Michael Moore’s movie “Sicko” is serving as a wake up call to Americans. Michael did a very comprehensive job with impeccable research into this mess that is sometimes called health care (or health careless).
In one part, he portrayed the scandal of how Medicare Part D passed the House and Senate. He covered the ridiculous fact that Medicare is forbidden to negotiate with the drug companies for better prices. He covered, too, the blatant and disgusting contributions and pay backs made to our congressional representatives, including the king of the crooks, Billy Tauzin, who took a million dollars a year job with PhRMA right after Part D passed Congress with his and Tom DeLay’s strongarm tactics..
Michael may not have had enough time to cover the outrage of Medicare Advantage among all the other outrages. What’s Medicare Advantage? It’s a complicated scheme to bamboozle senior citizens, destroy Medicare, and use seniors Medicare premiums to accomplish the whole nefarious business. These "privatization" advocates in Congress and the White House are no better than street thugs snatching purses but they are a helluva lot sneakier.
The federal government PAYS insurance companies to offer Medicare Advantage plans to Medicare recipients. Yes, all Medicare recipients, even if they don’t have Medicare Advantage, pay a monthly premium ($88.50 in 2007) for their Medicare insurance. In turn, the federal government gives part of this premium to insurance companies as subsidies so they will offer Medicare Advantage programs to Medicare recipients. (Note: there is no bleating by conservatives about the free market being violated here.)
The result? Medicare Advantage programs cost a $1,000. MORE per recipient annually than traditional Medicare. Even worse, it’s been discovered that these MA plans are being sold aggressively and dishonestly to seniors. Eventually, the plan is for MA and Medicare to disappear and seniors will be left to the mercy of the kind-hearted and loving insurance executives. These are the same companies who offered HMOs and Managed Care plans to seniors and then abandoned them when they couldn’t make enough money.
Keep your eye on Congress. The Democrats are trying to eliminate this subsidy and use the funds to help support SCHIP. Let’s hope they succeed.
Michael Moore has it right. Health care should never be provided with a profit motive. It's a human right.
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