HA, HA, HA; YOU CAN'T SUE ME

Get this scenario; you pay me to do a job and I'm incompetent, or just refuse to do what any credible person says the job entails, or I mess up the job and sorry you can't sue me...I got your money and I'm in business to make a profit and its the bottom line I care about more than you, because you simply can't sue me. Gaius Petronius noted; WHAT POWER HAS LAW WHERE ONLY MONEY RULES

Is this an upside down scenario? Not if your in the medical insurance business. If you are one of 130 million Americans who receive subsidized medical care through your employer or union sponsored benefits plan the FOR PROFIT HMO can be negligent, refuse to provide you with the medication or medical specialist your doctor says you need when you are sick...and you can't sue. Sounds incredible and we hear the stories every day on 60 minutes, or 20/20, or Dateline...it is the norm in profit driven health care systems. As Ben Franklin said: HE THAT IS OF THE OPINION MONEY WILL DO EVERYTHING MAY WELL BE SUSPECTED OF DOING EVERYTHING FOR MONEY.

Profit is the bottom line...profit drives the decision making process. We need to take the profit out of medicine and allow doctors to make medical decisions not insurance companies. The only way that can happen is if we go to a single payer system...yes, some form of socialized medicine. Sophocles understood the down side of greed, stating; THERE'S NOTHING IN THE WORLD SO DEMORALIZING AS MONEY. Our present money driven system is broken and Republicans want to push it more in the direction of "FOR PROFIT HMOs" and Democrats are just plain cowardly on this issue as they seem to be on almost every issue.

Because recently the U.S. Court of Appeals (New Orleans) recently ruled in two lawsuits that patients who received faulty care or simply a refusal to treat from their HMO could sue...the case is now headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The insures argued that they were shielded from such lawsuits under a federal law regulating employee benefits. Supporting this argument are the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and other business groups. Some sympathy please for big business for as Hobart Brown quipped: MONEY DOESN'T ALWAYS BRING HAPPINESS. PEOPLE WITH TEN MILLION DOLLARS ARE NO HAPPIER THAN PEOPLE WITH NINE MILLION DOLLARS

Strangely here in Atlantic County we have Labor Organizations who act against the interests of their own members in supporting consistently the party of business...the Republicans. The largest union in the area Local 54 as well as the Atlantic Cape Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO consistently back right wing anti labor Republican candidates such as frank THE HYPOCRITE lobiondo who is in bed with big business. FRIENDS SHOULD NOT LET FRIENDS VOTE REPUBLICAN.