This ticker shows that nearly 5 million American families, not individuals, have lost their health coverage since the beginning of 2008. There were tens of millions of Americans without coverage before that. It's an enormous problem.

And, it's worse. Health insurance corporations and HMOs are getting ever more ruthless in denying claims for needed healthcare for the people who still do have "coverage." Copays and fees to employers are going up while insurer/HMO executive pay stays astronomical. A significant portion of those added copays and employer charges have been used to lobby Congress, saturate the media with propaganda, and create the astroturf teabagger "movement" in order to avoid the more efficient and humane alternative of government provided health coverage.

It would be great to replace private coverage, including its death panels*, with single payer healthcare which doesn't have them. If only there wasn't so much corruption in politics.

When are the majority of the middle class and the poor going to realize that we are getting screwed by the rich and their corporations, not by the hated minority group of the week? When are people going to grow up and accept the fact that corporate media owned and controlled by rich Republicans is rightist, not liberal? When are people going to see beyond the propaganda?


*Insurance companies use death panels all the time. The HMO/insurer lobbyist who was feeding the whole "death panel" talking point to Sarah Palin actually was projecting an industry practice onto the government.