... And That's Government-Run Health Care For Ya!

It all began some eight years ago ...

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... when my mother was diagnosed with a cancer lesion in her left lung. After numerous tests (PET scans, bloodworks, biopsies), it looked at the time that there were no metastases. So, the whole of her left lung was removed - because the tumor was nonetheless already invasive and thus could not be simply excised from the lung. She ended up staying at the hospital for about two weeks after the surgery and then was sent home. From there, my mother would have to undergo further regular monitoring tests (again: PET scans, CEA blood levels, etc.) every six months.

A year later, two of her peripheral lung lymph nodes showed signs of having been invaded by a (very) few metastasing cells that had somehow avoided prior detection. Consequently, she swiftly underwent a regime of radiotherapy (targeted at her two problematic lymph nodes) coupled to a regime of chemotherapy - if only to make sure that any and all of these few metastasing cancer cells were wiped out once and for all. Of course, she ended up at the time losing all her hair, along with the additional digestive, skin sensitivity, fatigue and nausea problems that inevitably come with chemotherapy.

At least, she could immediately return home after each radio- and chemotherapy treatment.

To cheer her up, her silly elder son (i.e. moi) kept calling her Lieutenant Llia (you know - from ST: The Motion Picture. Hey - my parents happen to love ST as much as their kids, so what can I tell ya?).

Then came a complication from her radiotherapy - of all things. The skin where the rad beams had to pass through in order to attack the cancer cells in the two lymph nodes began to inflamme badly and "burn". At the same time, her lower esophagus began to swell from inflammation to the point of closing up almost completely. So my mother had to have a gastroenterologist "open up" her esophagus again with some contraption, along with a prescription of anti-inflammatory meds. Her radiologist also prescribed her an anti-inflammatory/healing cream for her skin burns.

But in the end, the combined radio- and chemotherapy did their work and she managed to come through it well enough, all things considered. Including the return of her hair.

Of course, she would still have to undergo regular monitoring tests (yet again: PET scans, CEA blood levels, etc.) every six months.

And so it went, without any further problems or complications.

Until three years ago.

That's when my mother caught a bad case of pneumonia in her (remaining) right lung, consequently hampering seriously her lung's ability to take in oxygen. She had to be hospitalized for some three weeks under critical care, being pumped up with antibiotics while having to lie under an oxygen tent (for about a week) and thereafter having to breathe under a ventilation mask (for the other two weeks).

Unfortunately, she ended up contracting C. difficile during her hospital stay, which meant more antibiotics - not counting the pain and diarrhea.

But again, she pulled through and all ended well, nevertheless.

Until two years ago, that is, when blood began appearing in her urine, along with recurring pain in her bladder area. As it turned out, my mother happened to be one of the very rare cases where lung cancer occurs at the same time with bladder cancer - so, the "good news" was that this tumor did not result from metastases of her former lung tumor. Unfortunately, bladder cancer is very difficult to be spotted by PET scans, because the bladder always lights up brightly under this diagnostic procedure (you see, the non-metabolising, radiolabelled sugar analogue used for PET scans is taken up by cancer cells and not normal ones - hence, the bulk of what is ingested by a patient ends up quickly in the bladder ... this applies somewhat similarly as to why her past chemo did little to kill her bladder cancer cells). After further tests and biopsies, it was revealed that this bladder tumor was already big and invasive enough as to require the removal of the whole bladder. Just to make sure, all peripheral bladder lymph nodes were also removed, even if they did not lit up under PET scans. Also, this meant at the same time "rewiring" surgery in order to hook up her kidneys to a small piece of her own ileum, so that she would hook up urine collection bags to her side - in lieu of a bladder. She ended up staying about two weeks and a half at the hospital.

From there, she would have to continue her regular monitoring tests (yet again: PET scans, CEA blood levels, etc.) every six months, in addition to also seeing her urologist to monitor the well-being and well-functionning of her urine evacuation. Also, she would have from then on a specialized nurse available on call (to speak to or to come over) should any little problems occur with her urine collection bags.

