(This post contains a guest post emailed to me by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous, but first I have to set the stage)
The fact that the Blue-Dog(Blue Cross) Democratic Caucus and Senators like Baucus(Hey, that rhymes) can block meaningful health care reform is a disturbing outrage. Now, the situation is extremely fluid and big things are afoot. The Progressive Caucus has come out to block any bill in the house that has a watered down “Public Option.” We need to support those Representatives and tell them to fight for us.
Go HERE to help support the people in the House who are fighting for us.
In 1993 Bill Clinton tried to get Health Care Reform done in this country, but he tried to do it by ramming a bill down Congress’s throat without debate. He was sort of working the blitzkrieg school of politics and his Presidency was seriously damaged. As a direct result of this, Republicans took control of Congress in the ‘94 mid-term elections. We’ve all lived through the incalculable damage that has been done to our nation by these people in the 12 years they controlled the Congress.
President Obama, showing that he understands history and can learn from it, is taking a very different route. He has chosen to foster debate in the Congress. His plan is to give some benchmark goals that he wants to see and allow the Democrats in Congress, with or without the help of Republicans, to come up with a plan for Health Care Reform on their own. This is what is happening now. Obama’s strategy places an extraordinary amount of trust on US. This strategy relies on us to do our job as citizens and pressure our representatives in Congress. Without this pressure, Congress will respond to the other pressure that arguably controls our government. Corporations.
Obama’s strategy has exposed more nakedly than ever before the role of big, corporate money in our Congress. Now, a certain Italian dictator once defined his term fascism as being the melding of corporate interests with the state. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but when polls show that vast majorities of the electorate want not only a public option but medicare-for-all style, single-payer Health Care Reform and OUR Congress is dragging their collective feet, you have to start wondering about the Republic. The fact is, $1.4+ million dollars a day is being spent by the health insurance industry lobbyists to thwart meaningful Health Care Reform in our Congress, and this influx of corporate money seems to be having more influence than our wishes. This is the definition of fascism.
Obama’s strategy has shined a very large, uncomfortably bright light on this situation and DLC, corporatist Democrats are feeling the heat. It is our job to stand up and tell Congress we do not want a fascist country.
(This guest post was sent to my by a friend who wishes to remain Anonymous. I don’t necessarily agree with all of the premises of the following guest post, but these are valid points that I’m not hearing discussed in the debate. The issue of health care mandates is extremely touchy, and if the “public option” under any mandate reform is weak, we are in real trouble. I would actually prefer nothing to that scenario. The only real health care reform in my opinion is a medicare-for-all style, single payer, non-profit reform, but that is not possible at this time. With a strong “Public Option” where people could opt into medicare and with Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s amendment to allow states to vote for their own Universal Single-Payer system is they so choose, it seems to me that we will eventually get where we need to be on Health Care Reform. We cannot allow a weak public option or no public option and mandates.)
Health Care Reform: Cure Worse Than Sickness?
Congress Appears Poised to Pass Health Care Reform That Will Actually Make Thing Worse.
Take a look at the House and Senate proposals for universal health care that are coming out of committee right now. They deliver “universal coverage” by requiring every person to purchase insurance, either private insurance or a fairly limited “public option”. You will be fined if you fail to purchase insurance. The employer mandate is expanded to require even small businesses of as little as 25 employees to cover all employees by, again, buying private insurance or this limited “public option.” Insurers are required to accept all comers; but there appears to be no provision to govern the price or coverage, and, worse, there appear to be no provisions to make sure insurers who take our premiums will actually be required to make good if and when we have a claim.
Are there any smart people out there who can explain what is supposed to be good about these proposals?
Unless I am missing something huge, this sort of proposal cannot fix the broken business of health insurance. It can only make things worse. Insurance companies who have customers required to buy their product by law and force of penalty have even less incentive than now to pretend to make good on claims or offer a compelling value.
