They think we’re stupid. In the choice between a health care system that rewards waste, fraud, and denial of service and one infinitely better, they’re betting we’ll sit still while they ram the former down our throats. But we won’t – will we?

In the white-hot issue of health care in the United States , all sides have now weighed in. Despite all the usual tricks played by giant corporations, their public relations teams, and their lap dogs in Congress and mainstream media, the American people are demanding a single-payer health care system. And yet we are about to get health care “reform” that falls far short of what is desperately needed.

(If you don’t know by now what single-payer is, take a few minutes to educate yourself. As always, follow the money and choose your sources carefully. Wikipedia is a good place to start. Fundamentally, single-payer can be thought of as working like Medicare, with benefits, paid for through taxes, extended to everyone in the society.)

The vast majority of Americans don’t need to be told that the rapidly rising costs for health care, some 7 per cent annually, vastly outstrip any increase in pay a lucky few may have received, and leaves even those with insurance vulnerable to financial ruin. According to a study released by a Harvard and Ohio University team, medical bills directly contribute to over 60 percent of personal bankruptcies. On a national scale, health care expenditures that represent 17 percent of Gross Domestic Product cannot be sustained. Single-payer is the only solution that will directly control these costs.

This is literally a do-or-die fight, yet there is more involved than the physical health and welfare of our selves, loved ones, and neighbors. At stake is whether or not we will have a just and equal society, a nation that cares more about people than profit. At the same time this campaign may be our last chance to secure the functioning principle of democratic majority rule. Even as polls consistently and increasingly reveal a clear majority of citizens and health care professionals favor a single payer system, when a moneyed minority calls the shots what is left cannot be called a democracy. We have no right to expect any mercy should we let this one slip.

If We the People are to have a chance in this tussle, we’d best know who “they” are. But one must pull back the curtains to discover who stands behind them.

Blaming politicians who (with few exceptions) declare that the people’s choice is “off the table” before negotiations even begin is tempting, but they’re only fulfilling their half of the bargain with those who’ve paid to get them elected. Likewise journalists, those members of the presumed loyal opposition of whose fundamental purpose it has been so elegantly stated: “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” As infatuated as they are in rubbing shoulders with society’s Rich and Famous (including their bosses), the scribes (also with few exceptions) long ago stopped questioning the pronouncements of humanity’s movers and shakers. Scant wonder the departure of the newspaper from the American scene is not more widely mourned.

A multitude of financial swindles and the spectacular fall of Wall Street has finally brought light into hitherto dark corners to acquaint us with names like Keating, Lay, Madoff - as well as those who enabled them: Gramm, Paulson, and now Geithner. Dick Fuld, the previously celebrated CEO of Lehman Brothers, was punched in the face soon after publicly passing the buck for the bankruptcy of that investment firm.

So how about a little exposure of guys like Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth? Steve knocks down a little over $3M a year and was recently investigated in a scandal over backdated stock options (he got off). The American Association for Justice recently named United Health one of America ’s 10 worst insurance companies, for “misrepresenting products,” “denying and delaying claim payments,” and “putting profits over policyholders.”

Most single-payer advocates urge you to “call your representatives in Congress” to ask for single payer health care. Lest we forget: women didn’t get the vote by having their husbands contact their representatives. African Americans haven’t secured any rights that way, nor did the British leave India because Mr. Gandhi petitioned the throne. On June 25, the Health Care ’09 Rally will take place in Washington , DC . Don’t expect to find much about this event in the usual news outlets, save something dismissive afterwards. After all, if accurate information about the scandal of health care in the United States was as widespread as the same-sex marriage uproar, we might have reached a sane solution decades ago, as other civilized nations have.

As always, dear reader, thanks for following along. If the tone seems a bit steamed, it’s because I hate to see sociopaths having sport with the welfare of innocent bystanders. Maybe a little more outrage is what we’ll need to end the nightmare of health care in America.

Copyright Dave Wheelock, 2009; all rights reserved. Originally published in The Mountain Mail, reprinted with permission of the author