Last night I saw this video :

In it, the woman speaking to her Senator, Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, tells him that her husband has a traumatic brain injury and was basically kicked out of a nursing home and told they were on their own. This poor man has a feeding tube, can’t speak… and has insurance that is denying him the coverage he deperately needs.

Senator Coburns response is shocking to me. He tells her not to look to the government for help, but to look to her neighbors. Are you kidding me? Because we all have nurses and doctors living next door that are going to just “drop in” and assist this woman for free right? “Why on earth would you expect your government to have compassion and caring towards the “little people” lady. We don’t care about you.”, seems to be the message Senator Coburns is conveying. “Go see if there’s some bleeding heart liberals in your neighborhood to help you out and leave me alone!”

The irony is, he knows he’s been put on the spot and offers to help her and her husband. He tells her to get in touch with his office and he will see what he can do. I have to wonder how hard that was for him. To show fake compassion because he’s on tape and his constituents can all see how much of a heartless prick he really is if he doesn’t offer her some kind of help publicly.

So now, the government we shouldn’t turn to for help, that isn’t there to solve our problems.. Senator Coburn is offering to help her. So does that mean that every other person in america should call up Senator Coburn when their insurance companies deny them desperately needed help?

Maybe that’s just what should happen and then Senator Coburn may get a better idea of how many people are truly in desperate need of help. Maybe that’s what every american who’s been denied health care should do. Call your senators and ask them to hook you up with a doctor at their expense. Since the government isn’t the answer to your problems and you should turn to your neighbors.. and who do you know who’s more powerful in your neighborhood than your elected officials.

Somewhere along the line, the people we elect need to realize that they work for us and not the banks and insurance companies that give them huge contributions to help them get re-elected.

The same companies that charge us outrageous fees and deny us when we come to them for help. Everyone is yelling about the death panels in the governments health care bill, but didn’t this womans husband already face one from their insurance company? And they decided he wasn’t worth helping and sent him home with a feeding tube and absolutely no help.

Who are we supposed to turn to for help when these things happen? I was sure it was our elected officials. The people we gave big paychecks, tons of perks and oh yeah.. free health care paid by us. Not the guy who lives next door, that’s for sure.

Help thy neighbor is a noble cause, but when it comes to needing a kidney transplant, somehow I don’t think the auto mechanic next door is the best choice for me to turn to for help.

So this is to our Senators and Representatives who are against this health care bill… Get your heads out of your asses. The american people need your help and it’s your job to provide it. Quit bending to your corporate masters and do the job you were elected to do.

So the past few weeks, there’s been a huge uproar about “obamacare” or what the rest of us call health care reform. If you’ve ever gone without insurance, or had insurance and couldn’t get them to pay for a procedure you needed, then you realize that something has to be done to rectify this situation.

We claim to be the best nation on earth, yet we have the worst access for health care in all the industrialized nations. We have the highest infant mortality rate, lower life expectancy and it’s all pretty sad when we pound our chests and say we have the “best” health care in the world.

Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not out to bash the health care professionals here. That isn’t what this blog is about. It’s about the blood sucking insurance companies that have driven up costs, denied sick people care and lowered the standard of care people with insurance receive. Take for instance giving birth. When my mother had me, she stayed in the hospital for a week. Got extra care, advice on taking care of me, you name it. When I had my son, I popped him out at noon and was checked out the next day.  He almost died when I was giving birth to him as he was compressing his cord. Yet they couldn’t wait to kick me out the door… and I had insurance.

Imagine working a job, having health care and then getting diagnosed with diabetes or high blood pressure. Then your company down sizes and you get laid off. Ya know what is going to happen to you when you find a new job? You’re going to be denied insurance coverage because of “pre-existing conditions”. Congratulations. You just became one of the 50 million+ americans that are now without any coverage and it’s not going away unless someone as big and powerful as the government makes it happen.

I’ve been listening to all these people carry on about how they don’t want to pay more taxes, that we should all make our own way in the world and quit looking for a hand out. Is access to safe, affordable health care really a hand out? I didn’t realize it was.

I hear people screaming that it’s socialism, but these same people are on medicare or social security. Drive on a street paved by the state that receives money from the gov’t to pay for it. Have kids or grand kids that go to public schools. Drink clean water. Ride a bus, subway or even a plane. I bet you didn’t realize those things were subsidized by the gov’t too. Maybe they got a grant or a low interest rate on a student loan. Got a housing loan through FHA or the VA because they proudly served our country. Put money in a bank account that is federally insured or any number of things that we take totally for granted when we go through our every day lives.

The government does so much for us that we take for granted. Things that improve our lives and make them better. Why would them forcing insurance companies to quit raping consumers be so bad? Oh that’s right. It’s not. It’s just that all the right wingers want to see this president fail so badly, that they make up outright lies about the health care bills currently being discussed in washington.

Did you know sarah palin was complaining about how she didn’t want to have to go before a death panel to see if she would be entitled to a hip replacement or open heart surgery when she’s older? Well.. unless she’s planning on starting her own death panel, the current bills don’t contain anything of the sort. No one’s going to die because the gov’t won’t pay for a medical procedure. That’s what insurance companies do.

Insurance companies are spending $1.4 million dollars a DAY on lobbiests to go to washington and try to defeat this bill. I wonder. How many americans could get health insurance for that amount of money? I would have to think after you add all that money up, it’ll be quite a lot of them.

So honestly, when you sit down at night to watch the tv and drink your tasty beverage of choice, don’t believe the talking heads on tv telling you gov’t health care would be a horrible, socialist program that turns us into russia. American citizens already enjoy many programs that are ’socialist’ and no one is in the streets screaming about them.

If we can’t all have health care and it’s only for the rich, then this isn’t the country I thought it was when I was growing up. It’s become about greed instead of doing the right thing.. and it’s a shame.