I've been healthcare jacked!

The proposals and plans being passed around Washington that deal with our healthcare crisis read like a crazy man dreamed them up. Obama claimed in his campaign that he wanted to reform our healthcare industry. What a wonderful idea! I just don't know who is really adding up the money. The assumption is that saving a trillion dollars over the next ten years would pay for insurance for the currently uninsured. Obama asserts that $106 billion could be cut from government healthcare payments to hospitals because there would not be any uninsured people showing up at hospitals. The theory behind this is that these people would have insurance either through Medicaid or because Ted Kennedy's proposed health insurance plan would hold a gun to their heads to ensure that they buy insurance. If you are paying the hospital either way, how is that saving? That is just the tip of the iceberg. Obama claims that he can reduce by $110 billion the payments to hospitals and other providers (but not doctors), because the system is becoming more efficient. When was the last time he sat in the outpatient surgery area for 3 hours waiting for a procedure? Not too much efficiency there! The additional claim is that Medicare drug payments will reduce by $75 billion. Does that mean that Grandma will now have a co-pay? The price of some drugs is ridiculous. The drug companies claim that they have to charge those high prices because of the cost of R&D and liability insurance. Have you seen foreign drug prices? You can buy Plavix for $47 from Europe instead of the $135 in the states. Why is that? Because the drug companies' arm is way up the FDA's ass! The FDA is like their puppet. It got that way because of the powerful drug company lobbyists. They have made sure that legislation keeps us from buying foreign drugs. Lobbyists are named thusly because, back in the old days, the type of business they conducted in Washington was not acceptable for the Oval Office. They were forced to do their business in the lobby! What I don't understand is that apparently medical providers across the healthcare spectrum say that there is as much as $2 trillion in waste that could be cut. Why do they have to wait on the government to force them to stop the waste? Why not start now?
This whole idea of making me buy health insurance is bullshit! What am I supposed to buy it with? I work for a company that will not provide insurance either due to its prohibitive cost (as a percentage of total business costs) or because they are cheap (probably the real reason). The last time I checked on insurance, the premium was around $650 a month. That's $7800 per year. If I got sick, I would spend that $7800 plus the $2000 deductible just to get to the part where the insurance company then pays 80%. How is that in any way fair? The blame is laid on the people who show up at emergency rooms with no money. I don't go to the doctor. Apparently, I have been blessed with relatively good health. Most of the people I see going to the emergency room for non-life threatening ailments are on Medicare or Medicaid. They are the "entitled" ones. I guess they think that since everything is covered, they can go there for every stupid little twinge or tingle. That is one of the areas where waste is obvious. Are these the people the reason Ted Kennedy is going to force me to buy insurance? There is a fairly large group of Americans who fall through the fiscal cracks when it comes to who pays for what. These are the people who make too much for any public assistance, but not enough to afford health insurance. How will the government force them to buy insurance? What will they do if I don't buy it? One part of the proposal is that they will take my tax refund or maybe even increase my withholding (like a garnishment). Part of Obama's proposal to pay for "healthcare for everyone" is to increase taxes on the healthcare industry. How does that work? All it does is hurt the public in the long run. It is like buying ice cream. The industry has reduced the size of the carton to 1.5 or 1.75 quarts. Oh yeah, they also jacked the price $3. This ice cream math is already at work and has been for years. All the current healthcare reform proposals will do is extend this formula.