Health Insurance Denial Warms Me Toward Medicare for All

I watched the first Democratic debate last night. When the first Democratic debate moderators asked for a show of hands of the 10 Democratic presidential candidates who would be willing to give up their private health insurance for Medicare for all, only two candidates raised their hands: Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio.

Today at noon I walked out into the heat to pick up two prescription refills at my local pharmacy. I was very nearly out of both medicines. Apprehensively, I asked the pharmacy assistant for both. She only had one.

I asked the pharmacist why I couldn't get the other one. I've repeatedly had problems with getting this medicine. My insurance company denied the refill, perhaps for no damn good reason other than that they could. The pharmacist asked how many pills I took a day. I told her, and said sometimes I took fewer pills than prescribed. She did some checking on her computer and said I was due for a refill and the insurance company's denial was improper. So she overrode it and filled my prescription. Thank goodness she can do that!

A man in the drive-up lane had the same experience. He drove up expecting his prescription to be ready and was told his insurance company and denied his refill due to a "glitch in the system." He was asked to drive around the building and wait his turn again while the pharmacist called his insurance company so that other customers in the drive-up lane could get their prescriptions.

Are insurance companies and Big Pharma working for the Democrats who are campaigning for Medicare for all? I've long thought that Big Pharma is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. By repeatedly hiking prices, they've proven they're so greedy they don't seem to care how enraged and distressed their consumers are. Big Pharma ingratiates themselves with Congress by showering elected officials with large donations to their reelection campaigns. That's why Congressional representatives and senators, largely Republican but also some Democrats, vote the way Big Pharma and private health insurance companies want them to vote, not the way voters want them to vote.

Have you noticed the difference between what voters want according to polls and the way Congress votes?

According to the Intercept, Sen. Cory Booker, who railed against Big Pharma in the debate last night, voted with Big Pharma by voting against a bill to import cheaper drugs/medicine from Canada. Why? He explained his vote by using Big Pharma's talking points: importing cheaper drugs from Canada could be "dangerous."

Sen. Booker is a Democrat from New Jersey, which has 14 of the world's 20 largest pharmaceutical companies, including Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck & Co., Novo Nordisk and Bayer Healthcare. Booker claims he doesn't take any money from Big Pharma, which begs the question: why is he working for them for free?

Already the health insurance push-back ads against Medicare for all are popping up, the updated "Harry and Louise" ads created to rally voters against the introduction of Obamacare, which was really Romneycare, introduced by former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.

Republicans, who have no health care plan of their own and have cut $800 million from Medicare according to former Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel, oppose Obamacare, and receive donations from hospitals, nursing homes, Big Pharma, and health insurance companies.

According to Open Secrets, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) gets money from Big Pharma, insurance companies, health professionals, health services (HMOs), and hospitals/nursing homes. The industries listed below who give Grassley money is incomplete. There are more. You can check Open Secrets for the full list.

"Industry Total

Insurance
$1,576,018
Health Professionals
$1,505,471
Securities & Investment
$1,332,659
Retired
$1,231,182
Lawyers/Law Firms
$1,176,691
Lobbyists
$1,162,952
Leadership PACs
$917,678
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products
$876,460
Agricultural Services/Products
$797,343
Real Estate
$715,775
Electric Utilities
$566,878
Health Services/HMOs
$555,057
Hospitals/Nursing Homes
$518,258"

Sen. Joni Ernst's Donors (a partial list):

"Industry:

$538,036

Securities & Investment
$373,976

Retired
$359,179

Republican/Conservative
$195,013

Oil & Gas
$184,300

Insurance
$162,784

Real Estate
$162,301

Misc Manufacturing & Distributing
$119,449

Lawyers/Law Firms
$110,644

Commercial Banks
$105,733

Food & Beverage
$100,299

Crop Production & Basic Processing
$97,952

Food Processing & Sales
$97,214

Business Services
$94,824

Agricultural Services/Products
$94,071

Health Professionals
$82,813

This list doesn't include all industries that gave Ernst money nor the $3,124,000+ that the nonprofit (really!) National Rifle Association gave to her according to the eye-0pening "Thoughts and Prayers" article in the New York Times.

Lots of money will be thrown against the Democrats' issues, which are reducing the cost of medicine, improving access and lowering the cost of health care, reversing growing wealth inequality, improving access to safe reproductive health care, trying to reverse the growing crisis of climate change, changing the barbaric conditions under which immigrants, including babies, toddlers, and children are treated at our southern border, and providing women with equal pay for equal work, voting rights, civil rights, all those good things. Overwhelming voter demand is the only thing that will make good things happen and bad things go away.