MANAGED CARE -- 2 Poems about the sham of healthcare or Why we need healthcare reform NOW

Will President Obama and Congress have the guts to pass REAL healthcare reform with a public insurance option? I remain hopeful, but I have my doubts. So many others have tried before and failed.

Healthcare should not be a partisan issue -- it reaches all of us regardless of our political views. Disease and illness shows no favorites

Half measures and half-hearted attempts to reform healthcare will leave us with a continued broken system and escalating healthcare costs that takes us beyond the brink of moral and economic bankruptcy.

That will be NO change that we can't believe in.

A public health insurance option is the best way to force insurance companies to lower rates.
Some half-baked co-op non-profit option by the GOP won't work.

Sorry, GOP and blue dog democrats -- we need a sweeping FDR like solution to our health problem involving the government.

It is up to us to hold President Obama, the Democrats and Republicans accountable for delivering healthcare reform that makes a difference. That means a plan where everyone can receive real healthcare services regardless of their insurance or financial situation. Forty-sx million uninsured and many more underinsured in this country deserve better.

The movie "Sicko"....left me with such outrage....at our health system choking on greed while so many of us suffer....
You can't put a price on health, on life...on suffering...on healing...it so crazy..beyond words...
This movie shows healthcare in this country for the sham it is..
While in countries...that are supposed be our inferior (what a joke?!) they take care of their cititzens with no regard to cost. There is no turning back the sick, the injured...the poor...who need care...because of cost...because of greed.

In the late 1990s, I worked as publicist for a firm that specialized in healthcare PR...and now I am realize the tales we were spinning....especially in supporting huge insurance and healthcare institutions...

Why does this country -- especially the politicians -- still think it is OK to profit off people's heath and illness? It is a disgrace.

Now, is the time to truly CHANGE it. Our health and future as a country depends on it.

I wrote these poems a while back about my feelings about our so called modern healthcare system.

GP

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MANAGED CARE?

Modern medicine
is on the operating table
suffering from heart failure.

Is it too late
to resuscitate?
or has medicine sealed its fate
with rampant greed and lies?

Managed Care.
One of the most insidious phrases
in the English language.
A contradiction in terms.

Care
managed
is no care at all.

Just an excuse to steal hope from
our lives
as the value of each one of
our breaths,
our heartbeats
is measured on a
balance sheet.

Doctor,
take my temperature
my blood is boiling
and spilling over.
My heart is about to burst.

This is one cardiac arrest
you won't be able to manage.

A CHECK UP?

Doctor, I am in need of a check up,
but who checks on you?

What does M.D. really mean?
More dollars?

What does HMO stand for?
How much owed?

Does your stethoscope only hear
the sound of cash registers clanging
instead of hearts beating?

Doctor, you're backed by slick public relations machines
and riding in the back of stretch limousines.

When did the Hippocratic Oath
become only a means to greed?

When did you take a scalpel to the heart of medicine
and let it bleed....
green?

Doctor, doctor,
do you have what I need?

George Pappas
Copyright 2009