Independence from Health Insurance Industry

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for Citizens of the United States to exercise their democratic and free-market rights to dissolve financial ties with any person or entities and provide for their own needs, it is helpful to state the reasons for doing so.

We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all people are entitled to health care as a human right - that to secure this right, the Citizens of the United States will establish a National Health Care System that functions solely for the benefit of the people and that is under the sole control of the Citizens through their elected representatives. And should any business entities or elected representatives attempt to prevent the Citizens from establishing such a Health Care System, it is the free-market right of the people to stop doing business with those entities and their democratic right to remove those elected officials from office.

The history of the health insurance industry in the United States is one of continuous harm perpetrated by the industry for the purpose of maintaining absolute financial and psychological tyranny over the Citizens of the United States. Let the facts speak for themselves.

The companies that comprise the health insurance industry in the United States have shown by their actions that:

• -For over 50 years, they have proved unable or unwilling to provide even basic, affordable medical services to all Citizens of the United States.
• -Their business goal of making a profit far outweighs the health or health concerns of Citizens.
• -They make the largest profits on health care in the world at the expense of the American people. Many other countries provide excellent medical care to all their Citizens at one-third to one-half the cost paid by Citizens, and although Americans pay far more, about one out of every six Americans has no health care.
• -They have established a Pay or Die health care system which rations medical care based upon each Citizen's ability to pay and disregards the Citizen's medical needs.
• -They cause disruption to the economy and psychological harm. Citizens suffer when they cannot afford health insurance or are forced to stay in a job they dislike in order to keep employer provided health insurance. Competition is curtailed when people who wish to start small businesses cannot to because they can't afford to pay for health insurance. Competition is curtailed when US companies cannot compete with foreign companies that operate in countries that have universal coverage.
• -They represent to Citizens that purchasing a health insurance policy will provide medical care to the Citizen and protect him or her from catastrophic medical costs but the reality is that they accept premium payments but are under no obligation to actually provide services. They fail to tell Citizens that the insurance company may choose to withhold care or cancel the policy when the Citizen becomes ill or injured and they fail to tell Citizens that buying a health insurance policy is not so much insurance that will protect them from harm but much more like placing a bet which may or may not pay off.
• -They established a system of arbitration to prevent Citizens from exercising their democratic right to sue when they have been harmed by failure of an insurance company to provide service. The insurance companies hire the people who decide the arbitration in order to make sure that the outcome is almost always in favor of the insurance company.
• -They interfere with or override doctors' decisions whenever they deem it profitable to do so. Thus, the profit-motivated insurance companies are unelected bureaucrats, unaccountable to anyone, who stand between the doctor and the patient and make medical decisions without regard to the doctor's advice or the patient's wishes. These bureaucrats may or may not have medical training and usually do not examine the patient in person before making decisions.
• -They often refuse to provide medical care in a timely basis, thereby allowing medical conditions to worsen, force Citizens to seek medical treatment elsewhere, turn to the American taxpayers for assistance, pay out of pocket to obtain treatment or simply die.
• -They have heartlessly dumped some Citizens out of hospitals and onto the streets when they cannot pay, even if the Citizen is clearly in need of care.
• -They established a profit-motivated system of pre-existing conditions by which they can chose to insure the healthy and not provide medical care to Citizens that have or may develop expensive medical conditions. This allows the insurance companies to internalize profits for themselves and externalize huge costs to the American taxpayers who pay the cost of health care for uninsured Citizens, usually after those Citizens' conditions have evolved into an expensive medical crisis.
• -They have turned the United States economy into a wealth-transfer mechanism that takes wealth from Citizens and gives it to the insurance industry. More than half the personal bankruptcies in the United States occur when Citizens become sick or injured and don't have health insurance or the insurance company refuses to provide service. In bankruptcy, whatever assets they have may be converted into cash and given to the insurance industry to pay medical bills. Countries with universal health care have no personal bankruptcies due to health care costs.
• -They take psychological advantage of Citizens when they are sick or injured and do not have the energy to fight with the insurance company.
• -They legally bribe elected officials by giving them campaign contributions and thus exert control over the peoples%u2019 elected representatives, they hire lobbyists to hound elected officials, they hire people to write legislation and generally encourage representatives to work on behalf of the insurance industry and ignore the needs of the people.
• -They lie when they say universal health care doesn't work in other countries and costs more than in the United States. They know the opposite is true - that when health care is provided at cost and no one is allowed to charge a profit, the costs are much lower and no one interferes with decisions made by the patient and doctor.
• -They lie when they say health care is rationed in other countries. Other countries evaluate patients on the basis of medical need and are not financially motivated to withhold medical care but insurance companies evaluate patients on the basis of ability to pay.
• -They hire public relations firms to establish phony grass-roots movements to persuade the ignorant or ill-informed that universal health care is expensive and that universal, affordable access to medical care is somehow harmful.
• -They and/or the people they hire encourage the ignorant or ill-informed to disrupt public town hall meetings until meetings must be shut down or opposing views can't be heard which a violation of the First Amendment.
• -They use the public air waves to buy advertising to spread their lies because they know the companies that control the air waves are unlikely to expose the lie or offer different points of view.
• -They have hijacked American health care. They have no competition and behave like a cartel. Just as the OPEC cartel controls oil prices for much of the world, the cartel of American insurance companies controls the cost of medical care in the United States and keeps costs and profits - as high as possible without regard to the negative impact on American Citizens.
• -They demand a "level playing field" which is defined as being exactly the same as the current situation whereby they remain in business in perpetuity without competition, charge whatever outrageous amounts they wish, deny medical care, externalize costs to taxpayers, give elected officials legal bribes in the form of campaign contributions and behave with utter contempt towards Citizens of the United States.
• -They are anti-American. They feel no patriotic duty or obligation to treat Citizens with compassion or respect - even though they have enjoyed enormous and ever-increasing profits paid for by the Citizens.

