I received an email today in response to my article “Jay Rockefeller: Angry Old Congressman.” As opposed to many arguments against healthcare reform, it was filled with facts and a dash of rational thought for spice. Below is that email explaining in far more detail and with greater eloquence why you, too, should be as angry as Senator Rockefeller. Enjoy.

More knowledge for your puny brain after the jump.

There are many reasons why Sen. Rockefeller is angry. First of all, the irony of a “Rockefeller” representing the people of West Virginia, well the visual is at best confusing.

However, if you look at the table above you can see why Sen. Rockefeller is an angry old Senator. Wet Virginia is tied with Alabama with the 5^th highest poverty rate in the country. 1 in 4 children in WVA are classified as poor with the 8^th highest poverty rate in the country. The median household income ranks as the 2^nd lowest in the country. And the last and most important point……..250,000 OR 13.8% of West Virginian’s don’t have health insurance. 250,000 out of a population of only approximately 1.8 million.. The population of Chicago is a little over 2.8 million.

West Virginia spends 20.4 percent of their GSP or 10.8 billion on Medicare and Medicaid. That is a lot of coal. The US spends 14% of their GDP on healthcare.

There are a lot of other things making Sen. Rockefeller mad. For one thing, West Virginia is mostly a rural state. The mountains are beautiful but the doctors are hard to find. Over the past ten years there has been a 40% drop in Primary Care physicians in the United States, in fact, we now import doctors mostly from under developed countries. I can tell you from my own personal experience that if you live in an “unincorporated” town in West Virginia and need urgent medical care you may have to drive over three mountains to even get to a Marcus Welby in a nearby town. A hospital may be five mountains away. Rural care is also more expensive because of supply and demand. So if your appendix burst in West Virginia, not only may you die driving over those mountains but chances are the bill from the hospital will be significantly more expensive than St. Vincent’s in New York City.

A second thing that is making Sen. Rockefeller angry is the whole discussion of small business offering health insurance. What defines “small business”? In urban areas, a small business could mean that hedge fund with an employee pool of 20 people who offer health insurance. In West Virginia, it could mean Betty’s Diner with 20 employees. Get the picture? Twenty years ago 61% of all small businesses offered health insurance, today only 38% offer health insurance and I would bet Betty’s Diner is not one of them that can afford it.

Yes, Senator Rockefeller is angry. He knows first hand that given the choice of either more regulation or competition, the overwhelming majority of the 1300 health insurance companies in this country choose REGULATION. What does that tell you? Who are we building reform for? The health insurance companies profits? That one in four dollars of every healthcare payment going to “administrative costs”? And that is not for the person in the cubicle making 35,000 per year determining if we have a pre existing condition. And guaranteed after many years in poverty almost all West Virginians will have some kind of pre existing condition. There have even been the incredible statements from some Republicans that they are against a public option because… are you ready? It will be too popular! Does that tell you anything? They are afraid that it will actually work and have the audacity to state that publicly. My question is why is Sen. Rockefeller the only one who is angry? Where is the public outcry and the demonstrations for a public option? The discussion is on Government Control of our destiny and our health and ultimately our lives? Well, I would much rather have government control of my life, where if I had a problem my recourse would be to get in touch with my Congressman or Senator, than someone sitting in a cubicle somewhere whose only motive was a personal bonus in their pocket for denying me or my loved ones coverage. I pay the salary for the Congressman; I don’t pay it for the administrative clerk. The death panel is already alive and well in the offices of health insurance companies all over the country. Those people who feel so pressured that my life is in their hands.

Sen. Rockefeller is angry because he is alone in his disgust. No one is talking about the National Health Service Corps. This program would pay the tuition for medical students who choose primary care and in return they would agree to be assigned to a rural community for a period of three years to serve the underserved populations. Primary care physicians would catch health problems before they became serious. If you are not insured, if you have to drive five hours to get to a doctor, chances are you are not going to make that yearly physical appointment, you are going to wait until the pain is unbearable. Think of how much healthier we all would be. Primary care physicians have no incentive, because it’s a lot easier to pay off those student loans if you are a specialist.

We are having stupid debates, not meaningful ones. We are wasting time talking about illegals. What would you do if an illegal immigrant came into the hospital and tested positive for swine flu? Tell him to take two aspirin and go back to work? Of course we are going to cover illegals because so many times they pose a public health risk if we don’t. Duh

My last thought on the public option and the nasty big government controlling my life. Each year we have thousands of lives lost because of hospital error. It equates to a Boeing 747 crashing every day and a half. Now, we are all comforted by the fact that when there is a crash, we see the FAA investigators, the NTSB getting to the scene within 24 hours and finding that little black box. Then there are regulations passed so that crash doesn’t happen again. That is what makes it easier to get back on a plane. I am in the aviation industry and I know the kinds of regulations there are and how they are tracked, and that is what makes me get on a plane again and again because I know the statistics. Why are we so against the same type of regulations when it comes to our hospitals? That is what government control; public options would do for us. So, join me in being just as angry as Sen. Rockefeller.

Power to the people, yo.