Cross posted on The Daily Hurricane:
Gov. Howard Dean graciously agreed to be our first guest blogger on The Daily Hurricane. His piece, posted today, talks about my brother and how the current heatlh care system failed him. He discusses the importance of reform and the critical need for the public option.
Complete post below the fold.
Cross posted on The Daily Hurricane:
I've known the Cavnars for five years or so, but I didn't know anything about Bob's brother Bill until his recent post. I do know a lot about health reform though, and Bill's story ought to stiffen the spine of wavering Democrats on reform.
Bill Cavnar's story is a common one. 20,000 really ill Americans who had health insurance were removed from the roles over the last three years because Insurance companies knew that they could increase their earnings if they got rid of their sickest patients. The three largest health insurers in America made 300 million dollars in the past three years simply my removing these 20,000 patients from their insurance policies. This does not include patients like Bill who lost their jobs and then their insurance.
The fight over the so-called "public option" is the fight for people like Bill Cavnar. If Bill Cavnar could have had the option of signing up, essentially, for Medicare, he would have been covered. Medicare, a government run health insurance program for those over sixty-five is what the opponents call socialized medicine, or a single payer. It takes all comers, doesn't kick anyone out if they get sick, stays with you whether you have a job or not, and follows you wherever you move in the fifty states and territories.
Without giving Americans the choice of staying in their own insurance or getting into a public option, there is no health reform. The Public Option is already a huge compromise, between a single payer, which is much cheaper to run, and what we have today, which has served people like Bill Cavnar so poorly. Incrementalism is not always bad, but in this case, more "compromise" will simply result in pouring 60 Billion dollars a year of tax payers money into the private insurance industry which has put Bill and so many like him into the position they are in. That is a waste of money, and it is not reform.
If you care about Bill Cavnar and the tens of thousands of Americans like him, tell your Congressmen and Senators you want real reform. There is no point in having huge majorities in the House and Senate, and a Democratic President in the White House if we can't get what we were promised, "Change We Can Believe In".
Editor's Note: Howard Dean is DNC Chairman Emeritus, former presidential candidate, six-term Governor of Vermont, founder of Democracy for America, and a physician. He works as an independent consultant focusing on health care, early childhood development, alternative energy and the expansion of grassroots politics around the world. Dean also serves as Chairman of the Board of the Progressive Book Club, and is a contributor on CNBC. We are grateful to Gov. Dean for taking the time to contribute to our discussion of health reform and its importance to all Americans.