Up the road a piece from eDrugSearch.com headquarters in San Antonio, John Young of the Waco Tribune-Herald has penned a terrific op-ed on SiCKO and our healthcare crisis. An excerpt:

Ask the apologists for the system as it is, and realize that they have one interest in mind and one alone: the middle man. Another word for free enterprise. In this country, medicine is business. Understand? Big business. We’re not talking about the doctors, here, and neither is Moore.

We’re talking about corporations — insurance companies and the stockholders they serve. Throw in American pharmaceutical companies. GNP-wise, it’s a whole other super power, except these soldiers carry briefcases and samples. Whether the issue is health coverage for all or affordable prescriptions, we are wedged into an untenable political corner by corporate behemoths and a mind-set that puts business (profit) above all, even the public interest…

The most devastating point made by Sicko is how deeply the insurance and pharmaceutical industries have sunk their claws into our lawmaking process through campaign largess and back-scratching patronage.

Consider former Louisiana Rep. Billy Tauzin, Republican point man for the pharmaceutical-friendly Medicare reform bill in 2003. He received $218,000 in campaign contributions from pharmaceutical manufacturers over 15 years. Now he is making $2 million a year as CEO of the top drug-lobbying group.

As you see, the influence bartered by today’s “stay-the-course” chanticleers in Washington makes them middle-men, too.