Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Universal health care. “Medicare for All.” Socialized medicine. Regardless what one wants to call it, we need it. We need it desperately, and we need it now. Because we can’t go on like this:

[A] Michigan woman seeking a heart transplant publicized a letter she received from the Spectrum Health Richard DeVos Heart and Lung Transplant Clinic—named after the late father-in-law of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—informing her that she is “not a candidate” for the procedure “at this time” because she needs a “more secure financial plan” to afford the required post-operation immunosuppressive medication.

The letter goes on to explicitly recommend “a fundraising effort of $10,000” to help pay for the drugs.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saw the letter. Her reaction was

“Insurance groups are recommending GoFundMe as official policy—where customers can die if they can’t raise the goal in time—but sure, single-payer healthcare is unreasonable,”

Hedda Elizabeth Martin is the woman who received this letter and posted it to Facebook. She also shared that “Only when I have raised that required amount, will I then be ‘reconsidered’ for [a] heart transplant. Not automatically added to [the] list but reconsidered…. This is new.”

This is insane.

Anyone who thinks this is OK needs a transplant themselves – a heart transplant, or a soul transplant, or both, because they are clearly lacking in those areas.

I could go on (and on and on) about the moral bankruptcy of this situation, but you would not find anything that hasn’t been already said, and said far better, by better writers and better humanitarians than I. But I am also a retired insurance professional, so I want to look at this for a minute as an insurance professional.

[A]s Common Dreams reported, a Koch-funded study published earlier this year inadvertently found that Medicare for All would save the American public $2 trillion in healthcare costs over ten years while covering everybody.

WELL OF COURSE IT WOULD. The whole principle of insurance is that you get a group of people together to each chip money into a pool which is then available to help people who experience a catastrophe which happens to few be “made whole” – car repair or replacement, housing repair or replacement, organ repair or replacement covered so the sufferer is not out of pocket, or only a little out of pocket (e.g., for a deductible). The theory is that the premium should be appropriate to the risk, but the larger the pool, the less that ends up mattering. With a huge pool enough in premiums can be taken in to cover pretty much anything that can happen. And “everyone” is the largest possible pool, a pool for which the best coverage can be provided for the least money.

So why the resistance? It can only be because that $200 BILLION per year which would be saved would be a saving to the American people. It would not go into the assets of existing insurance companies to be distributed to their shareholders (and especially to their executives.) It’s not, apparently, a question of how much could be saved, but of who gets to save it.

There are some Democrats who don’t seem to think that Medicare for All is a good idea. They need their feet held to the fire. We can do that, through petitions, letters, phone calls. Demonstrations. Marches. Those who have Twitter and Facebook can use those tools (though I would not advise anyone who doesn’t already have them to get them, since they can be dangerous.) No one other than we the people is going to do it.

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, open our eyes to see all the petitions and sign every one. Open our hearts to find our own words to add to the words of others, as good as those can be. Light a fire under us.

Speaking of fire, as off topic as it is, I want to share it, for Christmas, with the caveat that, heartwarming as it is, it may warm your heart to such a degree that (as Otto Harbach didn’t exactly say) smoke may get in your eyes. You can blame George Takei for finding it, and of course me for agreeing with him that it’s worthy to pass on.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.