In order for consumers to be "empowered" they have to have money. Nearly 2 million Americans have lost their jobs, millions are facing home foreclosure.
What choices are there? The choice of private insurance? When Bill McGuire, the former CEO of United, takes a compensation of 1.6 Billion dollars, yet his company denies benefits and finds every possible way to reject claims, who exactly does this choice benefit?
With regards to people feeling "entitled," the people benefiting THE MOST from this entitlement are the rich. There is NO EMPIRICAL data which demonstrates that the money spent on social programs is more than the money spent on farm subsidies to wealthy farmers AND the Bankers on Wall Street. But it is easy to target social programs because the beneficiaries are poor and do not have the same lobbying power.
If you want to see the sense of entitlement close up look no further than all of the successful failures on Wall Street, who even though their firms are bankrupt and receiving government bailouts, still feel they are ENTITLED TO their multi-million dollar bonuses. Where I grew up a BONUS was a REWARD for doing BETTER THAN EXPECTED, not a reward for failure.
Take a look at the following:
Merrill Lynch's Peter Kraus Collects $25 Million, Then Resigns
Now, former Goldmanite Peter Kraus is getting his $25 million bonus, according to people familiar with the situation, though he has been at Merrill only three months. Kraus left Merrill Friday, shortly after after his rich exit package was triggered by the Merrill sale. In a year when some bankers are being paid with junk, Kraus's exit payment is a stunner that represents to about 0.1% of Bank of America's $25 billion capital injection from the U.S. government.
What does it say about a country, that can find 700 billion to fight an unnecessary war, and then say the citizens who are living in a severe recession have a sense of entitlement when it comes to something as basic as health care.
I guess I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege, and as a result it falls under the "commons" and should not be left to profit makers.
Finally, the sooner doctors RECOGNIZE that the insurance companies ARE NOT, REPEAT ARE NOT on the same side as they, the sooner they will begin to see some progress in shaping the healthcare debate. The insurance companies are already lining up at the trough and saying that reducing physician re-imbursement is one way to reduce healthcare costs...no matter that their executives, like Mr. McGuire, are draining the system of 1,600,000,000.00 in compensation.
