The Sadism of American Health Care

Let's Review

• Insurance is not healthcare.
• Insurance is premiums and co-pays
• Insurance companies are known to deny claims for expensive catastrophic conditions, such as cancer treatment.
• 61% of bankruptcies are due to medical debt.
• Many people in debt had insurance when they first got sick, but claims were denied.
• There are no regulations to require insurance companies to honor claims, or to regulate premiums.
• Cancer is a multi-trillion dollar annual industry
• Most all processed foods and chain restaurants sell carcinogenic foods.
• Good food, such as organic food, is more expensive than bad food.
• Health care costs are multiple times higher for the insured than the uninsured. 

 

Ask Your Doctor

Just check with your doctor on what the charges are for you when you are insured versus when you are uninsured.  The same goes for your pharmacist.  I have heard reports (and have personally experienced) pharmaceutical costs at three to ten times higher when you are insured than when you are not insured.  Why should I pay $600 per month to get "free" medications (plus a small co-pay) that cost $500 when I'm insured?  But if I am uninsured, I pay for the same medications outright for $100 and I save $500 monthly, because I pay no premiums.  I can use that money to buy high quality foods that prevent health problems.

Insurance is the Catastrophe

If I should face a catastrophic health care claim, I would have no insurance and therefore be billed at the uninsured rates of one-third to one-tenth the rates I would be billed if insured.  Suddenly catastrophic costs are not as high and are somewhat affordable.  If I go to the right hospital, they will provide a social worker to help me work out payments or get alternative insurance.  I don't need to have catastrophic insurance in advance.  I can live without insurance and get it when I actually need it. If unemployed, there are state programs (like Medi-cal in California) that will cover everything. So it becomes very clear that having insurance is more expensive, more risky, and downright life threatening, compared to not having it. With no health insurance I can afford a better healthier life with better foods, and prevent the need for insurance.

Insurance companies may or may not deny coverage. So you are gambling that your exorbitant premiums might cover you and your family when you need it the most.  But there is no guarantee.   Insurance companies do not guarantee they will cover you for anything.  We know that many people die for lack of coverage even when they have insurance. Why buy it? What we really need is insurance for insurance companies that will cover you when they don't.

Is your life and your family's lives worth the risk of insurance that is worse that not having any?  At least without insurance, you qualify for care under numerous social service programs. But with insurance you run the risk of being denied care and left to suffer and die. The cost of care when you are insured is also many times higher, making it more unlikely for you to get care.  Just tell your doctor, hospital ad pharmacist that you have no coverage and your bills will be cut down drastically.

 

Obamacare

The ACA (Obamacare) is supposed to make insurance affordable for people who previously could not afford it. In fact Obamacare insurance is hardly less expensive. Poor people who can't afford even low cost insurance are left out in the cold, having to buy cheap foods that are actually a health risk.  California's Prop 65 lists over 900 carcinogenic chemicals that may be found in our food, air, and environment.  The law merely requires establishments to post a notice that these chemicals exist in their products. Most every food chain, including McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell,  Carl's Junior, Starbucks, Wendy's, Chili's, Applebees and many more, sell food with carcinogens.  Some of them post the required notice. Most do not. Any processed and prepackage food is a likely candidate for carcinogenic chemicals or malnutrition.

Even with Obamacare, children over 26 do not qualify to be on their parents plan. In our lousy economy, it is most likely these kids are unemployed, grossly underemployed, or faced with extravagant college loan payments, and cannot afford insurance on their own, no matter how cheap it is.  This is a blessing in disguise as insurance is more of a liability than a protection.

We choose our own fate. We can choose to deny insurance companies our money and support, instead of paying for them to deny us coverage and charge us both exorbitant premiums and exorbitant health care costs.

Insurance is not what we should be discussing. As activist Dr. Margaret Flowers says, we need to change the discussion to be about health care, not insurance.  Care for your health.  Eat nutritious, organic, non-carcinogenic foods.  Your food is your medicine. Your medicine is your food. Insurance is just a sadistic business based on keeping people sick. Don't buy it.

Why have a bank? Vote with your feet. Walk out.

If you're like me you don't hold onto money long enough to warrant keeping a bank account with the liability of bouncing checks when it nears bottom. So don't have one. Use money orders. Why direct deposit all your cash into some crooks' bank? It's your money. Put in in your wallet, or your safe. By the time I pay my bills all I have left is spending cash for food anyway.

If you must have a bank account, just put enough in to cover the bills you must pay by check or your bank card. Why bother going to a money machine every time you need your own cash? Why pay all the associated fees? Banks have a great racket. They hold all your money, fee you when ever they feel like it, post your checks when ever they feel like, and share all your transactions with any government agency or lawyer who comes down the pike.

We have the power to stop banks in their tracks. Vote with your feet. Walk out of your bank.

It's been suggested that credit unions are a great alternative to banks. I don't think people should blindly follow any one strategy or part of the industry. One credit union may be good. Another may be bad. Generally they sound good, but they all still charge the same interest and fees as banks.

Why should people be responsible for propping up an economy based on credit, which profits the bankers, including credit unions? People should learn to live within their means, not on credit. This is the root of the problem. This is what the Japanese discovered when they went through this. They now live more within their means.

The further contraction of the economy without banks that some fear is merely a contraction of credit. People still have the ability to make a living and profit. In fact, without the incredible interest they now pay, up to around 30% on a typical credit card for example, they will have more money and the 'no bank, no credit' strategy will improve their cash position.

