As for me, give me single-payer insurance any day

Health care should be a right in our country

Visit http://Wormwood's Doxy. She has a terrific post on the scummy tactics the health-insurance industry is using in the fight over health-insurance reform.

Let's face it. Insurance companies are not there to help you get needed health care. They exist for one reason: to make a profit, just like any other corporation.

Covering claims cuts into profit. It makes insurance companies unhappy, so they try to avoid it.

The whole idea behind insurance was the law of large numbers. The theory was, a lot of people could band together and put money in a pot. Then, there was money to cover rebuilding the house that burned down, for example.

The insurance companies like the "large number" parts. Only they want large numbers who don't file claims. That's why we have government insurance - Medicare - for the retired. They're kinda prone to needing health care. Never mind all the money they put into the pot without filing claims when they were younger. The insurance companies didn't want them, so it's ok for a single-payer system for them.

It's all about profit.

Even if you have insurance, it's a nightmare. File a claim, and find out about all kinds of co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses you never expected. Call the company to inquire, and get a different answer from each customer-service rep you speak to as to why something wasn't covered, or why you had to pay a lot out of pocket for something that was supposed to be covered.

Get hit with the unthinkable, a cancer that won't respond to any conventional treatments. Go to a respected cancer-treatment center in the U.S. to enroll in promising clinical trials, and find out your insurance covers zip, even though your doctors sent you there because it's your only chance. Doesn't matter - not covered.

Or, find yourself unemployed. Then, you lose your group health coverage, and can't afford to buy it privately. It's one more blow, and one more worry. I volunteer at a local faith-based free clinic for the broke uninsured, and I see them.

First, they got laid off. Then, they lost their home, then got sick. They're terrified.

According to statistics garnered by Associated Press, about 4 million Americans, many of whom never expected to find themselves needing these services, are expected to visit the nation's 1,200 free health clinics this year. At the same time, clinics are dealing with loss of revenue due to the economy.

Even if there's a free clinic for routine health care, you're SOL if you need to go to the hospital, or need treatments the free clinic can't provide.

In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, people can't get basic health care. There's no reason for this.

Health care should be a community service, just like law enforcement or public schools, which we should not allow to be handed over to private companies, either.

Private enterprise is a good thing, for the most part. Life and death and who gets medical care should not be determined by the profit motive.

There won't be serious reform unless we, the people, get mad enough to demand it and vote out of office lawmakers who only give it lip service.

Are you up for the revolution?