We have appealed to our government to establish a system of universal health care in the United States that includes all Citizens, does not make a profit and brings the cost of medical care down to what it is in other countries with universal care. Unfortunately, too many of our elected officials have been influenced by legal bribes from the health insurance industry and are deaf to the concerns of Citizens. Indeed, the influence of the health insurance industry over our elected representatives is such that although they were elected by us and are quite willing to take the paycheck and health care we give them, they hypocritically choose to ignore us and work instead on behalf of the health insurance companies.

As free and independent Citizens in a democratic country, we have the power and the will to establish our own universal health care system.

We will only support a universal health care system that:

• -Is established for the purpose of providing excellent health care to all Citizens of the United States from cradle to grave.
• -Goes into effect immediately upon passage by Congress.
• -Is established by legislation written solely by members of Congress without any directives, support or influence from the health insurance industry or any person or entity that is motivated by profit.
• -Is under the complete control of Citizens via their elected representatives.
• -Represents the best interests of the Citizens as a whole without regard to single-issue minorities who seek to impose their religious or social agendas on everyone else.
• -Continually evaluates its operations so as to operate as cost-effectively as possible.
• -Does not out-source any of its operations to any person, off-shore entity, foreign country or domestic entity.
• -Does not allow any person or entity to profit from any of its operations and disregards all financial or political considerations of any person, entity or industry.
• -Is required to negotiate drug prices in good faith on behalf of Citizens and is not allowed to pay a higher price for drugs than the weighted average per capita price for drugs paid by other countries that have universal health care systems.
• -Eliminates all co-pays, caps, and pre-existing conditions.
• -Eliminates the need for employer-paid health insurance in order to streamline the delivery of health care to Citizens, frees American businesses from wasting time and money on dealing with health care issues and allows them to compete globally with countries that have universal health care.
• -Is paid for by progressive taxes.
• -Does not allow any company or industry to establish a self-insurance program for health care, then profit from employee payments for health insurance.
• -Enters into and becomes part of the Commons - along with fire departments, police, military, the government, the court system, public roads, public libraries, the public air waves, public schools, Medicare and Social Security - which are owned by all Citizens and expected to operate for the benefit of every Citizen. Like everything else in the commons, this health care system cannot bill for or refuse to provide services to any Citizen of the United States.

We the Citizens of the United States declare that we will no longer be a party to the tyranny imposed upon us by the health insurance industry. We cannot be manipulated or swayed from our purpose by anything the industry says. We will judge the industry and our elected representatives solely on their actions and will completely disregard what they say.

We will not support any health care legislation whose primary purpose is to maintain the so-called level playing field on behalf of the health insurance industry nor will we support any health care system Congress establishes that allows the health insurance industry to continue its devastatingly harmful, profit-motivated practices at the expense of the health and financial well-being of the American people. As Citizens of the United States, we are by right free and independent and absolved from any allegiance to the health insurance industry and all financial connection between ourselves and the health insurance industry is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

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