A New Vision for the 21st Century This article will provide a ‘New Vision’ for America going into the 21st Century, I will attempt to give my thoughts on a few important issues that our country will have to face if we are to survive and flourish in the upcoming years. In my opinion there are four main issues that must be faced. 1.Healthcare I’ll begin with Healthcare. My reasons for starting with ‘Healthcare’ are due to the effect this problem has on our entire country, and that the very high cost of medical services has lead to many problems with the finances of millions of citizens. The examples are many, from bankruptcies to home foreclosures. Just look at the high home foreclosure rate and most were a result of loans taken out to pay for the high cost of medical services. Many hard working Americans who have spent a lifetime saving for the future could lose all their savings in less than a year paying off what their ‘so called’ Insurance Co. ‘decides’ is not covered. We’ve seen or heard many horror stories of Health Insurance Companies not paying or trying their best not to pay for any ‘High Cost’ medical procedures. There is really only one excuse for this type of practice, ‘The Bottom Line’. This is their main motivation as well as keeping their costs low and profits high. In my opinion ‘HealthCare for Profit’ is a bad idea from the start. |
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If you are in your mid to late 30's or older you may remember a time when doctors made ‘house calls’ dating back over a century up until the mid 1970’s. When HMO's and the complete privatization of the medical industry through the bills and laws passed by the Nixon Administration. This lead to an increase in costs passed onto the citizens of the U.S. and less cost going to the insurance companies. The origins of HMO can be traced as far back as 1910 but it gained power when the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 was passed by then President Richard Nixon. |
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Since the HMO’s control only the financial aspect of providing care, not the medical aspect, it is often insulated from malpractice lawsuits, this allows the industry to ‘get away’ with certain types of claims against it’s customers. You can read in or watch many people complain about the service they have received or didn’t receive. Take for instance, the young girl in California who was denied services from Cigna and eventually died from her illness (liver cancer). Only after pressure from her family, local community and media did Cigna agree to pay, but the girl died only a few hours before this agreement was reached. There are many cases like this. |
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Cigna assumes that these parents and most of it’s customers will simply “deal with it”. An attempt by the insurance company to delay the paying of high claims as long as possible. Often times hoping that the person gives up, due to the hassel of filling out the forms that most insurance companies give to customers that wish to file a grievance against the company. These forms sometimes include hundreds of pages written in a way that most high school graduates would have a hard time understanding. I decided to ‘google’ “Tricks used by the healthcare industry to avoid claims”, the results are increasing. |
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I believe the reason most people have decided to live with a system such as this is due to the ‘new American attitude’ of just giving up and there’s nothing ‘we’ can do the change the system. And this is a valid attitude to have in the current period of our nations history. If you just look at the power these companies wield, it is shocking. For example, the lobby for the Health Care Industry is one of the most powerful in all of Washington, DC giving large amounts of pack and soft money to both sides, Dems and the GOP. This gives the ‘little man’ no real way to fight a company that has the ear of the Senate. Not only is it almost impossible to ‘win’ against a bad claim but also impossible to get any real change in Washington where money has more of the say than the life of a 17 year old girl. |
| I watched the movie ‘Sicko’ by Michael Moore and was in total shock about how these corporations can get away with denying claims or just avoiding payments. |
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| This not only effects the person with a health issue it also effects the medical profession. Here’s an example of how the health system works: Let’s say a person is in need of an operation to correct a cancer related issue and there is a new procedure that could clear up the cancer. The doctor will have to call the patients insurance company and in ALL cases the doctor will contact the company’s helpdesk. Now here is the kicker, the helpdesk representative is most likely a person with no medical background and is reading the directions posted on his or her computer telling them what to and what not to say. The doctor asks for a new type of treatment that would help his patient and if this new treatment is not listed in the company database the helpdesk representative will inform the doctor the claim as been denied. The doctor will then have to inform the patient of this, and of course this will cause the person in already poor health, more stress. This is the #1 cause of Americans not recovering in a timely basis vs Europeans who are dealing with the same health issues. I will get into Europe vs U.S. healthcare shortly. | |