And thus again, my mother pulled through it all and is now rather used to her small urine collection bags (for the day), as well as to the "big bag" she has to hook herself up with, for when she sleeps at night.

In between and through it all, my father had undergone his regular annual check-ups, including monitoring his prostate. Sure enough, the prostate reached a "minimum critical size" last year. After undergoing tests (PET scans, biopsies), he was diagnosed with prostate cancer - albeit at a very, very, very early stage. His oncologist discussed options with him: either have the prostate removed - which seemed like a too radical treatment considering how early the cancer was caught - or undergo a rather new procedure which involved inserting small radioactive beads into the prostate, leaving them there to do "their thing" for a year, at which point they would have completely disintegrated. In other words: harmless and painless. Oh - and with a 90+% success rate, at that.

So after a mere three months following the original "hmmm, it looks like your prostate has reached a minimum critical size, here" announcement, my father's prostate was inserted with them radioactive beads.

Of course, his mischievous, ingrate elder son (i.e. moi) spent the better part of the following year dispensing jibes and taunts such as "Hey, look! It's Radioactive Man to the rescue!", or "Let's shut the lights out and see Radioactive Man glow in the dark!" or "Here comes the Six Million Rads Man!" along with making the famous "bionic" sound whenever he would walk or move (disclosure: my father cheerily went along with that last one, purposely moving in slow-motion as in the tv series, especially when he would come at me for a pretend slap-up-the-head for my annoying naughtiness. You see, when I was a kid, him and I would never miss an episode of Steve Austin's exploits). In any case, my father will also have to undergo regular exams (PET scans, CEA levels, etc.) every six months to monitor the regression of his cancer - just like my mother.

Hence, in the end, everything ended rather well for both my mother and father, after all...

Not so fast. I forgot to mention that through every step of the way of their treatments and/or compications, there were undue delays because the treating physicians had to get approval from bureaucrats at the Régie de l'Assurance Maladie du Québec (our provincial government-run health care). But I suppose one gets used to this enough. However, just this past summer, my parents got a visit from one of these bureaucrats, one who was "in charge, in handling" their health care files. As it turned out, my mother had not only maxed out her "health care quota", she had in fact overshot it due to bureaucratic error. Nonetheless, either she had to get private insurance to reimburse the government (which was impossible, considering all of her "pre-existing conditions"), or she and my father had to pay out of their pockets (I won't tell you how much - let's say that the amount ended up in the mid six figures). But because this was a bureaucratic error, an alternative was offered: that my father, and/or me and/or my brother, "give up" some of our health care quotas in order to balance everything out. So all three of us did, and even more - because we had to make sure that my mother would continue to have her regular monitoring exams, while at the same time making sure she would get more care should she need it, and while making sure that my father did not end up short-changed for his possible, eventual needs. I was not there during the initial visit from that government bureaucrat, but my father told me that she even went as far as to mention that my parents, especially my mother, should begin to think about doing the "right thing" for our family and society in general, so as to help preserve health care quotas for everyone. It wasn't hard to understand what the "right thing" was. In any case, my brother and I ended up letting go of a sizeable portion of our respective health care quotas, for the well being of our parents - especially our mother. I guess I will have to have kids someday, so that they may do the same thing for me, eh? Well, that's our government-run, universal health care system for ya!

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Everything described above truly happened to my parents - except, of course and obviously, for that very last paragraph.

And to make sure: no, never a single bureaucrat ever got involved in the medical decisions made by physicians regarding the treatments of my parents, and there certainly was never a "visit" from a government bureaucrat regarding non-existent "health care quotas" and other such nonesense.

And to drive the point home: all my parents ever had to pay out of their pockets were the rented, private hospital rooms. Medicines (or urine collection bags)? All either fully reimbursed or, at least, have sizeable portions reimbursed - by that very same government-run, universal health care system.

