SOMBRERO TRANSMISSIONS
transcribed by Greg Forest

Sorry about the lack of sombrero transmissions recently. The alien uberdudes left Earth a few weeks ago for a quick jaunt around the corner to Proxima Centauri – the location of the nearest interstellar convenience store. They are back in orbit now and the sombrero is receiving their transmissions at increased bandwidth due to the fiber optic data jack I have installed in my left ear (see above illustration). I am now getting broadband direct to my cerebral cortex with a 3-D heads-up display in addition to the alien 7.1 surround sound audio feed. I won’t be needing the sombrero next month – the feed unit is being downsized to a pair of sunglasses. The first transmission that came in from orbit caught me a bit off guard but I am compelled to act on it. Call it Alien CYA. Ladies and gentlemen, by alien decree, a first in publishing history – the End Reader Agreement. Please pay close attention.

End Reader Agreement (hereinafter referred to as “The Agreement”).

In regards to the following article, (hereinafter referred to as “The Article”), by reading beyond this End Reader Agreement, the Reader (defined as one reading, hearing or otherwise viewing the contents of The Article), enters into The Agreement with Author (defined as the creator of this article) under the following irrevocable terms and conditions:

By reading The Article beyond this paragraph, Reader indemnifies and absolves Author, and any magazine, web site and/or all other methods of textual dissemination, including but not limited to telepathic, psychic and cuneiformic methods, of the effects of reading the content of The Article or any excerpts thereof, from any damages, real or imagined, including but not limited to psychotic breakdown, hearing, motor and vision impairment, bipolar, manic or other forms of depression or any and all mental or physical disorders the Reader may incur by reading beyond this paragraph. Furthermore, Reader hereby confirms and attests that Reader is in full and complete agreement with Author on all subject matter contained in The Article. Finally, should Reader be found in violation of The Agreement, Author reserves the right to pursue any and all remedies to bring the Reader into compliance. Any disputes arising from The Agreement will be resolved by arbitration at the venue and time of the Author’s choosing, utilizing an arbitrator of the Author’s choice. If, for any reason, such arbitrator is unavailable, the Author shall serve in arbitrator’s stead. Reader, without further recourse and fully cognisant of the peril, agrees to all the terms of The Agreement by reading further.

Phew! I’m glad we got that out of the way! Looks like the fine print on a credit card application but them alien fellers know what they’re doing. Trust me. Now let’s talk about the current circus called the “health care reform debate” now dancing about on the media stage recently.
The aliens are busting a gut that we don’t have the sense to come in out of the reign to act in our own self interest regarding our very lives. We remarkably perverse humans have entrusted our very health and give our money to people whose avowed mission/corporate charter is to profit from serving up as little care as possible for the highest premiums.
There are two sides to every story and this is no exception. One side wants access to health care for all Americans, regardless of medical status or ability to pay. The other side wants to profit from providing as little health care for cheaply as possible for private profit. No matter how shiny the insurance companies polish their turd, the bottom line is that they are not in business to provide health care. They are in business to make money – your money. The more health care they deny to paying customers, the larger the profit. And, until they got into derivative investments and other non-medical arenas, they profited handsomely from their policy holder’s misery.

One of the arguments from our “health care providers” is that a single payer public option will reduce the health care consumer’s “choices.” I would think that the primary choice would be whether to get medical treatment or not. For many Americans, this is not on their menu. Health care is beyond the budget of most Americans and is getting more expensive every year. With mounting unemployment due to recession, and many companies reducing benefits to stay afloat, this problem will only become worse in the future. Many of today’s insured are a pink slip away from joining the medically disadvantaged. And if you have the money, you can still do whatever you want. Rich folks in single payer countries don’t sit around in waiting rooms with the sickly common riff raff.

Belly Aches/Laughs
Let’s face it, America has some of the best medical technology in the world. No doubt about it. Go into a local hospital, tell them you have an ingrown toenail and great insurance and, voila, you are hooked up to an MRI with a team of medical professionals swarming all over before you know it. They roll in the new $15 million dollar machine that goes “ping!” but the results are inconclusive, so a toenailology specialist (TMD) has to be called in – with the resulting additional tests and lab work. A snip with a nail clipper (sterilized for only $260), a couple of $15 aspirin and they send you home sans toenail and bill your insurer for $20,000. After both sides use their hired hands to negotiate the bill, they will probably settle for only $16,000. What a deal!
My favorite argument from the insurance industry, and one that brought a belly laugh to my tentacled buddies in orbit, is that it would be unfair for insurance companies to have to compete with a public option run by the government. This is a pretty damning revelation. The opponents of the single payer system are admitting that they can’t survive economically or compete on an even playing field if they had to compete in the marketplace with an entity as efficient as the government. Of course, we all know the government is a paragon of cost efficiency and for the insurance companies to admit they can’t compete at that level sums up the package for me.

