The New York Times requires a maximum of 150 words for a Letter to the Editor, so here goes. Health care is not health insurance. Health care should be health assurance. Republicans have no concern whether Americans have health care or not if health care is not a free market product. In fact, Republicans think you only deserve health care if you can afford it out of pocket. Democrats are wimps who cannot stand up strongly enough for Americans who need assured health care. American politicians lie about single payer systems throughout the rest of the western world. They lie about mortality rates, they lie about the quality of care, and they lie about the length of time before one gets to see a doctor. They lie about government making decisions about your personal health care. They treat health care as if there is something to fear from a system that applies treatment to illness rather than subjecting people with illness to insurance denials for said treatment. The AMA stymies holistic treatment rather than admitting that humans got this far with just such types of treatment over 10s of thousands of years. The AMA also pays millions of dollars per year to politicians of both parties to maintain their authority in medicine and their place in the hierarchy of the elite top 1%. Their lobbyists write laws and talking points which politicians use to defend their masters' inefficient, deadly, and cost overburdened system of health insurance whilst innocent people of lesser means die. Single payer systems in Canada, the United Kingdom, France and others take all comers on a first case basis, spend the time necessary to determine what is really wrong with a patient, or what tests are really necessary to make that determination. Single payer systems in these countries don't make doctors paupers, but they do make the drugs necessary for treatments inexpensive to most, and free for those unable to pay. In France, for example, a doctor will come to your house rather than forcing you to go to the emergency room of a hospital, which is best left free for the people dying from car accidents, heart attacks, snake bites or what have you. Not to mention eliminating the trauma of being torn away from your loving parents' arms by unfamiliar doctors and nurses if you are a child with a major illness or infection. Pharmacies aren't in large department stores and are far more personal. No bread or milk, greens or ham hocks, just medicine and they are local, meaning on more corners than 7-11s are here in the U.S. People are dying unnecessarily here in the United States, many without any health care at all, and all which have adverse effects on the rest of their family and friends. What is wrong with you people? I'd almost bet that everyone in America has some kind of health insurance horror story, even those who received health insurance back in the days when having same might have meant something. An uncle of mine worked for close to 40 years for a local power company whose health insurance was pretty darned inclusive, and yet even though he received very good care, one might say that he received extraordinary care, prolonging his life far beyond the call and causing misery to the family with his trips to the hospital and returns home where he was even sicker than when he entered the hospital. After 5 of these trips over the months, and a very poor existence in between, only ONE doctor had the guts to suggest that he be admitted to a hospice because he shouldn't be going back and forth between the hospital and home all the while getting weaker and having absolutely no quality of life left. His existence was basically left to complaining incoherently about his existence. One fricking doctor had the guts to tell the truth. All the other doctors kept admitting the man to the hospital, treating him for a 3 to 7 day stay, and then releasing to his home to be tended by yet more medical industry people and his family, putting strain on family and costing tens of thousands of dollars per visit, of which not all was covered by the insurance. Not only were they prolonging his life past a reasonable existence with some level of quality of life, but they left his estate with massive bills and took away any legacy of inheritance for his heirs. In other words, they figured out how to suck him dry of any money he had and any money he might have left to his family. This is the American Health Care system. More people than you could believe have the same problems, day in and day out, time and time again. So much for the 150 word limit.
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