Thank you Wendell Potter for speaking out. My gratitude overfloweth.
I think of my Irish-American friend whose sister is still in Ireland. The poor sister has everything wrong with her known to man and is completely taken care of and has a variety of caring nurses check up on her at home. Her society *takes care of her* -- because she's human and hurt. Because it's the bloody right thing to do. Because it would never occur to them to do otherwise. They see us as bizarre & barbaric.
As a Canadian full-fledged entrepreneur friend said to me when he showed me his Canada health card and said, "I can go anywhere in Canada and get anything fixed." He looked me in the eyes and said, "What the Hell is the matter with you people?"
I didn't and don't have an answer. For all the wonderful strengths of our dear country, our health care is brutal and botched. (Self-employed, I haven't had health coverage since 1979.) I think of my dearest friend whose hands turn blue, the fear in her dear face. And we worry about the well-being of health corporations giants? It's monstrous and it sickens me.
Profit is great for washing machines and ipods. It has zero place in health care, which should be part of our commonwealth, like fire departments and police.
To Jo Jo is Right,
You want names or facts on these insurance front organizations or any of the activities they have done? Try this URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXjiMmXOrBM
I think it is just what you want.
I'm so grateful to you, Wendell Potter. The sliver *is* essential. The idea of a participation-mandate without a public option is 11th Circle of Hell stuff. Hieronymus Bosch could not illustrate this gutless reform debacle.
Without the public option, all the lipstick in Arabia will not sweeten this pig of a bill. The horror. The horror.
Yet there's you, Howard Dean, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Ed Schultz of The Ed Show, Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, Jane Hamsher firedoglake , Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Speaker Pelosi, dear stalwart Bernie Sanders, and tireless others with heart & guts. I call the White House (20 times), Baucus, my Senators & Representative. I send postcards (no irradiation for anthrax).
This is the most important ethical & economic issue of the 21st century for America. Your honesty and honor have kept me from despair. I press on, regardless.
Ran-
You better save your energy for the next civil war, coming soon to a neighborhood near you. Not a war of words -more like 1862 America.
It might be the sickest country in the world in your eyes, but it's about to eat its young- and we the people are those young. We are not only an ignorant nation- but a well armed and ignorant nation. It's not the government that you need to fear- it's hillbilly Bob down the street , who's running out of Thorzine and who's getting a little agitated by the words of Glen Beck on FoxNews.
Wendell, in your CNN article and this one, you tell us you were a PR liar for the insurance companies for 20 years. You fail to provide any names or facts on these insurance front organizations or any of the activities they have done. THis makes your story less than credible. So are you now simply a PR liar for the Center for Media and Democracy?
While I agree you should be disappointed that Obama has abandonded the public option, (although today Obama and his PR people are lying and saying they are not) and left you and others holding the bag, this is big time politics and hiding behind skirts and whining is not allowed. Get over it. You were suckered and abandonded by the Obama Adminsitration.
Pages