Instead of getting baited into a false narrative about how great Obamacare is, which if you privately believe it ignore the last six years and quietly imagine the next six, consumers have a bigger battle that's raging in our healthcare industry that's become a monumental Goliath VS David story of the consumer against the very entities that depend on the consumer for their survival.
The not-so-secret problem is that disguised as the public interest of preserving health, our healthcare industry sold the American people on a "prevention" model that marginalizes consumer decision-making about their own health, inserts moral judgments about human frailty and saves these entities money by encouraging an industry model focused on prevention, from forced testing to pre-authorization hoops, to medical coding and reimbursement models that ENCOURAGE testing, monitoring and babysitting the healthy while leaving individuals on the edge of a monumental cliff if in fact, God forbid, they need medical services.
It is this prevention-education IN PLACE OF INSURANCE COVERAGE for needed medical care that has left us in a jam, and it won't be easy to fix because providers, insurers and government are coming out ahead by not covering needed services and treatment for illness.
So, we go back in time to Ted Kennedy's assessment of healthcare in the US, "Health care in 1978 has become the fastest-growing failing business in America. Costs are out of control." And…
"The rising cost of health is not just a crisis that afflicts the poor and helpless. It has hit the suburbs, too. Millions of middle income citizens face the Hobson's choice of cutting back on health or other family needs." And…
"We've got national health-insurance for the rich, who deduct the cost of major illness on their income tax returns. And the richer you are, the higher the percentage of your health bill you can charge to the IRS.
We've got national health insurance for members of the Senate and House of Representatives. They give their speeches and cast their votes in Congress. And then they go out to Walter Reed Army Hospital or Bethesda Naval Hospital for the free medical and dental care that Uncle Sam provides.
That isn't fair. If national health insurance is good enough for the wealthy and good enough for Congress, then it is good enough for every American citizen in every city, town and village and on every farm throughout this land," http://www.tedkennedy.org/ownwords/event/1978_health_care.
Today's public employee members of Congress are still living the UNFAIRNESS identified by Ted Kennedy a promise Obama made in his scamming of America in 2008, "If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves," http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-look-at-how-obama-is-keeping-up-with-his-2008-promises_us_55e09a0de4b0b7a96338ca2f, 100 percent untrue as the de facto exemption of government as employer, employer provides its employees with benefits, therefore we're not bound by Obamacare scenario unfolded.
For consumers today, the FIRST place to start is to insist that ANY Obamacare style plan first be mandated without exception to the federal government and its public employees. It has proven too tempting to scrimp on the "regular" people as government protects its own interests.
A consumer movement, more than a divided consumer population that engages in furious banter about who in government is more morally bereft is the only path to demanding that every public employee is the test sample for a new healthcare "plan" put forth for the US population.
