and pride in the teams we choose, making most life-long team allegiance pledgers. But, blindly pledging allegiance in a political system is dangerous because causes us to shut-off at ANY mention against what we think we know and/or have followed for years.
Throughout history blind allegiance has created massacres and horror.
We need to think beyond this tribal vernacular we’ve been living in for decades, if change is to ever happen. Blindly putting ourselves in these two camps only encourages us to refuse and accept ANY information outside our bubble and/or information that exposes perhaps our favorite charming politician or party.
That happened to me, too. My favorite political celebrity wasn’t what I thought when I started actually delving in.
This is our biggest downfall and keeps truth at bay.
I’m not saying don’t be in either party, I’m saying do your research. In many ways it’s more important to stay on top of your own side. ONLY yelling at the other side isn’t getting to because you’re not their constituent. I’m not saying don’t fight, I’m saying don’t stop there.
I found it’s as important to truly know what your party is doing because if neither side keeps tabs on their own yard and only busy worrying about other people’s yards, then pretty soon you realize you spent all your time neglecting your own yard and your knee-deep in weeds. Regular maintenance and check-ups are better than suddenly realizing what you’re siding with isn’t what you thought it was.
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The conversation isn’t against wealthy people. If you’ve worked for what you have, that’s great and well-deserved. It’s also good to remember wealth and power that exists is many times generational and doesn’t necessarily mean every person worked for it. But the conversation is not against wealthy, it is against the wealthy and the powerful who use massive amounts of money and power, money the middle-class and poor don’t have, to rig the system in their favor.
This is unfair and unjust and precisely why there is now a 1 percent that makes more money than the bottom 90 percent.
I’m against cronyism, NOT capitalism. I’m against being in an oligarch system ran by plutocrats. I’m against certain social services, like healthcare, being ran by corporations, because we should know from history that ultimate power ultimately leads to excessive greed and exploitation of those with the least.
I’m for capitalism in every way but I’m not for capitalism gone rogue and that is precisely what has happened. I’m not for a capitalist system — so engrained in corruption and exploitation — acting as an enormous privatized club and chain of highly influential people, domestic and foreign, who get to call all the shots.
We have to remember we live in times of money superseding morality and this philosophy has built all the traps and lies we fall for. At the end of the day big corporations don’t care who or which side is in power just as long as they get to influence the state of affairs, and they pay handsomely for this privilege.
I don’t agree with this.
I think there’s something deeply immoral about paying $1.5 million per missile or 67 million per Trident missile with taxpayer money and spending 250 million PER DAY on war just because they bought favors but not use taxpayer money for an accessible healthcare system.
The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. We so easily drop billions on missiles meant to kill the innocent who have no role in the leadership of conflicting nations pursuing global dominance and control yet we (are led to) point at the sick, the disabled, the poor and least served as the reasons for our issues, rather than the powerful who hold all the strings.
In divisive efforts, the public is led to believe our grievances or inability to reach any reform is the result of the “opposition” when in reality the system is more bi-partisan than we are led to believe.
We have been led to believe there is one “good side” and one “bad side” when the reality is more nuanced than night-time news reflecting a boxing match than straight news.
We have been led to believe it’s just one person or one party creating the demise of our country, it’s not. It’s systemic. The system is riddled with poison and both republicans and democrats have been putting that poison into their pockets for decades which has resulted in our current system that deeply lacks morality, fairness and justice.
If you want to know the truth, look at the system, instead of blaming one person or one “side”. The state of things has been a collective effort and the public needs to unite and evaluate systemic patterns because the real focus should be on the origin of our grievances, not sides.
To know the truth you MUST vary your sources.
Don’t watch the news, read it.
Don’t just watch one (partisan & corporate owned) media source like Fox news or CNN that is full of more pundit opinions than news. Vary, vary, vary your information input with credible independent media, documentaries, books and more because you will never receive the whole truth from one source. Still watch mainstream, I watch them all to compare and contrast. But understand what you are watching and seek variation.
No where in history has truth ever been as easily achieved by sitting on the couch watching one channel.
In short, our lives should not be completely in the hands of privatized industry who make trillions off the backs of you and I. We need a government who will sincerely put blood, sweat and tears into creating policies that work and creates a healthy middle-class because when regular Americans thrive the whole country thrives. I’m not talking about blind hand-outs, I’m talking about fairness and morality.
Common sense says, and many economists, if only a few people at the top have all money then your ecomony is screwed.
And, here we are today.