Monday, August 10, 2009

We Already Have 'Death Panels'

As Crooks and Liars points out:
You have no idea what it’s like to be called into a sterile conference room with a hospital administrator you’ve never met before and be told that your mother’s insurance policy will only pay for 30 days in ICU. You can't imagine what it's like to be advised that you need to “make some decisions,” like whether your mother should be released “HTD” which is hospital parlance for “home to die,” or if you want to pay out of pocket to keep her in the ICU another week. And when you ask how much that would cost you are given a number so impossibly large that you realize there really are no decisions to make. The decision has been made for you. "Living will" or no, it doesn't matter. The bank account and the insurance policy have trumped any legal document.

If this isn’t a “death panel” I don’t know what is.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

The Insurance Industry

The insurance industry is spending over $1.4M each DAY to defeat the public option.

Imagine if they spent that money on actually healing people.

And now you know why we need a public option.