THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

© Port Whitman Times 2008

The problem with the entire Health Care industry, from drug manufacturers to hospitals to insurance companies to pharmacies to nursing homes to suppliers of medical equipment right down to doctors and nurses, is that it IS an INDUSTRY - geared to making money, for its participants and for its investors. Yessiree, for all involved, greed is good.

Watch TV; see your money being poured down the drain. Every other ad is for something in Health Care. "Ask your doctor" is the most heard phrase. Of course "Doctor doesn't advertise, this would be beneath his professional ethics," so the drug companies and the hospitals do it for doctor. This is a collective, conspiratorial business, a racket really, designed to make a maximum profit out of the misfortunes of people who happen to get sick or might get sick. Surely if the Mafia ran the Health Care industry, we'd get a better deal than we're getting from the current white-collar criminals involved in fleecing the infirm. And what can the infirm do about it? NOTHING! When you're sick in the good old USA you've just gotta bite the bullet and pay through the nose. Breathe deep!

And the lawyers, not to be denied, sue at every turn, so the docs pay the liability insurance, and their prices go up to cover the premiums. Who pays for it all? One guess!

It's no wonder those in unions who have the power to negotiate, demand medical coverage up to the hilt or else they go on strike and inconvenience everybody. They can see, as we senior citizens can, just how the Health Care industry is heartlessly scamming the people who have no control over prices for things they MUST have to live.

Once upon a time, when medical/hospitalization insurance first began, it was very low-cost, and non-profit, and certainly no advertising was involved because those who needed it just got it and it was a pure insurance, i.e., the risk was spread over many people paying. But suddenly the hospitals became profit-making businesses, as did the doctors hiding behind their corporate shields, and the lawyers who sued the doctors for the whining and malingering clients drove up the cost of malpractice insurance making big bucks for them and the insurance companies, the drug companies realized they could also hold up anybody who needed their product to live, the pharmacies increased their profit margins to match that of the drug companies, and so forth...

It's getting to the point where consumers in need might paraphrase Patrick Henry and say "Give me universal health care, or give me death!" But then, death is what we'll get out of that one, so one might as well move to Canada, England, or any number of other civilized countries where Health Care is universal and free.

Henry Francisco
The Port Whitman Times