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We don’t need health care reform. At least, that’s what Republican senators like Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma would have us believe.

Of course, McConnell was paid $2,000,000 by the health industry to say exactly that, as part of his campaign financing.^[1] Coburn was paid $193,000. The health industry was, by far, Coburn’s greatest benefactor.^[2]

A couple of weeks ago I was bothered by a persistent belly-ache. Eventually, it drove me to our local doctor. After poking and prodding around he sent me to the hospital for a CAT scan – “just to make sure there’s nothing seriously wrong.”

It took three attempts before they got the needle in my vein and I eventually walked away with bruised forearms that took a week to subside, but the scan itself was all of ten minutes. It required a few more minutes in the waiting room before the nurse person came out and said everything was fine and I could go home.

Yesterday we got the bill.

Before proceeding, let me assure you the Adams’s have one of the finest health insurances available – Blue Cross Blue Shield’s policy for Federal employees. I’m told it’s one of the best.

The hospital presented the insurance company with a bill for the CAT scan of $6,034.11.

This is, of course, what an uninsured person would be expected to pay for a similar procedure.

Blue Cross Blue Shield said, “Up yours! Our plan only allows for you to charge us $3,113.65 for that procedure,” so immediately wrote off $2,920.46.

By a complex and mysterious process that no layman could ever understand, they then concluded that of the $3,113.65, they were only responsible for $2,391.66. The rest was down to me.

So, despite paying an enormous sum in health insurance premiums every month, a ten minute CAT scan still cost me $721.99.

Had I not been insured, the hospital would have dumped the full $6,034.11 at my door and I’d have had no-one to stand up to them and say, “Up yours! You’re grossly overcharging.”

Is Senator McConnell right in his assertion that health care in the US does not require reform? Is Senator Coburn right, as a representative of the people, to hold the views he does?

You decide.

^{[1] OpenSecrets.Org Mitch McConnell 2005 – 2010.}

^{[2] OpenSecrets.Org Tom Coburn 2005 – 2010}

Filed under: Pocket lining

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn says we don’t need healthcare reform – just a little more ‘neighborliness’.

I guess we have to hope this woman has a brain surgeon living on her left, and a speech therapist across the street.

And, maybe, a couple of trained nurses with nothing better to do, just down the road.

Has anyone ever done a survey on the number of total prats in the United States government?

Or, is it just too big a job?

Filed under: ‘Wanker’ is too good a word

America is up in arms; it stammers with indignation, screams for its own brand of “justice” while threatening economic embargo against its closest ally. Why? Because a man with a terminal disease, who will be dead within three months, has been allowed to leave prison in Scotland and return to spend his last moments with his family.

Interestingly, while the US relatives of those killed on Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988 are unanimously baying for blood, most of the UK relatives of those killed believe it was a right decision, and that mercy is justified in the circumstances.

This tells quite a lot about the different cultures on each side of the Atlantic. In Biblical terms, the US justice system demands “an eye for an eye”, while in Europe a little more attention is paid to Jesus’ doctrine of mercy and forgiveness.

No-one would deny the horror of the atrocity committed that cold December night over the Scottish lowlands. The news bulletins that evening were as chilling as the winter weather, even to those with no relatives and friends on board the stricken airliner.

When Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was finally surrendered by Libya in 1999, and locked away for life in a Scottish jail, the US relatives seemed totally satisfied with the verdict. Many of the UK relatives were not, and with some justification.

Al Megrahi was a Libyan intelligence officer and the head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines. Another man, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, the LAA station manager in Luqa Airport, Malta, was also accused of the bombing and stood trial alongside Al Megrahi. He was acquitted.

Much of the evidence in the trial centered around a timing device, a charred piece of which was supposedly discovered in the plane’s wreckage. The timer was allegedly of a type supplied by a Swiss company, Mebo, to the Libyan military. In 2007, an employee of that company and witness at Al Megrahi’s trial, Ulrich Lumpert, confessed that the timer had not come from the plane’s wreckage, but that he had stolen it from his employers and given it to an investigating official.^[1][2]

The owner of Mebo, Edwin Bollier, states he was offered four million US dollars and a new identity in the USA, by the CIA, if he would swear in court that the timer was one sold to the Libyan military. It wasn’t, and Bollier refused to perjure himself.

The CIA also bribed other witnesses in the trial with huge sums of money.^[3]

The 270 victims of Pan Am Flight 103 were innocents. They died because of a mighty political intrigue involving the US and UK governments. To this day it isn’t known who planted the bomb, or even why. It’s likely Al Megrahi was no more than a scapegoat.

In a recent letter to the Scottish parliament, FBI Director Robert Mueller asked, “where is the justice in releasing this man?”

In return, we should ask: where is the justice in bribing witnesses and tampering with evidence to obtain a false conviction?

In the aftermath of the Lockerbie tragedy, then US President George H.W. Bush set up the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST). Its task was to review and report on aviation security.

PCAST was headed by Ann Korologos, a former US Secretary of Labor, and her team consisted of two US senators, two US representatives, a US general, and a former Secretary to the US Navy.

Before submitting their final report, the PCAST members met with UK relatives of the victims of Flight 103 at the US embassy in London. That meeting took place on 12th February 1990.

During that meeting, a member of PCAST told one of the British relatives, Martin Cadman:

“Your government and ours know exactly what happened. But they’re never going to tell.” ^[4]

^{[1] “Probe into Lockerbie timer claims” The Herald (Scottish), September 5th 2007}

^{[2] “Vital Lockerbie evidence ‘was tampered with'” The Guardian, September 2nd 2007}

^{[3] “Lockerbie trial: an intelligence operation?” I.P.O. Information Service, October 5th 2007}

^{[4] “Email by Jim Swire, father of one of the victims, to Scottish Press Assoc” May 2007}

Filed under: Cover-up