I concede that I should've written a post as this one a long while ago, especially when the health care debate was raging hot in the US last summer - a debate that inevitably spills on over to our country, because those idiots who seek to dismantle our universal health care system invariably jump eagerly into the fray in order to further muddy the debate and make it somehow a "valid one" in Canada as well. Furthermore, every once in a blue moon, some Canadian decides to go to the US for treatment - for whatever reasons, either personal or, rarely, actually valid medically - which in turn reignites the bogus debate about the efficiency and quality of our Canadian universal health care system ... which also in turn is giddily used as canon fodder by those on both sides of the border who wish fervently for no universal health care system.

This happened again recently.

Hence, the present post.

Also, because the "public option" has been essentially abandonned once and for all by President Barack Obama, and considering the sham that is the current so-called "health care summit" as well as the further scaling-back of whatever health care bill that is to be someday voted into law, I decided to illustrate what my parents have gone through medically over the past eight years in order to make plain and simple the following final points:

A) in a private health care system, my mother would have been denied coverage and/or dropped a long time ago - most probably during her pneumonia because having the one lung left constituted a "pre-existing condition" or somesuch, or even more likely following the diagnosis of her bladder cancer (here's a similar example here). Or, her rates would have been hiked insanely. Hell, anything goes in this regard where the insurance companies are concerned - so there.

B) it is a certainty that my father would have had to have his prostate surgically removed, as opposed to the radioactive beads treatment, because the former procedure is much simpler and cheaper than the latter. As it regularly happens in the US.

C) even in the unlikelyhood that my mother would not have been dropped already, chances are that whatever private insurance my parents would have purchased would've fallen far short of covering/paying everything (co-pays, maximum coverage, loopholes and whatnot, anyone?) - thus leaving them either drowning in debt, with my brother and I along with them, or outright bankrupt and forced into poverty. As it happens regularly in the US.

and D) every treatment, every exam, every everything, performed by physicians in the treatment of my parents would have had to get approval by private insurance bureaucrats - including disputing/denying of procedures for more cheaper ones, if not outright denial of treatment. As it happens every day in the US.

If that is not enough to close this bogus debate once and for all, then how about this:

Thanks to our universal health care system, my parents got state-of-the-art, high quality care whenever they needed, all the while continuing to live comfortably, and affluently, in their retirement years.

As a matter of fact, my parents went to Europe for 2 weeks last summer, as they try to do every two years (which they haven't been able to lately, considering my mother's complications of two and three years ago. The previous time they went over there was the following year after my mother's radio- and chemotherapy).

So just go back to point C) above to finally get the whole point.

And if you still don't want universal health care, then fine by me - because if you are that much stupid, then you just don't deserve it.

Period.

And good luck with your private health care insurance anyways, eh?



(Cross-posted from APOV)

Welcome To The Corporate States Of America

(Further elaborating from Mark Prime's previous post on the matter)

That's right, my American friends - it is now official, thanks to your SCOTUS.

I hope you enjoy your authoritarian, corporatocracy-driven, security and surveillance state.

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Meanwhile:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Discloses It Spent $123 Million In Lobbying;

U.S. Chamber of Commerce celebrates its ‘influence’ over Massachusetts Senate race;

Wall Street Investors Lavish Scott Brown’s Campaign With Money, Get Out The Vote Operations;

Big Banks Spent $24 Million Lobbying in 2009;

Hedge Funds Post Biggest Year In A Decade, Are Sitting On $77B In Cash;

JPMorgan Chase Earns $11.7 Billion;

Morgan Stanley: A Weak Year, But With An 'Astonishing' Bonus Figure;

Failure Often Guarantees Future Rewards;

Banks lobbying against a financial crisis responsibility fee also planning to pay out big bonuses;

Jobless claims surge to 2-month high;

Suburban Poverty Surges;

