Gouging the Poor (criminalization of illness piece)

This appears to have shown up elsewhere earlier, but I just noticed it in the "Funny Times" that just landed in my snailmailbox yesterday.

Gouging the Poor

(snip)

To compound the sufferings of the sick and sub-affluent, hospitals now routinely charge uninsured people several times more than the insured. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports that one local hospital charged an uninsured patient $29,000 for an appendectomy that would have cost an insured patient $6,783. According to the Los Angeles Times, in one, albeit for-profit, California hospital chain, the uninsured account for only 2 percent of its patients, but 35 percent of its profits. The explanation for such shameless gouging of the poor? Big insurance companies and HMOs are able to negotiate "discounts" for their members, leaving the uninsured to pay whatever fanciful amounts the hospital cares to charge, such as, in one reported case, $50 for the use of a hospital gown.

(more)

money money.

When will people get sick of this game society plays,when will we stop playing make believe,about business leaders,politics and right and wrong..and do the kinds of things to the people who do stuff like gouge the poor,that say we mean it? The rich are rich because they are criminals because WE will not be like them we get screwed,but there is one other part because we tolerate criminals in suits and do not call these businessmen what they are,they get away with it.Enron come to mind?
Why do we as a culture that has a majority that is middle class or poor let the rich few take everything away from us,especially if they do it slowly and say things we like to hear while they pillage us and hoard ? The rich will not stop stealing from us,they will never have enough.If we let them take without challenges they'll even steal the sense of compassion we should have for each other and destroy our social safety nets, and freedoms we all worked to put there?
How dare the rich grab more for themselves than we all deserve as living human beings.