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| It seems that in our current government Dems and GOP are both not working for the good of the U.S. citizens. To give a private company the right to who lives or dies is laughable. But how did we allow this to happen in the first place? It comes down to trust, we trusted our government to do the right thing and in 1973 we trusted Nixon when he informed the American public of a new age of healthcare in the United States, but little did we all realize the true intentions of private healthcare and the relationship with our government. |
| Again to Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko’, he interviewed a group of citizens from a few different countries, the one question on the minds on many from Europe is: “How can you (the United States) allow them (the Insurance Companies) to get away with this?” The reply is simple, it seems corporations along with our government are trying their very best to keep the American public too busy, just trying to survive, to ‘see’ what is being done to them. When a person has to work two or three jobs just to stay afloat, how can one find the time or energy to protest on certain actions our government takes. In the past we looked towards the media to be our ‘Watchmen’ but as with most industries the media is now mostly controlled by the corporations that are the problem. Unlike Europe where the goverment has acted as the ‘Watchmen’ for their citizens and freed them from worries about basic human needs such as Healthcare, Education, Retirement. This then allows the citizens to be more involved in what their governments do. The Iraq war is a perfect example, most European citizens have a better understanding of the war issues than their U.S. counterparts. Example: the distorted info given to the US public by the Bush Administration was torn apart by many in Europe, both by Governments and the public. This “freeing up” allows for the people of Europe to keep tabs on their governments. |
| One Frenchmen said, |
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| If you think this is not true try to protest on any street in the U.S. and you’ll be stopped, maybe sent to jail or at least given a hefty fine. Before you can protest you must first register with the local town or city. (which in most cases takes a few weeks to get a permit) In Europe no permit is needed if you have over twelve people willing to protest and no need to inform the local government. |
Imagine how our country would change if healthcare were free, not only would it change the dynamics of our population it would allow the two major minorities to double in population in less than a century. There is no doubt in my mind that it would increase the population, free healthcare leads to higher birthrates and lower infant deaths. |
| Free healthcare would also help our economy... just think of a small or large business not having to worry about healthcare premiums allowing them to spend more on product or hiring more workers. Or in the case of the large companies, such as automotive, spend more on research and development. General Motors will spend more than $5.6 billion this year on health coverage for 1.1 million people. Imagine if that amount was used to hire more workers, GM lost it’s lead as the worlds largest automaker to Toyota due mostly in part to the cost of healthcare. |  |
Also there are many corporations all over the globe wishing the US would follow the lead of other developed countries and do away with private healthcare, the reason being is, the American worker works more hours per year than their European counterparts. This would be a gold mine for international corporations, just hoping the US would ‘wise up’ and abandon private healthcare. But the forces against healthcare change have such a strong grip on our government that it will take an effort that we have not seen since ‘Big Tobacco’ was challenged in court for causing the death of it’s customers. Large lawsuit winnings forced them to move away from a product that killed millions to invest in food stuffs. No CEO wants to be called a killer! It will take a person or persons to sue on the grounds of murder or manslaughter to change the thinking in this country. The first line in our Declaration of Independence states: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence. These three aspects are listed among the "inalienable rights" of man. The first word is ‘Life’ and it seems if someone denies you that right they are breaking our first law, this is not a debate concerning the unborn, people like the young girl who was denied treatment due to Cigna is or was a living person not in the womb. And therefore this should lead to sueing Cigna and any other corporation that takes away our right to life. We need to take back our rights and come together on this and many other issues if our country is to survive. |
Before I close this section of the article let me give you one example from my life. While working with the Big Brother program I remember
visiting the young kid I was helping out and on the porch next to
him was a teen mother with a child maybe eight months old, if that.
The teen was bottle feeding the child and at first I thought it
was water until she started to get upset because he would not drink
the water. I then asked “what’s wrong?”. I took her to buy formula and explained to her what to do and not to do. She had no training on how to feed the baby and no doctor to visit, if she was from Canada, Mexico or even China she would’ve been provided all the care and training on how to look over her baby. -A.M.G. |
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