Wearing the mask of free enterprise and flying the colors of “the private sector” health insurance companies, all 1400 of them, now rant and slander attempts to deprive them of their ill deserved billions and call “single pay” and public option programs socialism,the end of democracy as we know it, while they syphon dollars for profit and payroll out of a system that should be devoted to paying medical bills.

Corrupted by huge campaign contributions and promises of more to follow, congressmen flock to their banner blaming rising costs in health care on everything except their inflated insurance- profits, the insurance bandits bribe their way through the halls of Congress content that their bought and paid for legislators will frustrate all attempts to represent the people and pass a health care plan in the public interests.

An army of lobbyists in the employ of the insurance and drug industries swarm around Congress and the press, disseminating disinformation, a full court press of lies and distortion. A noteworthy example of big money in action. By raising sham issues, all attention is diverted away from passing legislation in the public interest, business as usual is advanced and the richest nation in the world continues to have the most expensive and least efficient healthcare of any developed country. Congressmen publish editorials and op-ed pieces, written by lobbyists, part of the price for campaign contributions. One thing should now be abundantly clear; that if the billions of dollars which the insurance industry takes out of the health care system annually was devoted to the payment of health care providers, the total cost to patients would be greatly reduced.

Only when our elected representatives begin to look to the interests of the people rather than the lobbyists and those who fill their campaign coffers with an expectation of “pay back” will we have a system of care with the interests of the patient as paramount. Currently, the plans being considered by Congress to use tax dollars to pay insurance premiums, are little more than more subsides for the insurance industry, thinly disguised as help for consumers. It’s past time to stop this charade and take insurance's out of health care.

Publius