The other day, I guess it was because I still had pieces of a Benjamin stuck between my teeth after lunch, somebody asked me how much money I had. I answered by saying that I just went to Panera’s and got me a seven dollar bowl of chili, so I was not only broke, but I felt really, really stupid for buying a seven dollar bowl of chili! Seven dollars for a bowl of chili! Seven dollars for a bowl of BEANS! Have you ever tried chili at Wendy’s? It’s like a dollar fifty and it’s really not bad. I paid seven dollars for a bowl of stinking chili at Panera’s! I mean even Wendy couldn’t keep a straight face! But the question remains. What are you worth? What is life worth? If you step on a roach and it crunches, it might make your skin crawl, but if Big Foot steps on you and you crunch, do you think anybody would realize how wonderfully crisp you were? I mean with 450 trillion birds, cows, dogs & people on the planet, what’s one more crunch. What is life worth? Social status is determined by IQ, or how cleverly you play your “Great 88”. Formal education can get you on the first rung, but it’s your Practical Intelligence and finesse that will move you up the ladder. It’s not the restaurant you pick, but how smoothly you present the crumpled green $20 handshake to the maitre d’ that gets you the choice table. But not everybody is at the table because of the foibles of nature and all the other monsters that determine fate. Many people end up being that piece of cardboard they put under the leg of the table to keep it from wobbling – and then they die. Life is a proscribed set of Darwinian tests, which allow the weak just enough crumbs for the energy to follow the light and crawl out for more. Aaah!! And then the light came on! If it’s true that only the strong survive & thrive, (as Darwin so aptly noted), then it must also be true that altruism and power are natural polar opposites. But how does “power” happen? Captain Kangaroo helped make us the most polite generation ever. Please and thank you were words to live by. And while that’s very nice, “please and thank you” are also in the submissive cornerstone. That might sound interesting and even kinky, but I use the term “submissive” in its most boring context of being controlled. Ah wait a minute, that sounds kinky too… Ok, when I say “being controlled”, I mean it like when a master trains his dog. Only, when the bell rings, we salivate and then head to the next class, as we are trained to stay inside our Little Boxes).
The science of politics, even going back to Machiavelli’s “The Prince”, centers around misleading the public into thinking of itself as a happy “autonomous” blob, that looks up to the Wizard for not only wisdom, but for support and positive feedback. The big billboard with “ACHIEVEMENT” written on it is usually lit so brightly that even the North Star is guided by it. People are trained from birth to look up at “achievement” in wonder…
It was Tricky Dicky in 1971 who fought for the HMO concept of rationed-“care”.
One of those famous Nixon tapes was with John Ehrlichman, who said to Nixon “we have now narrowed down the Vice President’s problems on this thing to the one issue, and that is whether we should include these Health Maintenance Organizations like Edgar Kaiser’s Permanente-thing”. And to that Nixon replied “You know I’m not too keen on any of these damn medical programs”. And to that, Ehrlichman says, “this is a private enterprise one”. Nixon replies, “well that appeals to me”. Ehrlichman then says to Nixon, “Edgar Kaiser is running this Permanente deal for profit. And the reason he could do it, I had Edgar Kaiser come in and talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make”. And to that, Tricky Dicky says “fine”. Ehrlichman then says to Nixon “and the incentives run the right way”. Nixon then capsulizes the conversation by saying “not bad”.
Well, after that conversation, Nixon went on TV and boasted about a new plan that would give every American healthcare. And that was the dawn – the birth of the for-profit HMO’s and the beginning of a wonderful new industry that by its own cornerstone principles and guidelines would profit by literally letting people die.
It was Wall Street and thugs like Rick Scott who then criminally exploited rationed “care” to the hilt. And after all those insults to even the average person with some economic and mental means, they now want to inflict rationed “care” to the most vulnerable through HMO’s. That is precisely the same as requiring that minorities take a competency test in order to vote, laced with impossible questions to insure failure. We are conditioned from birth to be submissive and compliant, which in terms of the parent guiding the child to adulthood, does has its benefits. But even after transitioning into adulthood, much of the adult domination remains. When you leave the house and go off on your own with shaky legs, “authority” still feels comforting, unless you’re an ass who has all the answers at the age of 22… So then when politician billionaires come up with “solutions” for evolving industries, such as healthcare, the public typically listens with reverence and respect. They usually don’t have enough attention, time, or mental “RAM” to do otherwise.