Goldman Sachs Profits Hit $4.8B, Pay Up 47 Percent Over 2008;

Consumer Protection Agency in Doubt;

In The Service Of The Corporatocracy;

Big Pharma: Carpetbagging At Its (Worse) Best;

Obama Retreats on Health Care;

Pelosi: House can’t pass Senate Health Care bill now;

McConnell On Health Reform: ‘It Would Be Good For The Country If It Failed’;

Whistleblower reveals how insurers can game healthcare bill;

Largest US health insurer’s profits rise 30 percent;

Secrets of the Immigration Jails;

The Pervasive And Pernicious Influence Of Corporate-Owned Media;

The Manufactured Doubt Industry;

More On Corporate Selfishness And Self-Interests;

Self-Interest In Climate Change Skepticism And Everything Else: Proof Is In Teh Money;

US tech companies urged not to support censorship;

Warning: Internet Censorship Coming Soon ... If Not Already Here;

Because Infringing On Privacy Is A Lucrative Business;

NYPD routinely arrests students for non-crimes;

FBI broke law for years in phone record searches;

GOP Is Overjoyed At The Unprecedented Influence Corporations Will Now Have In Federal Campaigns;

Acting In God Faith: Doing God's Work (Again);

"Doing God's Work";

Reloaded Again: And The Blackmail Con Game Continues;

... And The Continuing Blackmail Con Game Keeps On Going;

Because Slavery Is Such A High Profit, Low Labor Cost, Business ...

War Incited Or Waged By Corporations?

Indeedy - welcome to your Corporate States of America.

Welcome to your Corporatocracy.

Hope you enjoy it ...


(Cross-posted from APOV)

Welcome To Your Corporatocracy: Proof Is In Teh Money

Back in December, I did a couple of posts (here and here) whereby I endeavored to illustrate to drive home the point that no noble principles of patriotism, no social obligations, no moral imperatives, nor even basic human decency and compassion, can twart the nature of the corporate beast to manufacture doubt concerning facts in order to keep on making profits.

Energy corporation-funded climate change denialism is an obvious example. As was the case for denialism of the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.

Same thing more recently with many US anti-health care reform groups/lobbies being heavily funded by ... health care insurance and pharma corporations.

On this matter, here's the latest assault to this effect (emphasis added):

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REPORT: Challenges To Constitutionality Of Health Reform Funded By Health Industry Money

Since Democrats secured 60 votes to pass health care reform legislation — and passage became inevitable — prominent conservatives relaunched an under-the-radar campaign to invalidate reform through the legal system. On the eve of the final health care vote in the Senate, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and John Ensign (R-NV) invoked a “constitutional point of order” to allow the Senate to rule by majority vote on whether the “Democrat health care takeover bill” is unconstitutional. Legislatures in approximately 14 states — organized by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a “business-friendly conservative group that coordinates activity among statehouses — have also introduced initiatives to ratify constitutional amendments that would repeal all or parts of the pending health care reform legislation, and Attorney Generals in at least 13 states are challenging a deal secured by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) to fund Nebraska’s Medicaid expansion for perpetuity.

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), the attorneys generals from South Carolina, Washington, Michigan, Texas, Colorado, Alabama, North Dakota, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Utah, Florida, Idaho and South Dakota “wrote that they consider the [Nebraska] provision ‘constitutionally flawed’ and demanded that it be stricken from the final bill.”

Yesterday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal explaining “Why the Health-Care Bills Are Unconstitutional.” “The policy issues may be coming to an end, but the legal issues are certain to continue because key provisions of this dangerous legislation are unconstitutional,” he wrote, and went on to challenge the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the so-called sweet heart deal for Nebraska, and the requirements for states to establish health insurance exchanges and insurance regulations.

