I'm grateful to obey and miguelitoh2o and all the others who have written recently with such clarity and passion about the abuses of our health insurance industry.

In light of such information about Insurance Company abuses, it seems puzzling that the insurance industry lobbyists can actually mobilize people to disrupt town hall meetings on behalf of the insurance industry. Yet, it shows that these corporations can be strategic actors in the marketplace even as they are so inept at serving it.

If anything, the insurance lobby is pretty good at framing the debate with inflammatory rhetoric. Terms like "big guvmint," "socialism," and other triggers are thrown around like raw meat by these corporate organizers, with result that their "pavlovian populist idealogues" strain at the leash to just "git me a Congressman" when invited to do so on command at these meetings.

These people at the Town Hall Meetings are angry, to be sure! But if they would only take a minute to realize it was the corporate handlers who had actually sand-papered their assholes with practices like rescission and other abuses, they would turn their anger on their masters and really sink their teeth into the problem. With the insurance company parasites dispatched thusly, we could then anticipate some GENUINE health care reform and abandon this silly notion of INSURANCE INDUSTRY reform.

Someone please explain: If the objective is to be health care for everyone, what role does "insurance" have to play? Stated another way: If we are to collectively provide health care for all - with no limitations on pre-existing conditions or "exposure to risk" - what need is there to insure against "loss." In adopting universal coverage, aren't we determining that we are in fact going to accept the "losses" as part of our compact with our fellow citizens that we will be there for them (and us, too!) in their time of medical need? Or are we going to continue using health care dollars to "pay premiums" (contributions toward corporate profits - and lobbying!) to cover only healthy people?

Yeah, I'm angry too. But if I were to go to Washington with pitchfork raised, my first stop would be on K Street, not Congress. And if I were to choose to disrupt a meeting, it would not be at a gathering of citizens discussing matters with their elected officials. No, it would be in some corporate board room where I could righteously give a full-throated expression of the contempt I feel for the parasites who stand between us and genuine health care reform.

At the very least, I want returned to me the health care dollars I contributed as insurance premiums that are now being used to organize houliganism at these Town Hall Meetings. And then I want these insurance industry parasites to get off my back!

The fact that most other industrialized countries are spending 50% less and receiving better care would seem to indicate that there is a structural failure in our health care system. Wild guess here, but I'm betting that a "health INSURANCE system" simply introduces too many parasites into the effort to provide efficient and effective health care to our citizenry.

I, for one, can state unequivocally that there is not ONE insurance company executive that ever provided for me ANYTHING that can even remotely be considered health care. And this is not a specious argument made in favor of universal single payer health care (at best!) or at least a "public option." It is simply common sense that seeks the elimination of the health insurance industry as the primary "cure" that is necessary to be undertaken before we can accomplish the systemic reforms needed to achieve adequate health care as a right for everyone in the United States.

I watched in amazement one Congressional hearing that included three Health Insurance Company CEO's testifying about rescissions. It was disgusting to learn of the incredibly cruel games they play - accepting monthly premiums from healthy people and immediately dropping coverage for same when they become ill - to preserve and enhance company profits. By their own accounting, over 20,000 "customers" of just these three companies were suddenly denied health insurance coverage at their moment of need per year.
  
As I watched, my thoughts became centered upon the impact that would be felt if these three execs were to simply "disappear" from our health care system. The removal of the expense of their salaries and compensation benefits of just these three execs from the overall health care "budget" would allow for free health care for my family and the families of my nearly 100 co-workers (with, tangentially, undoubtedly enough left over to cover the salaries of most of them as well).

How many such CEO's are we supporting with our health care dollars? How many duplicative staff and services are we supporting at each of these companies? At what cost in health care dollars being spent?

There is a demand for universal, single payer health care among the grass roots that will not be quieted. It is for reason that people see the same waste and inefficiencies of our "health INSURANCE system" that is so readily apparent to me, and they apply a common sense toward a solution. If we are truly serious about cutting waste, forget about diversionary talk about arbitrarily cutting physicians salaries or other such nonsense. Get the bloodsuckers off our back first, then let's talk about genuine recovery of our health care system.