Your mortgage ... or life-saving medications?

The Democratic Activist
Which would you pay for, if you had to choose? You, or someone close to you, may soon have to make that awful decision.

Even health insurance may not protect you from having to make such a terrible choice.

A quiet new move by insurance companies (made possible by the Bush prescription drug plan) is right now making this horrible delimma an actual reality for many Americans ... who already have health insurance!

That's correct. Even if you're one of the lucky ones who have medical insurance in our wonderful, privatized, for-profit health care system, your prescription drug bill may soon cost more than your monthly mortgage payment – or even exceed your entire income! Although you may only $20 per month for prescriptions today, you could be paying hundreds, or even thousands, by the time you wake up tomorrow morning.

Could the reason television news is ignoring this story have anything to do with all the advertising revenue it collects from the pharmaceutical industry? (More than 33 billion dollars ... in 2004!)

Insurance companies are stealthily incorporating this new prescription benefit system, known as "Tier 4," into many individual and group health insurance plans. A rapidly growing phenomenon, up to 10% of private insurance plans already include tier 4 or even tier 5 drug categories.

(A recent article in the New York Times gives the details.)

Remember when the U.S.A. was the most advanced, prosperous, healthy, humane, ethical, free, loved and respected nation on earth? The "greatest country in the world?"

Not anymore!

When will we stop putting up with the accelerating destruction of the American middle class and of classic egalitarian American values like honesty, accountability, humanity, and the dignity and liberty of all persons?

Will average Americans continue to vote against their own best interests, for a torturing, bullying government "of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations?"

Do we, as individuals and as a nation, first have to crash and burn before we'll open our eyes to the corporatist snow job we've been sold these last 28 years?

Or ... will we finally stand up and utilize those freedoms we still have left to turn our nation away from the cliff's edge while there's still time to do so?

What will it take?

Have we had enough, yet?

Upcoming elections may tell.

Thank you.

Pass it on.
The Democratic Activist