for Dennis Kucinich

He is the only one to point out that we are owned by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

As costs escalated and care trickled down, I once asked a friend who worked as a financial officer for a large group of physician practices, someone much more conservative than myself, “Who is making the money?” “The insurance companies.” She said without hesitation. That was before we were subject to ubiquitous ads that make every problem a reason to buy more pills. Now, it is the drug companies and the insurance companies.

And, look what insurance companies do when they fear something might lessen the dividends paid to shareholders; they pull out. They decide, in health care, to not cover certain treatments, in the environment to not insure certain places; and we have no control over their decisions. Not any more. Where once we waited for new drugs to emerge from lengthy testing, we are now overloaded with multiple duplicative medications while other needs, immunizations, et al lag for fear of poor profit. We also have many more recalls than previously and some of the adverse effects are not reversible. (take Vioxx…for one)

I will certainly vote for Dennis Kucinich in the primary, and I may vote for him come election time if no Democrat looks different from the Republican they oppose. Then again, I haven’t seen a traditional, fiscally conservative, socially liberal republican in a long time either. The division is fading. It is coming down to the haves and have less than….never mind the truly poor. They don’t vote.