Look at the example of auto insurance. Forcing people to buy private car insurance has raised the cost of insurance, and reduced the accountability of insurers who can now deny claims with impunity, without any fear of losing customers. With the exception of a couple of companies, anyone who has had a claim on their auto policy since mandatory coverage was adopted has experienced this phenomenon: Instead of real peace of mind and an insurer who steps up to make you whole, you enter into an interminable process of negotiation, until sooner or later you settle for some discounted value of your claim. Perhaps all well and good when it comes to car insurance. But for health care? Your bargaining position with that insurer trying to lowball or deny you is severely hampered when you are laid up in a hospital bed.
What is wrong with the simple solution? Why can’t Congress just establish a public option? Why can’t Congress simply make Medicare available at a reasonable premium to anyone who wants it (with some subsidy for the very low income who can’t afford it, paid for by a surtax on the very wealthy)?
Couple this with a watchdog agency with the power to oversee all health insurers and criminally penalize anyone in a health insurance company who wrongly denies or delays coverage, and we’d be at least moving toward a real solution. People would have a real option for coverage they could count on. Insurers would have something real to compete against, and they would be prevented from doing so fraudulently by just promising coverage they do not intend to deliver.
Instead, we have the bad insurance executive’s wet dream of a policy: Everyone’s required to buy the product, nothing stands in the way of denying coverage in the chase for profits, and the “public option” is neutered at inception.
Am I the only one in dismay that Congress would come up with a proposal that appears destined to actually, unbelievably, make things even worse?
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Here’s a great article on Daily Kos. From that article:
We need to call Capps:
Washington, D.C.
1110 Longworth House Office Building
Washington D.C. 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3601
Fax: (202) 225-5632
Santa Barbara
301 E. Carrillo Street, Suite A
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Phone: (805) 730-1710
Fax: (805) 730-9153
San Luis Obispo
1411 Marsh Street, Suite 205
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
Phone: (805) 546-8348
Fax: (805) 546-8368
Port Hueneme
2675 N. Ventura Road
Suite # 105
Port Hueneme, CA 93041
Phone: 805-985-6807
Fax: 805-985-6875
Ah, you’re all for losing one of the last of our freedoms, to choose our own doctor, pay for our own medical care, our very own right to life and how it will be lived?? SOCIALIZED MEDICINE? THIS IS NO LONGER A FREE COUNTRY. Everything that we were told from when we were kids, work hard, earn money and the american dream is yours HAS BEEN TAKEN AWAY. Wake up. Male doctors and politicians in the ovaries of every woman in this country,legalized SUICIDE? This is life?? I don’t think so. It is a society CONTROLLED by an out of control rabid “government”.
Thanks for playing, the above comment brought to you by 7 private health care companies who do business using 1300 different names.
Moving on…
So I guess you’ll be declining Medicare when you hit 65, is that correct, emerald? Maybe we should axe the VA too?
And as far as paying for our own medical care, what a privilege! I’m honored to have had my medical insurance go up 29% last month, because of “increased insurer expenses” despite record profits and my clean bill of health.
The system is broken. Period.
“Increased Insurer Expenses”? Wow! You’ll have to pardon me but, that’s some balls! They spend $1.4+ million a day to bribe Congress to allow them to keep stealing money by rescinding their health insurance when their “customers” actually get sick, then they go ahead and pass the costs on to you Tyler. WTF!
There’s just no substitute for exercise, a healthy diet and a positive attitude. As an adult, I have never had insurance and never will. My health is my responsibility. Does anyone out there actually believe the US government wants to help you? It’s all a sham. The govt is a PR firm run by disorganized corporate criminals and the health industry is 99 percent BS.
insure ants, how much do they pay you per post on blogs? which right-leaning think tank are you working for or do you work for more than one? Just wondering.
spk – Lmao! Wrong. I am actually an anarchist in the tradition of Emma Goldsmith. In fact, I know you Sean and you know me. Frankly, I am surprised that some one of your intellect would use such a low brow Fox snooze level of discourse. First you invite a discussion then when some one does not say what you want to hear you label them a troll. Take all the energy you are wasting trying to get someone else to care for you and put it into your self. Eat healthy, bike a little more often, lose about 50 pounds and you will pobably never need a doctor.
