Universal Health Care

An email that came this morning said:

humble,
I collected signatures for the People's Veto for the Real-Id (/your /national ID number- in case you were tired of your social security
number) this morning and a guy next sitting to me was collecting signatures to repeal the one cent tax on soda, wine and beer (only
those made out-of-state.) So as I was talking to the guy, I realized
that the bill that he is trying to get repealed includes a 1.8% surcharge on all paid insurance claims which means- guess what- when providers are paid- 1.8% will be taken out which will go toward covering Dirigo, just like the one extra cent you will pay for your imported beer, wine and soda- that I know, you, humble- because you drink so much beer, wine and soda will be paying. It was at about 10:00am- an hour into sitting next to the guy that I realized that really I should be signing his petition- which I won't sign because- as I told him- I am ok with paying an extra cent, since I drink so much wine, beer and soda, and yes-as Anthem and all the other insurance companies have abandoned their other technique for messing with providers (and with
patients) - managed care- they have wracked their brains to find other ways to pass along costs to providers so they can- you got it- continue to pay their chief executive officers 44 million dollars so they will have enough money to pay their 200,000 dollars worth of student loans they they incurred after they went to Medical School or is it the 100,000 dollars in student loans after they got their doctorates or is it after they finished their Masters in Business Administration , which only takes 2 years so that would be their 45,000 dollars in student loans. And of course they /*need */those degrees because if you are going to be a practicing health care provider then you have to have the credential first which, of course, as chief executive officers they would need that because before they become chief executive officers for insurance companies, first of all they have to become licensed in the state that they live in as, ok, forget that, maybe they don't have to get licensed by their state licensing board in order to be chief executive officers. But they need that 44 million dollars. Why else would they pay themselves that much money? Why would they possibly be so egregiously cheap as to take yet another nickle out of providers here in
Maine- rather than write the bill so that it comes out insurance companies? And we can of course bring up the old niggling matter- because this entire tax on both providers and on beer, wine and soda drinkers is designed to support Dirigo Health - which - all by itself- right here in the little itty bitty state of Maine- is doing more to decimate a positive vision for universal health care than any insurance CEO could ever do- in part because- sure as shooting-- they got a good run on self-sabotage early on by trusting the biggest stakeholder (in this case we'll call it a stab-holder because that's what they did with the stake)- Anthem- with running it for them which of course no one in their right mind- we can say fondly - now- looking back with what can only be called X-ray vision- would have believed was not going to happen. Eventually, I told the guy that I was going to suck it up and pay my 1.8%. Providers are used be messed with by insurance companies and of course we all have some lingering hope that Dirigo will work and become universal health care. At least it is not Maine Care which is another story. I think I actually succeeded in guilt tripping the guy a little because what he ended up syaing is his petition was about whether or not you supported Dirigo which is not accurate. To get back to the niggling point, the more accurate thing to say would be:
Do you think that legislators, Insurance companies, the state of Maine's budget, the Governor should avoid any and all ways of having the cost Dirigo come out of their pocket and pass it along to providers and soda drinkers and people who drink beer and wine made out-of-state? Sign here. It is called equal opportunity without the equal. I hope he realized I was sucking it up more than he was. But to get back to the CEOs, I think this why they get 44 million dollars- for thinking up stuff like this.-s