The effort may prove a strong political organizing tool for conservative activists, but the legal reasoning has little support beyond the right fringe of the Republican party and the health care industry. Several weeks ago, the New York Times reported, “The states where the [constitutional] amendment has been introduced are also places where the health care industry has spent heavily on political contributions.” The industry has also contributed heavily to the campaigns of at least 7 of the 13 attorney generals threatening to sue the federal government over the Nebraska provision. (Campaign finance data was not readily accessible for the other 6 attorneys generals.)

An analysis conducted by the Wonk Room of available campaign finance disclosures for AGs from South Carolina, Washington, Michigan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Utah and Idaho reveals that the health industry contributed heavily to their campaigns. For instance, Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett (who is also running for Governor) accepted some $24,300 from the health care industry for his campaigns, including $10,300 from Pfizer PAC, $3,500 from Aetna Inc. PAC, and $2,500 from United Health Group Inc. Read the full analysis here.

Same old, same old.

From health care to stimulus packages to deregulations to rights of privacy to climate change to virtually any law which directly or remotely touches off on any aspect of the economy - corporations have their hands either in shaping our laws (through lobbyists or direct access to drafts of bills), influencing our elected representatives (again through lobbyists and/or campaign funds) and shaping public opinion overall (through funding of special interest lobbies/groups and/or through influence with corporate media accomplices).

Remember this little gem?

During the Senate Finance Committee’s mark-up session of the health care reform bill today, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) — who has had a hard time staying awake during these meetings — offered an amendment that would have delayed “a committee vote for two weeks.”

Bunning requested that the Committee put-off a vote on the health care bill until the final legislative language of the bill is made available on the Committee’s website for at least 72 hours. The amendment failed, with all of the Democrats except Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) voting against it. But had the amendment passed, it could potentially have halted the health care debate for weeks.

Before the vote took place, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) offered a defense of Bunning’s amendment by arguing that the 72-hour provision was critical because it provides time for senators to consult with health insurance lobbyists:

All the Senator from Kentucky is asking is for 72 hours to determine the cost. Senator Snowe has spoken eloquently about sunshine, and the openness, and the fact that the American people would support this 90 percent, 95 percent. But the thing that I’m trying to point out is we would have at least 72 hours for the people that the providers have hired to keep up with all of the legislation that we pass around here, and the regulations that we pass around here, to say “hey, wait a minute. Have you considered this?” And that’s all I’m asking for — is not only cost, but also the content of a bill. And that 72 hours, I think, is highly, highly important.

To be clear, Roberts is referring to health insurance lobbyists when he references the “people that the providers have hired to keep up with all of the legislation.”

Or this other one?

Back there, Transport Minister John Baird (yes - this same John Baird) was caught privately encouraging Canada's big airlines to step up their lobby campaign in order to kill a proposed "passenger bill of right" while his predecessor, then-Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon, publicly supported such legislation - in the name of the Harper government, of course.

(...) And here is the evidence to that effect (emphasis added):

Transport Minister John Baird says he didn't pander to airlines with passenger bill

Transport Minister John Baird on Wednesday denied any collusion with the major airlines to stymie a passenger bill of rights, saying the government has simply "been working constructively" with the industry.

Internal government documents obtained by Canwest News Service show the transport minister's office privately pleaded with Canada's major airlines to step up their lobby campaign "to stop this motion in its tracks" even as the minister at the time, Lawrence Cannon, publicly supported it.

The motion passed unanimously in the House of Commons in June 2008 with the support of Cannon and Baird, who failed to bring forward legislation when he succeeded Cannon as transport minister in October 2008.

(...) Baird said there's nothing nefarious about the relationship, adding "we're been working constructively with the airlines."

"Working constructively with the airlines"? To kill the bill, yes indeed.

Here is tangible proof again:

Let us pay closer attention to the very first sentence of the first highlighted paragraph in this email of Baird to airline VIPs:

You're going to have to do some lobbying to stop this motion in its tracks.

Now, let us look at this other sentence in the same email:

If you don't lobby the grits and the Block, we're going to find ourselves in a position where we are outvoted by the Opposition Parties.

