We're insane.
If you think about the way our nation administers healthcare - we really are truly insane.
The state of Vermont is trying to be the first state in the country to set up a statewide single-payer health care system - a health care system that will cover EVERYONE - and a healthcare system that according to a new report by two different non-partisan non-political government agencies will save Vermont up to $1.8 billion over the next decade.
That's right - a single-payer health care system will cover more people - everybody, in fact - and be $1.8 billion cheaper.
The way it works is that there's only one insurance company in the state that provides basic healthcare, everybody in the state pays into it, and it covers every medical bill in the state. It is the state.
No need for doctors to fill out forms for ten different insurance companies.
No insurance companies trying to avoid paying bills - because this system is designed to pay the bills.
And, because it's run by the state, it's answerable to the people, and it doesn't pay its CEO the hundreds of millions of dollars that leeches like Stephen J. Hemsley of United Healthcare essentially steal from their customers.
This is the single-payer system that most of the rest of the developed world has adopted - and why they all now spend far less than we do on healthcare - and they get better health care results.
So why is Vermont the only state close to adopting a single-payer system?
Why doesn't every state have single-payer systems that are cheaper and cover more people?
Why doesn't our entire country have such a system?
Apparently, because we're insane.
For some insane reason - we've decided that it's better to divert billions of dollars AWAY from healing sick people - and instead move that money TOWARD financing multi-million dollar homes for health insurance CEOs...
Rep. Donna Edwards: The CEO of UnitedHealth Group, Stephen Hemsley, his salary, $3.2 million.
Unidentified: The incredible gross profits of the private health insurance industry that is at the core of the problem...
Rep. Donna Edwards: The CEO of CIGNA, Ed Hanway, the annual revenue, $19.1 billion, $292 million in net income. His salary, $12.2 million.
For some insane reason - we've decided it's better to turn CEOs of health insurance corporations into multimillionaires and billionaires - rather than using that money to hire more doctors, hire more nurses - or build more community clinics.
As the former CEO of United Healthcare - Bill McGuire made $1.6 billion.
He's a billionaire health insurance executive in a country where 53 million Americans don't have health insurance - where more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps - where 1 in 3 African American children are living in poverty.
Does that make sense to anyone?
For some insane reason - we've decided billions are better spent on administrative costs to hire armies of number-crunchers to scour medical records and deny you and me, people, whoever it may be, with pre-existing conditions life-saving medical treatment.
These are the for-profit health insurance company's death panels.
Why spend billions on for-profit death panels - when we can spend the same amount of money just giving people the surgery or the medicines that they need to keep living?
The typical for-profit health insurance corporation devotes 31% of its revenue toward overhead stuff like paperwork, CEO salaries, and death panels.
But a single-payer system like Medicare - only has a 3% overhead.
And with our federal government - and state governments - going bankrupt because of soaring medical costs - it's insane to keep in place a system where one out of every three dollars spent on healthcare goes toward more McMansions for people like Dollar Bill Mcguire.
Our healthcare system has, itself, become a cancer on America.
You know, if you had a blood-sucking leach on your back - that was just sucking you dry - and you didn't do anything about it - you just left it there to feast - you'd be insane.
Yet that's exactly what we let for-profit health insurance executives do - suck us dry - leave us sick - all so they can just get fatter and fatter and fatter.
The State of Vermont is working to knock these blood-sucking leaches off their back - and it's past time for the rest of the nation to do the same thing.
A health care system should not exist to turn people into millionaires and billionaires like it does here in the United States.
It should exist to make sure that EVERYONE has access to basic health care - which is considered a human right in every other developed country in the world.
It exists so that health care can be delivered at the lowest possible cost - with the best possible quality - a goal that's hard to achieve if people like Dollar Bill Mcguire are constantly skimming cash off the top.
It exists so that we're all healthier - so that we can avoid disease outbreaks - so that we can all be more productive - and all raise better families - and all be alive, healthy, and available to make this nation a better place.
A single-payer system is the best way to achieve this, as we've seen in the examples of countries all over the world - and we'd be insane if we didn't all start working to put one in place in America right now.
As the slogan at Progressive Democrats of America - P D America Dot Org - goes, "Healthcare, not Warfare".
Pass it on.
That's The Big Picture.