“Better care at lower cost to the consumer? That’s socialism!”, cry the Foxbots.

Another side-splitting chestnut is, “do you want the government between you and your doctor?” I’m not sure what you call an insurance adjuster but I think he is somewhere between you and your doctor (or at least between your doctor and his/her getting paid) and the adjuster’s sole mission is to keep medical expenses down. Your doctor, like most, has to keep someone working full-time in his office trying to get paid from insurance companies who are reluctant to pony up what they have promised. If someone has to be between my doctor and myself, I would prefer it be someone who didn’t have a vested financial interest in denying me treatment. When you look at the current state of the government’s monetary and economic solvency, it is certainly an iffy situation at best but when compared to insurance giants like AIG, for example, the government looks like a Swiss vault full of gold.
I heard this corker on AM radio last week, “The insurance companies have a responsibility to their shareholders to produce a profit on their investment in the company. It is important that these shareholders aren’t hurt by competition with a single payer system.” I’m sorry, but investors who can’t smell which way the wind is blowing on this issue deserve to lose their shirts. If someone wants to invest their money in an archaic service, system or product, more power to them. If they aren’t getting the return they were a century ago on their whale oil lamp stocks, maybe they should look out their window and view a changing world.

At least one business unit of the insurance industry looks solvent and is doing record-breaking business. That would be the portion that hands out money to politicians, PACs and scary ad campaigns. They are digging deep this time. It is estimated big pharma, the insurance industry and the AMA have thrown down a half billion dollars in the last 90 days - dancing through the aisles of our corrupt and money-grubbing Congress, handing out bucks and talking points to any legislator whose campaign war chest is a little light this cycle. Democrat or Republican, your elected officials are being bribed by these bastions of fair play and medical philanthropy. Bribed. There is no other word for it.

Bang for the Buck
One glance at the chart above clearly illustrates that if we were getting our money’s worth, we would be twice as healthy as any other nation on Earth. We should be enjoying longer and more robust lives but it appears that a snooty old Frenchy is going to live longer and healthier than we are. This from the country whose citizens drink wine all day and invented the “pomme frit.”

A report just issued (July 15) by the Department of Health and Human Services states that we are spending $8,000 per person each year or over 16% of our GDP for health care. The projection for as soon as 2018 is over $13,000 annually or 20% of the entire U.S. Economy. So what do we citizen/peasants get for paying the highest per capita amount in the world for our health care? You know the one I’m talking about. The one the insurance and HMO industry claims as the world’s best? We get to come in at #37 in the global scheme of things according to the World Health Organization.

These figures are formulated using metrics that the insurance industry seems to have no interest in - infant mortality, life expectancy and the overall health index of a country’s population. We are only “best” at being gouged for inadequate care. There is no shame in the U.S. lagging behind such medical technology powerhouses such as Dominica, Chile and Iceland. What is the secret weapon kicking our butt in terms of attaining a healthy populace? What are these other countries doing that we are not? They all have a single payer system. If good health is really the goal here, the solution is already in place and there is not an insurance company in sight. If your body is a temple, the insurance industry are the money-changers. What would Jesus do? Would He speak to an adjuster or negotiate payment before and after healing?
I have a theory that illnesses are invented just to sell pharmaceuticals. Have you ever seen a TV ad for a drug and couldn’t quite figure out what ailment its supposed to cure? Drugs are sold as fashion statements, just like clothing or cell phones, and today’s pharmaceutical advertising campaigns look like hard-core hypochondriac porn to me.

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This stuff sounds great! I don’t care what it cures. I got to have me some of that! And look, it comes in convenient disposable packaging that is biodegradable and comes with your choice of colors and packaging, giving me yet more choices over my health care products. What am I going to wear today? The blue pill or the red pill. Its all about choices, Neo.

Common-nonsensical
An underlying principle of this or any contemporary debate is that the playing field between the opposing schools of thought is not even. The health care and insurance industries realize that their patina of “caring” is wearing a bit thin. Combine that with a food industry that is also about corporate bottom lines rather than nutrition, and you have a nation full of people happily consuming sugared lard, or its equivalent, as their dietary mainstay. And we wonder how we got so far down the global list regarding health care. We are the world’s leader in providing a vehicle for profit rather than a vehicle for care. Who profits from health insurance? The insurers. Duh.

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