Guaranteed Healthcare

  During a speech from the White House, in October, 2002, President Bush remarked, "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof the smoking gun - that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

  In March, 2003, as WMD inspectors were leaving Iraq, U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki said, ”I think all the inspectors and support staff have done our best."  Basically, they investigated the hints and allegations, and came up empty-handed.  

  It's been five years since President Bush declared, "mission accomplished" in Iraq, yet the fighting continues.  While he's tilting at windmills, the cost of war has created a sinkhole, with "clear evidence of peril" that is causing our public health and safety infrastructure to implode.  Speaking of shock and awe, how many credible witnesses and how much clear and convincing evidence will it take, before our "pro-life" President and his posse of right-winged politicians recognize the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have died in this country as a result of insurance company WMDs?

  In November of 2007, during his acceptance speech for the Sydney Peace Prize, former WMD Chief Inspector, Dr. Hans Blix, made some compelling remarks worth noting.  "In the case of Iraq much of the evidence invoked was what has been termed ‘faith-based’. Indeed, some of it was even ‘fake-based.’ The inspection reports of the UN inspectors that I headed (UNMOVIC) and the IAEA were ignored. My inspectors carried out some 700 inspections of some 500 different sites, dozens of them proposed by the intelligence organizations, we had reported no finds of WMDs. Quite to the contrary, we had expressed doubts about some of the evidence that had been presented."

  There's no faking this claim: the insurance WMDs comprise the mushroom cloud that hangs menacingly over our healthcare system. The fact is that we are at ground zero, in the people's war for healthcare. The UN inspectors would find evidence and smoking guns all over the place. The perps are not hiding with them in caves in another country, either.  They're right here, out in the open, for all the world to see.     

  On December 19, 2007, a bereft, yet courageous Hilda Sarkysian, made the following exhortation,”Focus on here. The war is here you guys. We have a war here."

  Her heartfelt remarks were made during a protest vigil in front of Cigna headquarters in downtown Glendale, California. It was organized with the help of the California Nurses Association/NNOC. 

  Hilda's precious and beautiful sixteen year old daughter was fighting for the chance to live. Yet she had been doomed to certain death by an insurance company's refusal to pay for a life-saving liver transplant, despite the recommendations of her expert doctors at a world class medical center! The insurer delayed their decision until she only had a few heartbeats left, barely enough time for her family to rush to her side to be with her when she took her final breath. 

  As a nurse, I'm all for evidence-based decision support. That's what nurses do every day. We collect data, and analyze those facts based on the broad scope of our professional education, which includes substantial scientific knowledge and sophisticated experience. We make an assessment, create a plan of care, implement that plan and the medical treatment orders.  We monitor the patient's response, and observe for and treat any complications of the treatment or the disease. We collaborate with the patient's physician, if the plan requires modification and reevaluation. Our goal is for the patient to achieve optimal health and function.  Nurses and Physicians agree, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), have been morbid failures; they encumber our ability to deliver safe, therapeutic, and effective health care. 

  This brings me back to the unquestionably harmful and non-therapeutic WMDs, Weapons of Mass Destruction: insurance co-pays, deductibles, delays, denials, exclusions, and recissions. They constitute significant barriers to health care; therefore, they are against the best interests of patients who need medically necessary treatment. Registered nurses have a duty, as patient advocates, to remove those barriers. Circumstances require it; it's a matter of life and death!

  On June 19th, we'll be taking our advocacy to the steps of an enemy (of reform) encampment, the AHIP executive convention in San Francisco. The system works for them; they make a profit by denying payment for care. However, as a matter of conscience and ethical values, inherent in the social contract between society and the nursing profession, we believe that profit has no place in healthcare. It's wrong to profit at the expense of patients, and we simply can't commit ourselves to abide by this form of degradation and injustice, so we must protest against it. 

  Speaking of evidence that the insurers are not our friends, and just so the WMD inspectors know where to start looking, (even the corporate mass media is having a hard time spiking these stories)--pssssst, check these out:

Blue Cross was fined $150,000 by the California Department of Managed Healthcare to penalize it for 12 Million dollars in premium overcharging errors.

Assurant Health -- was just fined $3 million by the state of Connecticut for illegally denying care to hundreds of patients?

Health Net is being sued for $6 Million by a patient whose coverage was dropped in the middle of her cancer treatment, and Health Net gives bonuses for dropped policies!  According to the article, the company called 2003  "a banner year" ,  for saving the company $6 million in what they call "unnecessary health care expenses."  

A California Appellate Court rules against insurer's recission practices, and allows a family to sue Blue Shield for dropping their coverage after it had previously approved coverage for medical treatment.

Think you're insured? Maybe you're not. "For starters, there's the ongoing Hurricane Katrina saga, in which companies like Nationwide, State Farm and USAA debate thousands of plaintiffs on such existential issues as whether the damage to the Gulf Coast was due to flooding, which typically isn't covered, or wind, which is. In California, meanwhile, Blue Cross recently settled more than 60 cases in which policyholders claimed their coverage had been unfairly voided, and regulators slapped both Blue Cross and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan with six-figure fines for wrongful rescissions."  

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is conducting an industry-wide probe of health insurers into an alleged scheme to defraud consumers by manipulating reimbursement rates. Cuomo said he intends to sue UnitedHealth Group Inc and four of its subsidiaries, including Ingenix Inc, the nation's largest provider of health care billing information. The attorney general also issued 16 subpoenas to the largest U.S. health insurance companies, including Aetna Inc, Cigna Corp, and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, a unit of WellPoint Inc.  

  Those are just a few examples of how the health insurance racket in America has a death grip on our health care system. Using nearly unlimited resources from our monthly premium payments, it has single-handedly blocked every health care reform proposal in recent years, including "Medicare for All" or single-payer health care.  A one-payer system not only makes sense, but it is the only system that does so. It is absolutely incomprehensible that in a country as wealthy as ours, people can die of preventable diseases for want of money.

  Although the United States is the global leader in health care spending, it ranks last among industrialized nations in preventing deaths from treatable conditions, according to a recent study from The Commonwealth Fund. The study also found that the nation lagged behind developed nations in improving avoidable death rates. Between 75,000 and 100,000 lives could be spared annually, the study said, if the United States matched progress made by France, Japan, and Australia—the top-ranked nations. According to the World Health Organization, America spends more on heath care, nearly $2.1 trillion annually, than any other nation in the world. The United States is the only country in the study without universal medical care. 

  There is clear evidence of peril associated with the current, market-based, system of insurance interference with health care.  Why isn't the President and Congress immediately attacking this threat to our national healthcare security?  We have a battle plan, waiting for implementation. Why doesn't the Congress pass HR 676, and send it to the President for his signature, so he can proclaim "mission accomplished" and put an end to the insurance company terrorist's horrific regime?

  Nurses are angry, heartbroken, and tired of seeing their patients sent to an early grave by the insurance company WMDs. The cost of this war is too high. We are at ground zero, ranked last among industrialized nations in preventing deaths from treatable conditions. We deserve single-payer, guaranteed health care, NOW!