Lies about Medicare ‘terrorize’ seniors

TO THE EDITOR:

How interesting to read the recent blast of right-wing talking points, all parroting propaganda bought and paid for by the health insurance industry which spends over $1.5 million daily to mislead, misinform and generally scare the bejesus out of the American public.

This campaign of lies has been especially effective in terrorizing seniors into believing the ridiculous proposition that Republicans and their corporate-lobbyist buddies are now “protecting” the Medicare system they have been furiously trying to kill for a half -century.

This is an “industry” which has seen a 400 percent increase in profits, generated by regularly doubling premium cost while eliminating coverage on people likely to actually need medical care. This has proven to be a wonderful system for enriching insurance company CEO’s and a catastrophe for working Americans.

American medical care is now ranked just ahead of Slovenia and behind every western European country and, yes, Canada.

Lose your job and have a chronic health condition? You likely will not be able to buy insurance at any price. Their “solution”: Sell everything you own and file bankruptcy. No other industrialized country in the world permits a travesty like this to occur.

This is the sham system being perpetuated by the health insurance industry, the Republican Party, Fox News and our local right-wing trash- talkers.

A recent Harvard study found this to be a “system” responsible for the needless deaths of over 45,000 Americans a year due to the lack of timely, appropriate medical care. It is being run by Wall Street profiteers as essentially a protection racket. It adds nothing but cost to the actual medical delivery system, which is why about three- fourths of U.S. doctors favor reform.

You might describe it as a “harebrained” system — unless you can’t even spell the word.

Tags: letters to editor, opinion