The only thing banks are good for is credit, and right now that is even questionable. The root of our problem is credit. It's time to think outside of the vicious credit cycle box. If banks want to attract customers they should compete for the business, reduce their interest rates, cut out all the fees and overdraft penalties that multiply when they hit. That's how a free market will work. Credit unions have those fees and interest charges too. Until they come up with a better alternative, I say walk out on them. Make them earn our trust and our business.

The Evil that Banks Do

Premise: Banks are The finance industry is inherently evil.

They trade on temptation, a tool of the devil (if you believe in that stuff). Nonetheless, they are evil. People get into debt head over heels because banks make it so easy to do so. Then the banks come along and act like these people who can't or won't pay their bills are the dregs of society.

And so they collect and sell loans to collectors and resell, and each time tacking on charges and fees. So, if you started out with a $20,000 school loan it's quite reasonable, in our society by and for the money wealthy, that you could owe the lenders 400% in interest charges accumulated over the years, and the interest charges keep on coming.

The banks will seize your possessions, cars, homes, bank accounts. They'll attach your wages. They use underhanded, illegal tactics, especially with those who can't afford a lawyer, because people can't fight back and banks can get away with it.

They're ingrained into the law and the 'less than rich' man or woman has no recourse. No recourse, but to pay and pay the rest of their lives because the debt hasn't been paid off and the interest must, by all means accumulate. the interest must never stop. Not death, war, or gloom of night shall stop the interest charges from accumulating. In fact war is a profitable venture so, by all means, fund it, at an acceptable interest rate, of course.

And so bankers of the world are the evilest of people. The root of all evil, indeed.

But, you say, it's a responsibility. You get into debt and you have to pay it back.

All fine and good. But, let's say you're from the poor side of town, or even the not so rich side. You want to go to college. If you don't go, your fucked. Shit jobs the rest of your life. If you do go, no choice but to borrow, and once again you're fucked, because now the bank owns your ass and you get a job good enough to both live and pay back the debt or else the interest rate piles it on.

And so the cycle continues. One slip up in the fabric of your fate and the debts don't stop coming. You have the college and you make the bucks. But, the debt sucks that all up.

On the other hand if the family is doing well, paying back the loan is no problem; or maybe you don't need that loan. Mom and dad are there for you. Lucky you. Fuck me.

It's a world by and for the rich. Fuck the poor. That's the evil. That's wrong. It's beyond simple self discipline and self control. Things are complex. It's never as simple as the picture you paint.

Take Mr. Pennypacker in It's a Wonderful Life. Typical heartless banker.

Now, here's a pop quiz. What business sanctioned as legitimate by law is also very popular as criminal enterprise. Hint: it has to do with money. Hence, people in this business could easily move between criminal and legal circles of this industry.

What's the difference between a vig and interest on a loan?

Now, I never said there shouldn't be banks. Why be so extreme. I just said they're evil. They need reform. They already have very heavy government regulation, although there's a lot of corruption, as we can see with Enron, Anderson Little, and other corporate high crimes, in their accounting and banking practices. The reason there is so much regulation is because of the great opportunity and temptation to abuse having access to everyone's money. If that abuse didn't exist, the regulations wouldn't need to be there. So, it is recognized by law that banks are potentially corrupt.

A lot of people who appear well off are in the same boat. They may use credit to buy a house, car, etc. Then when hard times hit they have to sell out or be foreclosed upon. It's the temptation that banks put out there making it easy to get loans and easy for them to foreclose and collect.

The bank concept is a good one in theory only. In practice it is to the bankers' advantage to see people get in over their heads so they can be foreclosed upon. They have an incentive to do that to people. It's money. Banks get to have the people pay on loans and when they can't they can resell the property for a nice profit. You could be paying a car loan and have one payment left, but if you can't make that one payment the bank will repossess it and resell it at a nice profit. They don't want to work with people.

Banks also will fee people out the ass. If you bounce a check, the bank may have a policy to re-post the check 3 more times to see if it will be paid. If it continues to bounce they charge a $30 overdraft every time. So, one bounced check will rack up $90 for the bank. Then if the person has other checks out, their account becomes too low to pay those checks and each one racks up another $90. Nice work for bankers who do nothing but sit on their fat asses and collect.

Why do I have an issue with banks? They have their greedy fingers in everyone's money. No other industry has the power to deduct a bill or fees directly from your own bank account without so much as a notice. Whether the charges are legal or justified is besides the point. People earn money and should have the right to decide when and if they want to pay someone, including their own bank. They should have the right to question and refuse to pay someone if they disagree with the bill. But, with bank fees there's no recourse. The banks take it out of your account and may as well say 'fuck you sucker, we're taking this fee' while they're at it. This is morally and constitutionally wrong.

In the case of poor people or someone who has gotten into a bind, they are the ones who suffer the most. Banks operate on the premise that everyone has money in their accounts so a few little deductions here and there won't matter. They can't fathom the concept that some poor guy might be down to his last ten dollars before next week's paycheck and that ten dollars might be the difference between buying food to survive for another week or not. No bank would give a flying fuck. They let the guy die rather than asking before they deplete his money.

Banks and people in the finance industry live in a world of oblivion to life itself. To them everything is based on money. They have the power and sometimes the law and so they don't care who gets hurt. They take what they feel is right with complete disregard.