Another state falls for phony Universal Health Care (i.e. we're screwed folks)

If Charlie Crist becomes John McCain's VP, you will be hearing a lot about how he brought Universal Health Care to Florida. So, I thought you should know what has happened there. Gov. Crist has accepted a bill, "Cover Florida", that provides low-premium insurance to the state's 3.8 million uninsured. The plan will provide insurance for $150 a month or more. But. Yeah, there is a big, fat, stinking butt in this plan. In exchange for providing this "low-low" insurance cost, the state agreed to wave a set of restrictions on the health insurance companies. What restrictions?

Health insurance companies will offer policies for $150 a month or more, in exchange for an exemption from the 50-plus mandates in current law that require insurers to cover items ranging from bone marrow transplants to acupuncture.

The plans — which aren't the "Cadillac of coverage," as Crist concedes — would cover some health screenings, doctor visits and office surgeries, but not medical attention that requires a specialist or prolonged hospital stays.

Crist called the health-care package "historic legislation" that will be a model for the rest of the nation and would provide a "golden opportunity" for uninsured Floridians.

You know, it really isn't this difficult. Every other civilized country provides a national health care plan at a fraction of the cost that we already pay, AND, their citizens are healthier than we are. Why is that so difficult for Republicans to understand? Aren't they supposed to be fiscal conservatives? Why do they want customers shelling out excess money for profits at the sake of poor health care? Do Republicans object to the lemon law? Because that's what happens in the health care field, they take your money and then when you get sick they drop you, unless you are lucky enough to be in a major group plan.

Let's get back to this plan. Crist is offering uninsured people, those who can't afford to pay for insurance, a chance to spend $1800 a year to buy insurance to cover a yearly checkup, sick visits, and "office surgeries", but not specialists. When is the last time your general practitioner cut into you? Seriously, my guy removed a planter's wart from a friend when I was 12, so that's about 2 1/2 decades ago. You? No specialists means if you break you leg they don't cover the orthopedist? If you need to have a potentially cancerous mole looked at, you're on your own (this is Florida)? So, basically you pay $1800 a year for cold medicine and the flu shot? And, don't forget that this is set up to help low-income working class people. About 80% of the nation's uninsured live in working families and over 60% of all uninsured workers are either self-employed or working in small business. In 2004, about 35% live in families with annual incomes of less than $20,000. So, $1,800 is 1/10th of their total income and that was in 2004 before the price of gas drove living costs through the roof.

I think it is time to face facts, as long as this is the kind of crap that Republicans want to push through as "historic legislation", our country is in for tough times. I don't see any Democrat with the guts and political capital to push through true Universal Health Care coverage here in North Carolina, nor in the US Senate, nor in the US House. They'll fold like a house of cards - just like they did over Iraq. To heck with the uninsured, those people we used to call the "working class".