PrintObama's health care sob stories vs. tragic truths
It is a common tactic of the future former president and his fellow travelers to read heart- wrenching letters from average citizens who have suffered at the hands of evil profit mongering insurance companies, overpaid uncaring physicians and their Republican party enablers. An Obamacare speech or staged event just wouldn't be complete without a moving letter from John Q Victim of Meaninsuranceville Illinois, who is beseeching Mr. Obama to reform our broken healthcare system before another greedy surgeon cuts off his other leg just to collect a hefty fee.
Since Mr. Obama can't be giving a speech or holding a healthcare event everyday (on the 7th day he rests) he and his comrades at the White House have designed a web-site to fill the sad letter gap. Health Care Stories for America at Barack Obama.com answers the call with 24/7 access to tear-jerking letters chronicling the injustice and abuses perpetrated upon poor Americans by the pharma/insurance/physician axis of profiteering evil doers. For example.
John/Nashville TN
For profit healthcare killed my wife. On my birthday, August 5, 2008. My wife and I went to see a cardiologist. She was told that she would have to wait seven days to get approval from her insurance company to proceed with testing. Stress testing and radioactive imaging were performed. Despite her family history and risk factors no additional tests were run. On September 7, 2008 Becky passed away from Sudden Cardiac Arrest Syndrome. Single payer has got to be put on the table.
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Janice/Beverly Manor IL
My husband is on Medicare , but I am not yet. Everytime I have a test done or see a doctor, I am calling up to dispute one thing or another with the private insurance company. There is always something wrong with the claim. This has not happened with Medicare for 3 years. I am so sick of fighting with for-profit companies. PUBLIC OPTION or NO REFORM AT ALL. We would have this if insurance hadn't bought the congress.
After reading a number of these letters I couldn't help but wonder why we can't all come together and pass Obamacare before one more innocent life is lost to the evil profiteers of the private healthcare industry. Why can't we enjoy the superior healthcare system that our friends in the United Kingdom are blessed with? But then this article in the UK Daily Mail caught my eye.
A man of 22 died in agony of dehydration after three days in a leading teaching hospital.
Kane Gorny was so desperate for a drink that he rang police to beg for their help. They arrived on the ward only to be told by doctors that everything was under control.
The next day his mother Rita Cronin found him delirious and he died within hours. She said nurses had failed to give him vital drugs which controlled fluid levels in his body. ‘He was totally dependant on the nurses to help him and they totally betrayed him.'
A coroner has such grave concerns about the case that it has been referred to police.
The story of Kane Gorny is sadly not all that uncommon in government run healthcare systems. Long waiting times for treatment, chronic shortages of qualified physicians and nurses, a dire lack of modern medical equipment and a near halt to medical research and innovation are the common characteristics of the healthcare systems that Obamacare seeks to emulate. But on the plus side, there would be a tremendous growth in jobs related to the new government healthcare bureaucracy and even more government control over the lives and well-being of the people and all at a cost that is as yet incalculable.
Of course under a scaled back Obamacare plan there would be no public option, not for several years anyhow. Meanwhile, in Canada, government officials and reasonably well-off citizens are wondering where they will get quality medical care if America falls under the bureaucratic knife of Obamacare.
Phil Boehmke
