The cancer came back and Obama did nothing to stop it!

Well it happened again.  My cancer came back and President Obama did absolutely nothing to prevent it!   After all, isn’t the President of the United States supposed to keep Americans safe from everything?  The Obama Administration has known about cancer for a long time and only now, in the waning days of his administration, does Obama declare a “moon shot” to cure cancer. Well, Barack, it’s too little, too late for me. 

 

OK, I admit, for a moment I succumbed to being “Republicanized.”  “Republicanization” is the political doctrine that requires you to abandon all rational, logical and realistic thought and blame everything you don’t like on Obama specifically and government in general.  Essentially it means you don’t have to think, just believe everything Donald Trump and Ted Cruz tell you and you’ll be fine.

Since I have just returned from an another all-expense paid stay at a hospital where they cut out another chunk of my lung, postponed my entry to eternity one more time and returned me to the world of political absurdity, I thought it appropriate to discuss just one of the current Presidential campaign political issues:  Universal Health Care.

First a total disclaimer:  I am completely in favor of Universal Health Care for all Americans administered by the Federal Government.  (As Bernie Sanders has told you repeatedly we are the only advanced country in the world that doesn’t do this.)

Second, the Affordable Care Act (ACA, a.k.a. Obamacare) while it may not be great, it is not all that bad.  It has helped millions of people get health insurance, and the best the Republicans can do is scream and holler about “train wrecks” and “the worst thing since slavery” without offering any new or better ideas.  (Of course, the Republicans have not had any new idea for nearly four decades.)

Admittedly, I look at this from a different perspective.  It is dear to my heart, or perhaps I should say dear to my lungs.  I have Medicare, the equivalent of Universal Health Care for old people.  If Obama and his administration had had the guts, they would have stood up to the Republicans and established Medicare for all (the public option the Democrats capitulated on).  I can state unequivocally that I have seen Universal Health Care, and it is good.  Without Medicare I would be bankrupt, dead or both. 

Now before my Republican readers go berserk, I have gone to the Trump and Cruz official websites to get first hand their policies on health care.   Cruz does not even have it under the “Issues” tab so I had to research it further.  Essentially, both Trump and Cruz state they will repeal Obamacare, and turn health care over to private industry and “the market economy.”  That is based on the totally absurd principle that encouraging competition between private health insurance companies and establishing “health savings accounts” will give everybody “affordable” health care.  It won’t as many studies have shown.  That’s the way it was before Obamacare and millions were without health insurance because they could not afford it or because the insurance companies simply turned them down since they were too ill to be profitable. 

As one who has had a rather intimate relationship with health care for the last five years I have concluded letting private industry take over health care is a really bad idea.  In simple terms and to put ii very bluntly, the health care industry does not give a rat shit about you no matter how many schmaltzy, soppy advertisements they put on television.  All the health care industry—insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, clinics, pharmaceutical companies, physical therapy et. al.—cares about is making money.  Period. 

You have seen the studies about how health care costs vary wildly throughout the country for the same things.  Your colonoscopy could cost twice as much depending on where you live.  It’s artificial pricing which attempts to extract the maximum amount of money from Americans who get sick and has nothing to do with “compassion” or “care.”

Now here’s a bit of my own research illustrating how drug companies—in collusion with medical providers—make a fortune on artificially inflated prices.  When I was discharged I was given a prescription for Lidoderm patches.  As a result of my lung surgeries, I have residual nerve damage pain that actually never goes away.  The brand name, prescription patches (Lidoderm) come in packs of 30 and have five per cent lidocaine which is the active ingredient.

If you go to goodrx.com, you will find that those 30 patches will cost you $376.05 at Wal-Mart, $375.41 at Walgreens and $390.23 at Publix.  If you request the generic version, the prices drop to $88.43, $112.39 and 237.45, respectively.  But, if you just buy a 2.7 ounce bottle of Aspercreme, an over the counter topical analgesic, it will cost you $7.49.  Aspercreme contains four percent of the active ingredient lidocaine.  So adding just one percent of lidocaine makes it a prescription that sells for hundreds of dollars. 

In closing I will attempt to explain to the “republicanized” that Universal Health Care is NOT socialized medicine as Trump, Cruz and company would have you believe.   Under Universal Health Care the government if just one great big insurance company.  It collect premiums from the insured and pays the providers for services and supplies rendered.  It is open to everyone.  When the insurance company is a private enterprise it has no interest in the quality of the actual care you receive, it simply wants to turn a profit. 

  

If we had a Universal Health Care system, everybody would pay into the system and everybody would benefit from it because the government has no requirement to make money on your sickness or disease.  Also you would not be paying several hundred dollars for a one per cent increase in an inexpensive active ingredient.