"Polls indicate the public wants health care reform and a public-insurance option.  So the health-insurance industry is pretending to be in favor of reform while trying to kill it ... says Wendell Potter, who (recently) headed corporate communications at CIGNA, a major health-insurance company. ... He says the industry uses 'deception, outright lies, and fear-mongering' to peel away reform's supporters." -- David R. Francis, "US is slipping toward plutocracy," Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 23, 2009

Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) argued that emotions were a better guide to good sense than reason. These days, he'd find lots of knuckleheads nodding amen.  He'd also find grinning corporate profiteers slapping each other's back, "Glory, glory, hallelujah! Praise be to the God of Greed."

Fear-mongering works. It trumps reason better than any other propaganda tactic.  Lies and deception spread fear. Fear then leads to hatred, hatred leads to   inflammatory rhetoric, and red-hot rhetoric all too often leads to violence. That, my friends, is the narrow ledge on which we teeter today. The Obama-hating screamers, fist shakers, name callers, and the testosterone-addicted gun toters who come to town halls and other public meetings are not harbingers of reason. And health care reform is but one arena where hatred is festering.

Turn off TV and talk radio.  Leave your favorite echo-chamber (where you see and hear whatever supports your emotional side). Find a calm spot. Breathe deeply. I'm going to toss some statistics your way. You'll need a clear head.  

Recall that the U.S. (a) is the only industrialized nation not to provide some form of universal health care, (b) we pay more than twice as much for it, and (c) we get below average health outcomes. Most of the time most of us with insurance think our doctors, nurses, med techs and hospitals are OK. We're not badmouthing them.  Now, re-read (b).  

I had previously written about Canada's health care system, of which approximately 86 percent of Canadians approve. Ninety percent of Canadians age 65 and older like it fine. Canada's isn't the best health care system, but at least as good as ours -- at half the cost.  Spain, the United Kingdom, Israel, Ireland, New Zealand and, yes, Switzerland and many others provide universal health care with as good or better results than the U.S. and far, far cheaper. Pause. Think that over.

On Oct. 29, 2004, Foxnews.com summarized a five-nation survey finding that "Americans are more dissatisfied than citizens of other nations with their basic health care even while paying more of their own money for treatment."  Yeah, that was Fox.  

From 1999 through 2008, average U.S. workers' earnings rose by a total of 34 percent -- barely above core inflation. So, if you made eight bucks an hour in 1999, you'd be making about 10 bucks and six bits now for the same work -- if you still have a job.

Now get this: During the identical period, average health insurance premiums went up 119 percent. Just since 2002, premiums have increased by 87 percent. Furrow your brow. Over the last seven years, the top 10 insurance companies' profits went up by a whopping 428 percent. Are you getting the picture?

The premium for a family of four is about $12,700 per year. Figure 52 weeks at 40 hours per week. That's $6.11 per hour you're paying -- you or your employer. The National Coalition on Health Care estimates that by 2018, absent health care reform, coverage for a family of four will hit $25,000.    

Fewer and fewer employers offer health care. For those that do, workers themselves are often required to pony up.  In my local public school district, an employee with two children pays more than $300 per month to "help out" on the  approximate total cost of over $13,000 annually. Across the U.S., higher deductibles are common. So are coverage limits buried in the fine print.  So are reduced or eliminated retiree benefits.

Now think about this:  Just less than two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies involved back-breaking medical bills.  Almost 80 percent of those people had health insurance.

For the 25 million under-insured, it's bad enough. For the 47 million without health insurance, it's terrible. Many of these work at low-wage jobs -- not a few are out of work.  For those with pre-existing conditions and "uninsurable," it's morally unforgivable. Like   me, you've surely known (or know now) a few people with serious, even life-threatening health problems who should not have to work, but they do.  Sick every day.  Otherwise they'd lose their coverage.  Some of course the boss "just had to let 'em go."

A woman wrote recently that she agreed with me:  Medicare Part D was essentially a rip-off. But she laid the blame at the feet of "government."  She doesn't get it. The rip-off comes not from government first-hand, but government second-hand -- from those legislators with their hands out to corporate contributions. To paraphrase a wag whose name I cannot recall: "We have a greedy corporate plutocracy that owns most Republicans and rents enough Democrats to get what they want."

That's what has to change.  Real health care reform is a start.

Sources used in this column include the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, FOX News, CBS, ABC, National Coalition on Health Care,  Harper's Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Gallup.com, the Canadian government and the American Prospect. Write Bob Hooper at celtic@ruraltel.net.