I like the idea of the “Occupy” folks. I think it is high time us 99 percenters spoke up in one way or the other against the corruption and greed that is ruining our country. I wish I was younger so I could join them. I pray that they will find greater leadership and direction and bring about some real change. And, although the banks and corporate America are good targets, I think another target should be the medical industry.
You all know who I am talking about; the pharmaceutical vultures, the hospital elephants, and the specialist tigers that trample and eat us alive by charging outrageous amounts of money for a pill that cost pennies and that, by the way would include the research costs. Or that cardio-something that thinks a ten-minute consultation is worth $500, or the hospital that thinks a baby wipe is worth $10 and an aspirin is worth $7.00. Not to mention my latest techno-test MRI that cost $3638! Come on, the test took all of twenty minutes and the time of one person. Even if the equipment cost one million dollars, at that rate it would only take 277 patients to break even. I’ll bet that is accomplished in a year or so.
I am old enough to remember the “better” days of medical care. Whenever we went to the doctor for a visit we paid cash and it was affordable. As late as the 1970’s an office visit cost me $7.00 – in today’s dollar at an average rate of inflation that would now be only $19.12 not the $85 my insurance company is now charged. We also paid cash for our medications and they were rarely more than $10 and that was considered expensive. Our pharmacy even delivered them to our home. The only insurance we had was called major medical and it was to help pay the bill if we had to go to the hospital. By the time I was 30 years old I had been in the hospital to have two children, my appendix removed, and have a hysterectomy. I remember that the hospital bill for my appendectomy was $198 which in today’s dollars would only be $540.92, not thousands upon thousands.
Now I know that many of you will say I am being naïve about the advances in medical care and equipment and the associated costs. Sure, we didn’t have MRI, PET, or CT scans back then, we had X-rays and really good diagnostician MDs. Sure some people died because they couldn’t be diagnosed with a tumor or a clogged artery. People still die today from those things in spite of all of our advanced technology. Doctors today rely on all these new diagnostic tools and for all the lives they lengthen (we all eventually die anyway) that is really good news. In fact, I am the recipient of that very technology and would probably be dead now if not for my stents and pills and ability to find out what is a-whack with my body. For a reality check that $3638 MRI would have cost $1317.76 back in 1970 and we would have been outraged and only the rich would have been able to afford one. In fact, only the rich or the insured can afford them today. Somehow between then and now, between major medical and all-inclusive medical benefit’s insurance, our medical provider system has truly become really screwed up. So screwed up that unless you are privately insured (at outrageous premiums) or on Medicare or Medicaid, you are screwed, medically speaking.
Like our greedy bankers and corporate mavens who pocketed untold billions of dollars off the backs of us 99 percenters, wake up people, the medical industry is doing exactly the same thing. It doesn’t have to cost such unbelievably ridiculous amounts of money. They should all be ashamed of themselves for not putting some of those profits in our pockets so we can support our economy with more disposable income. Greed is a deadly sin and it has surely been deadly for our economy.
I say go you “Occupiers” GO-GO-GO, go after Wall Street, but also go after that medical industry and then you can go after the sporting industry if you want to talk about greed. I mean really, why is some tall guy throwing a ball through a metal hoop worth millions and millions every year when someone sweating away in a factory, standing for hours on end in a retail store, or someone hunched over a computer all day only worth thousands? We should all think about that and then speak up and speak out and maybe, even go and join those occupiers. Maybe I’ll find a group where walkers and scooters won’t get in the way. And, don’t even get me started on our government in Washington!