Thank you for your candor about health care insurers. I'm originally from Canada, and before living here, I really didn't appreciate Canada's health care system as much as I should have. I lived under a public healthcare system all my life. I could go to any primary care physician I wanted, any specialist I needed. There were no lists of doctors to choose from. We could go to anyone we wanted to.
Since I moved here in 2002, both of my parents were diagnosed, treated and succumbed to terminal forms of cancer. They also had moved from Canada to retired in a European country which also had a public health care system. At the time, I remember thinking thank goodness they don't live in the United States because they got to spend their last days in dignity, without having to waste those precious moments either begging a corporate bureacrat to let them have life prolonging treatment or worrying about how they would pay for it. How anyone could want a loved one to experience something like that is beyond my comprehension. From my perspective, it's puzzling to understand how anyone, except the vested interests could possible defend what passes for a healthcare system here.
I'm was puzzled by some of the tactics used by some critics in the healthcare debate. Things like bussing people around to obstruct discussion at town halls by certain political representatives, utilizing morbid lies to scare the elderly. After reading your post, I get it now. The United States prides itself on leading the world. And on somethings that pride is deserved. But, in my humble opinion, the world has something to teach the United States on Health.
Anyway, I would like to thank you for writing about your experiences and insights. I have a better understanding of what the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy was up against over the past 50 years.
I also think you went through quite a bit and you are taking what you've learned to improve the quality of life of all Americans. For that, you have my respect.
Note: this is the comment I entered on today's posting of the article on Common Dreams. I would appreciate a response to any posters here and especially of Mr. Potter himself. I would post his response on my weblog, Principled Progressive, if he cared to favor me with one:
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This article is in one way inspiring and in another dispiriting. It is inspiring to see such a courageous mea culpa statement from one who had worked for a big insurance company and had taken part in a giant conspiracy to defraud the American people, depriving them of health care in the interests of profits for the health care industry: the very situation that health care "reform" must remedy.
The dispiriting part comes from Mr. Potter's message to a crowd in Portland Oregon that is described as "mixed" between the supporters of a public option and of single payer. The location of the "rally" is interesting because it is from Portland that a Mad as Hell caravan of Portland doctors will take off on a cross-country tour in support of single payer, leaving next week bound for, hopefully, a conference with the President in October. See the tour's website at www.madashelldoctors.com See also Ralph Nader's article on today's Common Dreams. Maybe influenced by the crowd's "mix" of banners, Mr. Potter treats the "public option" as one of the features of health care reform for which the rally attenders should advocate. This is not the position of the MH doctors themselves who, on their website, describe the public option as "a trap," which is exactly what I think it is. From all I have learned about it, there is small to no chance that a public option inserted into legislation that is otherwise quite industry-friendly is going to hamper at all the ability of the insurance industry to operate in a way that will continue to deny quality medical care to all Americans of all ages and social statuses.
I got a phone call today from a Democracy for America caller who urged me to follow Dr. Howard Dean's support for the public option; Dean having said that, without a public option, the health care reform measure is no "reform." As I tried to tell my caller (and of course it wasn't his job to listen to my argument), the legislation would also be no reform WITH the option, which could be seen as in fact a ploy to attract support for the industry-friendly legislation that (if any) is likely to emerge from Congress. In my view, we do need a mass mobilization for health care reform but not one which has one or two feet caught in the "trap" of the public option provision.
And frankly, the fact that lots of large companies and groups - often with competing business interests - have come together and lent their names and resources to an effort like AAFT is far more credible than one group --
What's "credibility" got to do with it? As the other commenter pointed out, they wouldn't have "lent" their names to their astroturf project if they hadn't had to -- they're no more transparent than they're forced to be -- and they still hope that by calling themselves "Americans Against " instead "Corporations Against" they'll divert most people from looking at who they are. That's astroturf.
You may call yourself "Proud Corporate Shill" if you like, but you're doing yourself no credit.
This illustrates one of my points. CMD gets the bulk of its money from foundations, according to its website. That's fine. I don't have a problem with that.
However, it undermines the endless charges of "astroturf" that CMD lobs against groups it disagrees with, since the money that funds CMD has effectively been washed of its origins by the time it's spent.
With Americans Against Food Taxes, we know exactly where its money is coming from. And frankly, the fact that lots of large companies and groups - often with competing business interests - have come together and lent their names and resources to an effort like AAFT is far more credible than one group -- with untraceable funding -- dismissing AAFT as some despicable "front group."
What's "credibility" got to do with it? As the other commenter pointed out, they wouldn't have "lent" their names to their astroturf project if they hadn't had to -- they're no more transparent than they're forced to be -- and they still hope that by calling themselves "Americans Against " instead "Corporations Against" they'll divert most people from looking at who they are. That's astroturf.
You may call yourself "Proud Corporate Shill" if you like, but you're doing yourself no credit.
This illustrates one of my points. CMD gets the bulk of its money from foundations, according to its website. That's fine. I don't have a problem with that.
However, it undermines the endless charges of "astroturf" that CMD lobs against groups it disagrees with, since the money that funds CMD has effectively been washed of its origins by the time it's spent.
With Americans Against Food Taxes, we know exactly where its money is coming from. And frankly, the fact that lots of large companies and groups - often with competing business interests - have come together and lent their names and resources to an effort like AAFT is far more credible than one group -- with untraceable funding -- dismissing AAFT as some despicable "front group."
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