Maaaaaannn YEAH! Them thar tea-baggers are such a nice patriot bunch.  Supposed they learned this behavior down at the church huh?  After getting fired-up at their big “political rally” maybe they could go down to the cripple children’s ward and grease the tips on all the crutches.  And after a big laugh, good time there, they could head on over to the the old folks home, maybe stop up all the toilets with rolls of toilet paper.  That should make for a good laugh or two, but they probably wouldn’t stick around there too long…

I wonder what the tea-baggers would do with infirmed people like this if they controlled the government.  You know, people that just can’t seem to walk right, maybe they’ve got a slight limp; or someone who has just a little too much trouble seeing; maybe someone who’s lost a leg in a war or a car accident, or that CRAZY INSANE old guy with Alzheimer’s Disease, or the child born with Down’s Syndrome.  What would they do with this bunch of “sicko’s”?   Give them a pot and sit them on a street corner?  Round them all up and put them in a work camp? Establish something akin to the old leaper colonies? You know, Hitler had an idea that the tea-baggers might like, just eliminate them, their genetic structure is flawed, therefore they don’t need to survive.

Maybe I’m being much too altruistic, but I truly hope that these guys were just caught up in the moment and, upon further reflection, would approach the situation differently in another time and place.  I have faith that the American people will ultimately and absolutely reject this attitude toward the “least among us”.

One might assume that their business (insuring people), was simply good for the companies.  But the fact of the matter is the exact reverse.  They actually lost 2.6 million customers.  Hmmn, let’s see now, how do you make more money from less customers?  I ain’t no rocket scientist, but there is only one way, charge more and provide less.  This is exactly what they have done in the form of higher premiums and higher co-pays, and the ever popular “coverage denied”.

It’s all here in this eloquently referenced report from Health Care for America Now for those of you willing to consider and for those of us wanting to end the barbaric practice of profiting from human suffering.

Here’s the jump:  Health Insurers Break Profit Records as 2.7 Million Americans Lose Coverage

I wonder if families, expecting a call from the Insurance Salesman Hero, break out the best China and Silverware, don the Sunday dudes and roll out the red carpet.  I mean, “This guy can get us some of that rip-off, underpaying, over-priced, sorry that isn’t covered, health insurance!”, it’s a special day in our lives.  Maybe we should name the next born after him.

Let us examine this statement out of the context of the 30 second sound-bite.  “119 million Americans will be off healthcare if the Democratic plan is enacted”.  They attribute this statement to the “independent health care analyst”, Lewin Group.  Here is the link to their web site. The whole truth is that these 119 million Americans will be off corporate healthcare plans and onto the government plan and simply because it will have better benefits and cost less.  That statement is also from the same Lewin Group study, and so conveniently left out of the Republican line.

Also conveniently omitted from the Republican line is the fact that this study was conducted by a subsidiary of one of the Nation’s largest health insurance corporations, United Healthcare.  Just do a little Googling and you can find this article over at BusinessWeek.com that states, “The company was founded in 1970 and is based in Falls Church, Virginia. As of June 12, 2007, The Lewin Group, Inc. is a subsidiary of Ingenix, Inc.”  We turn to Google again and find this statement on the Ingenix web site, “Ingenix is a wholly-owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, founded in 1996…”.

I leave you to conjure your own conclusions about the statement, “119 million Americans will be off healthcare” if the Democratic healthcare reform plan is enacted.