For-profit Health Maintenance Organization’s don’t “maintain health”. HMO’s use the term “health” in the same way that Hormel now uses the term “natural”. Ebola is natural. Just because a company has “Health” in its name doesn’t mean it supports health! Warm & fuzzy “Health Maintenance Organizations”, (or should I say corporate conglomerates), may accidentally improve health for some people, but that’s not why HMO’s are in business. For-profit HMO’s exist to produce and maintain revenue streams for investors. Rationed-“care” HMO’s are like expensive timeshares. They work beautifully if you get sick during the third week in October, using an in-network hospital and if you don’t present complications to the accounting department. HMO’s are in business to deny care. HMO’s are in business to decline claims. HMO’s are in business.
Your health – decisions on whether you live, or die should not be based on a business model. I’m not saying that business practices shouldn’t apply within medicine, but market economic principles should be reserved for when you want a new face, or glow-in-the-dark eyeballs… HMO’s ration health”care” and HMO’s are in business to make as much profit in health “care” as Wal-Mart makes on guns and frying pans.
That description of how Rationed-“care” HMO’s work is not contained in their official mission statements on how they “help” patients. That portrayal instead uses a “missionary” statement to exploit patients at the precise time when they are flat on their backs. And the facts that support HMO exploitation have been endlessly proven for decades – proven over decades through countless investigations, reports and books that these corporations are nothing more than money machines.
HMO’s are in business to deny care.
That is how they profit.
Now the political tycoons are about to take the weakest among us, those with no power or clout, and make life and death decisions for us based on coverage caps and market principles – based on actuarial tables and on possible outcomes, rather than basing those decisions on the intrinsic value of life itself.
What are you worth?
Politicians and pompous tycoons are much more willing to spend our tax money on their wars, rather than on our health. But war - war is easy. Funding of the global tentacles of the war industry ostensibly happens though long hearings and after much intense debate. But the funding of war is actually much like throwing a lobster a kiss before throwing it in the pot. The “debates” are simply for show. Billions to kill and billions for death are capriciously and automatically handed out with no-bid contracts to Haliburton and Blackwater and Lockheed-Martin and to Boeing, Caterpillar and to thousands of other smaller corporations that make the rivets, bombs, bullets and indestructible toilet seats.
But when “Medicare For All” came up for debate, the Single Payer approach was turned into an instant IED and the Single Payer idea was blown to smithereens. After all, Bombs For All and healthcare for the well and well connected is much more profitable.
And when “someone important”, like “the sneering”, war mongering Dick Cheney, needs a new heart, it’s done in a heartbeat, with no questions, no forms, no waiting periods, written exams or deductibles. We allow war to happen and we are allowing war to be waged against us. And that war against us is being funded by our own money - with the taxes we pay and with the exploitative medical bills we can barely pay, or can’t pay at all. And if we don’t pay, we die. We “let” those in the top one percentile who kill for profit, (like Dick Cheney), thrive with the best medical care possible – and yet when it comes to the quality of life and keeping death at bay for ourselves, we just lay on our backs and when the brutality ends and the cigarette is lit, we say thank you, then put the pillow over our heads and sob ‘til exhaustion.