So what do we have here?

A) a minister (Baird ) is telling airline VIPs what to do in order to kill a motion regarding a "passenger bill of rights";

B) said same minister (Baird), is explaining to those same airline VIPs why the minority government of which he is part can't by itself kill the motion, and thus explains why this requires airline lobbying of MPs from Opposition Parties in order to ensure that a majority of MPs would end up turning down the motion - all the while keeping the minority Harper government "in the clear". In other words: "help us help you".

Put A and B together, and what you have here is a bona fides "behind-the-door" (i.e. secret) agreement between two parties for a deceitful purpose.

A connivance.

And in the reality-based world we live in, folks, that is the very definition of collusion!

Period.

If for whatever reason you remain unconvinced of this, then here's the clincher (emphasis added):

The (Harper minority) Conservative government launched Flight Rights Canada last September to inform air travellers of their rights, but only after airline executives reviewed several drafts, provided input, approved the final product, and signed off on the minister's speech to launch the program — a process that raised the ire of a top bureaucrat involved, the documents show.

(...) In the House of Commons, Baird confirmed Wednesday he doesn't support the bill, but defended the Tory record on the file, saying the government has "put forward new public policy" (Flight Rights) in the area of passenger rights.

Once again, what we have here is "a secret agreement between two or more parties for a deceitful purpose".

A connivance.

A collusion.

And the same applies with going to war (or not - and by the way: there are oil interests in Yemen, dontcha know), the use of military contractors (euphemism for mercenaries), stiffer crime and punishment (especially since many prisons are run by private corporations now), new transportation "rules" (of goods, of people - see above), outright slavery and so on and so forth.

As I stated previously:

I am all for a free market-based economy. Indeed, competition drives initiative and creativity, leading to better (or new) products as well as to better (or new) services, and henceforth to a better and greater choice for consummers. This in turn will usually translate well into job creation or maintenance, along with better salaries. And this in turn will usually translate into better individual spending powers and higher standards of living.

However, trusting in corporations to "do the right thing" with regards to the welfare of society, citizens, employees, et al., is pure nonsense. The reality is that companies and corporations live by one thing and one thing only: the bottom line. Hence, companies and corporations will do anything, regardless of whether they initially had good intentions or not, to keep profits not only high but also to increase them as well. In other words, companies and corporations will cheat, lie or steal, even go as far as to use spying, sabbotage and violence, as means to protect and increase their profit margins. This is simply the nature of the beast.

Therefore, just like societies need laws to place clear definitions of what is acceptable, non-criminal conduct for their citizens, so must there also be laws to place clear definitions of what is acceptable, non-criminal conduct for companies.

Some call these "regulations". I call these necessities, just like criminal laws for the citizenry. After all, laws serve to maintain the welfare, peace and prosperity of society overall.

What has happened throughout these past decades - and keeps happening - constitutes the first and foremost argument for the need to have companies and corporations to obey laws, just like every citizens. As I said above, call said laws "regulations" if you will - nevertheless, laws on due process of contract awarding through an appropriately regulated submission process, as well as rigorous boundaries imposed for the fulfillment of contracts, in addition to codified acceptable behavior by companies and corporations (as in our case) and corporate responsibility, are a matter of necessity for the continuity of our democratic societies founded upon the Rule of Law.

But corporations are quite aware of this. As much as they know themselves - that when kept unchecked, the need for maximization of profits will inevitably lead to fraud and corruption, as well as to a blatant disregard and abuse of human dignity, human civil liberties and human rights. I repeat here: no noble principles of patriotism, social obligations, moral imperatives or even basic human decency and compassion can twart this.

Hence why time and time again - any law that is passed (or watered down/rejected, depending on the interests involved) is heavily tainted with corporate influence and money.

Consequently, democracy is effectively on life support - if not dead already.

So - welcome to your corporatocracy.

Hope you enjoy it.


(Cross-posted from APOV)