I've known the Cavnars for five years or so, but I didn't know anything about Bob's brother Bill until his recent post. I do know a lot about health reform though, and Bill's story ought to stiffen the spine of wavering Democrats on reform.Bill Cavnar's story is a common one. 20,000 really ill Americans who had health insurance were removed from the roles over the last three years because Insurance companies knew that they could increase their earnings if they got rid of their sickest patients. The three largest health insurers in America made 300 million dollars in the past three years simply my removing these 20,000 patients from their insurance policies. This does not include patients like Bill who lost their jobs and then their insurance.
The fight over the so-called "public option" is the fight for people like Bill Cavnar. If Bill Cavnar could have had the option of signing up, essentially, for Medicare, he would have been covered. Medicare, a government run health insurance program for those over sixty-five is what the opponents call socialized medicine, or a single payer. It takes all comers, doesn't kick anyone out if they get sick, stays with you whether you have a job or not, and follows you wherever you move in the fifty states and territories.
Without giving Americans the choice of staying in their own insurance or getting into a public option, there is no health reform. The Public Option is already a huge compromise, between a single payer, which is much cheaper to run, and what we have today, which has served people like Bill Cavnar so poorly. Incrementalism is not always bad, but in this case, more "compromise" will simply result in pouring 60 Billion dollars a year of tax payers money into the private insurance industry which has put Bill and so many like him into the position they are in. That is a waste of money, and it is not reform.
If you care about Bill Cavnar and the tens of thousands of Americans like him, tell your Congressmen and Senators you want real reform. There is no point in having huge majorities in the House and Senate, and a Democratic President in the White House if we can't get what we were promised, "Change We Can Believe In".
Editor's Note: Howard Dean is DNC Chairman Emeritus, former presidential candidate, six-term Governor of Vermont, founder of Democracy for America, and a physician. He works as an independent consultant focusing on health care, early childhood development, alternative energy and the expansion of grassroots politics around the world. Dean also serves as Chairman of the Board of the Progressive Book Club, and is a contributor on CNBC. We are grateful to Gov. Dean for taking the time to contribute to our discussion of health reform and its importance to all Americans.
Thanks for your efforts. We are all behind you.
Thanks for your efforts. We are all behind you.
Thank you for your perspective, Dr. Dean. We all have so many stories like this -- my son has dealt with Juvenile Arthritis for 10 years now, and been denied private insurance coverage so I had to go back to work for a large corporation. Drug costs are out of control. People can't get what they need.
But hey, lots of folks at the insurance companies get huge bonuses and live lives we can't even imagine. I'm sure all the Gordon Gecko types out there are happy about it.
Reform NOW please.
We have a fairly senior Representative here in Corpus. His name is Solomon Ortiz. Since we've been down here I've considered him moderately liberal and have been waiting for him to hold a Town Hall meeting on Health Care. I've called his office a dozen time or more expressing my support for the public option specifically and HC reform in general. Today I got my answer, hes really too busy to hold a traditional town hall meeting where hes there in person but, instead is going to have a call in town hall since hes so busy in Washington. Of course the number of participants is limited so you have to call in to register. I called in within 2 minutes of hearing about this and was told its all full up. Imagine that. This guy is a Democrat in a sorta democratic city. And he really doesn't give a damn cause he knows he will get re-elected as long as hes standing.
The only way the politicians know you're out there is if you make yourself heard. And you need to make yourself heard not once, not twice, but MULTIPLE times (Shoot for seven. Really).
Make yourself heard. Email and call and, if you can, visit Senators Baucus, Conrad, Dodd, Reid and Snowe (among others), and email and call (and visit, if you can) Reps. Waxman, Stark, and Pelosi, among others. Email and call the President. Do it several times on the same issue. And make yourself heard.
Wombat wrote: "So what are we gonna do about it?"
I don't know. And you rarely hear that from ME>
This fight is VERY personal for me, too. We have adult children in desperate need of health care, and either their employers don't offer it or they can't afford the premiums. And pre-existing conditions will still be a problem for 4 more years even if reform passes.
On top of that, we are struggling to help them out because my private business is down. ERs are NOT the answer, nor are they a good option when they put a multi-thousand dollar band aid on 'it' and tell you to make an appointment with "your doctor" who you don't have and can't afford.
And it's not free. You get a bill, and if you don't pay it, say good-bye to your credit. It's a huge spiral downward while investors are celebrating and CEOs are buying mansions.
America's health is too important to leave in the hands of ruthless profiteers...
make no mistake about it....in the fight to reform health insurance, government is doing exactly what it was invented to do. Protect the interests of it's individual citizens from from the depredations of conglomerates. We flipped right out of our gourds when a couple dozen pets died from contaminated chinese food....and demanded action. Yet an industry made up of our own citizens put the lives and health of PAYING CUSTOMERS at risk through denial and delay on a daily basis...and we say nothing.
