ALERT: Health Care Reform Phonies, Insurance Groups and AARP, Gaming Real Solutions

My heart sank when I saw the headline, “AARP the magazine today named Madison the third healthiest city in the U.S.”

It seems the city of Madison Wisconsin will be falling all over itself after AARP made an announcement on the "Today" show that it was the third healthiest city in the U.S. AARP's acting editor Nancy Graham called Madison a "very green city and a big city with a small-town feel."

I haven’t had the time to compile a list of new initiatives to provide health care for every American yet, but suffice it to say these declarations and commissions are meant to obscure and water down the drive for true health care reform.

AARP is basically a provider of insurance. AARP’s TV ads asking for health care reform is a smoke screen to include, in some way, the for profit involvement of the insurance middleman. We all know that the 20 to 30 percent administrative costs of these care gatekeepers is wasted money, better used to cover more people and bring the costs down considerably.

You will also see consortiums and new coalitions getting together to come up “real” solutions. They’re scams meant to mislead and delay reform. True reform groups would be talking about what has worked around the world in other industrialized nations, and combining their individual successes for a workable system in the U.S.

Believe it or not, I have liked many of the AARP positions and articles in it's magazines and bulletins, it's just that they are not the Consumer Reports of the baby boom generation. Health care right now is insurance driven, and an obstacle to reform. Other countries have found a way to employ an insurance company model without doing away with the industry completely. It's time for insurance to change with the times and provide humane benefits to society, instead of destroying lives and allowing people to die via denied coverage.