Fighting sucks. I am tired of fighting. I’m worn down by “the system”, which banks on our breaking points. They sell us the “patriotism” and “pride” we need to be content that our “sacrifices” are for the greater good. Wall Street is allowed to decimate the life savings of “the everyday little people”. The Feds take our homes and jobs and then they cut Unemployment benefits. And we are not even the “everyday” little people! Many of us are on MedWaiver and on Medicaid. To those, like Rick Scott, we are the rats in the sewer who put a burden on the wealthy. We are the worthless little scum who clog up “progress” for the top one percent who hold the real power. There is no shortage of money. There is no shortage of money. This Depression – this crisis was caused by billionaire speculators, investors and outright criminals like Rick Scott, who advertised their way into the pockets of the poor and poorly educated people of this state, while promising those making 6-figure incomes more money by cutting their taxes and thereby also cutting critically needed revenues for the scum at the bottom of the barrel. Trickle-down voodoo economics worked great in the 80’s and it’s working great now. Trickle-down economics works beautifully for those at the top, but it creates deficits at the lower end of the scale. Budget shortfalls are by design!! Budget shortfalls are structured and deliberate. First you create a regressive tax structure by cutting taxes for the wealthy, and then when disaster strikes and there is no money for essential and basic services to the poor, (such as those provided by Medicaid and MedWaiver), the shortfalls are solved by cutting services to the poor. There used to be names for those things; “oppression”, “discrimination” and “racism”. Those three terms are no longer even in our lexicon because the targets of oppression, discrimination and racism are no longer narrowly defined. The practitioners of oppression, discrimination and racism now lavishly include everyone by degree who doesn’t quite squeeze into that top 1 percentile economic bracket.
Fighting is messy – fighting goes against every instinct we have for stability. And as a result, and supported by the right-wing thugs who use “god and country” as the glue to keep us in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, we Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition and stay low in our foxholes “til it’s safe to come out and thank the brutal “leaders” who we so critically depend on for actual survival. Those of us who “use” the system and crawl through the sewers feeding on whatever the elite’s throw at us, need to look for some light above and start exploding out of every man hole cover we can find, stagger onto limousine hoods, get up on all 4’s and puke on the windshields. It is only then that we will not be invisible anymore. It will be only then when we can stop living on pins and needles, with draconian DelMarva paperwork and hair-triggered paybacks of thousands of dollars, caused by something like a single “T” not being crossed on the way to dusty death. The convoluted “system”, (which includes DelMarva and APD), provides no security at all for the clients they should be serving. Instead, providers spend the bulk of their time scrambling to survive potential and actual audits. Do you think for even one minute that DelMarva and APD audits help to manage and maintain life & death services to those of us on MedWaiver & Medicaid? Absolutely not. While the government casually hands out billions for bombs, death and destruction, we appreciatively thank our lucky stars for DelMarva and APD. Because if we, or any of our providers dare to criticize, or worse, be “non-compliant”, (for all practical purposes) their Probation Officers are sent out with axes.
Just like the virus that mutates its way past the vaccinations, “Protesting” and “picketing” to right the wrongs of the right only serve to entertain the billionaires who milk the disenfranchised as if we were TG Lee cows in endless rows of automated milking machines. Remember the Happy Cows on TV in the 1970’s? They were shown carelessly grazing outside the earshot of the slaughterhouse. Those cows had no idea of what a flank steak was. Well get in line, because Rick Scott and his filthy rich butchers have already ordered the A1 sauce in celebration of our demise. But, unlike cows, they don’t need to cut off our heads to profit and to clean society of what they consider to be “bottom feeders”- they simply need to cut budgets. That’s it! They create deficits and then say OOOPS!!! You don’t need a knife to kill directly, when you can use that knife to simply slash budgets. Willful Neglect is not only a dereliction of decency, but a deliberate political strategy. We can stuff complaint boxes and squawk in the streets until the cows come home. We even went to Tallahassee by the thousands to voice our dissent. We are naked and in a cage with wealthy, hungry billionaire lions and vultures who have no reason not to eat us.
“Asking” and pleading for the essential services we pay for through taxes might put a smile on Mister Greengenes face, but being polite only makes us complicit in putting the cheese in the traps that we are required to crawl through.
A Class Action Abuse lawsuit needs to be filed against Rick Scott, Mike Haridopolos and their vulgar cohorts who are viciously and quickly causing our demise. We need an attorney to bring these thugs to justice and to not only restore the meager subsistence funding that was taken from us, but to ultimately more than double Medicaid and MedWaiver funding so that we have a chance to live with some integrity and in a state of well being, free from constant abusive and elitist threats. We may not be able to stop the Military Industrial Complex from killing, but we can demand that those funds for war be drastically cut and rechanneled to give those on Medicaid and MedWaiver a chance at survival that Charlie would be proud of. We must demand that the tax structure lets the wealthy create the climate for spending at the roots level, so that the trees bloom for all.