Let me tell you something...any corporation that says it just can't compete with a government run option needs to be dissolved immediately. Fedex is doing just fine, UPS seems to be feeling no pain....yet they have to compete against a government option that can operate at a loss. What they mean is that they can't keep maximizing their profits by increasing premiums on "pre-existing conditions" if people have an alternative. They won't be able to make their customers jump through hoops to get treatment authorized (in hopes that they'll just give up)if their customers can jump ship. We're under their thumbs, and they're intent on keeping us there.
So what are we gonna do about it?
Profit paid for by the blood and sweat of the innocent. How many more have to die before this becomes an atrocity?
If this were a foreign power doing this too us we would have already bombed them into oblivion.
The "right" has declared war on these healthcare reforms. If we don't join the battle pretty soon it wil be too late. we are too timid. we are too "laid back". This calls for an all out frontal attack on the "nay-sayers". Show their rhetoric is nothing more than lies. We MUST discredit them in a big way and show them for what they are.
The health care debate is made up of individual stories of pain, tragedy, and financial ruin that could have, for the most part, been avoided. No longer can we remain a society that cares for corporations first and hopes that they will in turn, care for our people. We must care for our people and know that they, in turn, will maintain a healthy economy.
America has long been a land of hope and choice for all willing to pledge loyalty to her. There is nothing tyrannical about Americans coming together and voting in officials who can create more choice for us. A CHOICE isn't tyranny.
First of all, thank you Gov. Dean for contributing to our humble site. I think we've all been saying the same thing and it seems so simple. Thank you for using your talents and gravitas to get behind this. A lot of us are disillusioned with the process, but we are still hopeful that this will get done.
As a "Liberal" (or "Progressive") I agree with everything Governor Dean has written here.
Were it not for a "government run health care program", called Medicare, I would be dead.
I support wholeheartedly, Medicare for everybody.
Anybody at any age should be able to buy into the program. No.... contrary to some popular belief, you do pay a monthly premium.
But, not what is charged by the "for profit" companies.
Think about it.... people actually make billions in profits from sick people. How? By refusing to pay for their care, when they need it.
And... this is the system a lot of folks think we should keep in place. We should continue to let people profit from sick people. I don't think so. Which is why I support Dr. Dean, and his efforts through http://www.DemocracyforAmerica.com, and through http://www.Actblue.com.
They are running ads right now in Charles Grassly's home state of Iowa.
If we want the "change we can believe in", and the change we voted for, we have to keep fighting for it.
Medicare saved my life. I can't say enough about how much I appreciate being able to have it.
People who don't want to acknowledge that government can work for the people, will forever be trying to get rid of it, or knock it, or underfund it -- like they do so many good government programs.
We have to keep fighting.
Thank you, Dr. Dean, for this post, and for standing firmly and vocally in favor of the continued inclusion of the public option. I agree that single payer is the way to go but that, if there's no way we're going to get that this time, we must have a public plan option at the very least.
We need to keep fighting for a _strong_ public plan option, all of us.
Thanks for the post Gov. Dean. I'm encouraged that liberals(I don't like the word progressives) are fighting back in the healthcare debate.
FYI....Bob's diary on The Daily Kos announcing Gov. Dean's guest blog made the rec list. :)
Thank you for this.
I hear every day from those around me (friends, coworkers, people in stores) that they don't want the government running their health care and how poorly and inefficiently the government runs programs and they just don't want their health care run that way. I explain every chance I get that this reform being proposed has nothing to do with government run health care and how Medicare has less overhead than private for-profit insurance. I back it up with facts and point them to where they can read for themselves.
I am unbelievably disappointed at how many people refuse to look into this and check out the facts for themselves. It is just easier to take the fear mongering talking points they are hearing and stick with those.
I am not giving up. This is too important.
The need for health care reform hits close to home:
A lifelong friend of mine called me with devastating news. She has esophagical cancer. No, she never smoked or drank heavily as is most associated with this particular cancer. She had to quit her job because of the cancer and cannot afford cobra. She cannot afford the care she needs. She has worked all of her adult life and this is her lot in life to be turned away because she cannot pay? Tell me reform is not needed for all Americans.
Ted Kennedy pushed for health care reform for years. I most certainly hope reform is passed and soon. Ted Kennedy had the vision years ago that health care would be a crisis and he was right. We are living longer and people without health care are suffering and losing everything they own and in bankruptcy to pay medical bills. We are the greatest nation and treat the uninsured and underinsured as sub human members of society. That is a tragedy in itself.