What is American about a proposal to force everyone in America to buy some private company’s product, at pain of fine?
If these companies are so efficient, why are they so deathly afraid of competing against a big, bloated, overpriced inefficient government bureaucracy? Why do they need the government to force people to buy their product? If what they say is true, that nobody will want to use a single payer option, what are they afraid of? Why are they spending hundreds of millions to defeat it? If what they say is true, isn’t it obvious that nobody needs to worry about the cost of the public option, because not a single citizen will choose to use it? We’ll all just stay right where we are, happy with our current private insurer. Right?
Emerald is just being silly. If she likes her private insurance, nobody says she can’t keep it. What’s her problem with a public option for those of us who want it? The current proposal, after all, makes those who use it pay for it. Isn’t the essence of freedom having more choice?
Insure Ants is giving good advice, but totally irrelevant. Of course we should be as healthy as we can. But if some schmoe runs us over with a car, or we breathe too much of that annual fire retardant dropped on our lush valley, or we eat a little too much sushi and then find out about mercury, or we find out that the government was running some kind of atomic mess over the next hill and for some reason, we and all our otherwise healthy brothers and sisters are struck with cancer… well, some of us still won’t want an MD to treat us, but others among us might like to have that among the options.
More seriously, for those who recognize the need for reform, what is wrong with the simple solution – just lower the eligibility age for Medicare so everyone is eligible. Put a $5,000 annual deductible on everyone under age 65, to control costs on all those newly eligible. Then, Congress can spend the time it needs to figure out how to cover the $0-$5,000 gap as appropriate.
Are illegals covered under the plan?
Brian, isn’t the question, are YOU covered? Does whatever the plan is give you some additional options that are better than what you have now? Why are you so worried about “illegals” all of a sudden? What do they have to do with it?
Are you saying that even if the plan, whatever it is, makes things better for you, you don’t want it if it also makes things better for [fill in the blanks]?
Or are you just trying to change the subject so the seven conglomerates operating under approximately 1,300 different names can pass their mandate, making you legally obligated to buy their product at whatever price they want to charge?
As far as “illegals,” if you get convicted of a crime and get sent to prison, then you already get free health care paid by the government. So yes, illegals are covered. Its just us legals that aren’t.
If these companies are so efficient, why are they so deathly afraid of competing against a big, bloated, overpriced inefficient government bureaucracy?
Because the government doesn’t have to make a profit to stay in business.
…isn’t the question, are YOU covered? Does whatever the plan is give you some additional options that are better than what you have now? Why are you so worried about “illegals” all of a sudden? What do they have to do with it?
pmfji, BC can and does speak quite well for himself, but one question is “who will pay for all the illegals?” The answer is obvious.
What’s an illegal?
SPK you tool..go soak your head in epson salts and then apply liberal dose of Gold Bond!
I’ll count that as a win then
Epson salts: restorative soaking aid for your printer.
A win for spk indeed! lol
Brian, Johnny, etc: i would like to help pay for your medical care. i think it’s a compassionate (Christ-like?) thing to do and my responsibility if i have health and means of my own. all i ask in return is that you do the same for me.
Evan, I would like to pay for your shoes. All I ask is that you pay for my shoes, in return.:-)
Seriously, your self-identifying as Christlike is intriguing, except that Jesus gave unconditionally. He was on the family health plan, but his deductible was a little steep. Christ picked up the tab for everybody else, which is similar to the unequal distribution of Obamacare costs.
It’s a tough sell for you (and others) to make. It is just not a win-win. Anyway, have a great weekend and see you around town and on the boards.
One question is who will pay for all the illegals?
That is a really really stupid question.
Besides being completely off base and misguided, it and similar “who will pay for this and that?” questions don’t even make a penny’s worth of sense. Right now, 30-50% of your health care dollar goes into insurance executive and administrator pockets. By contrast, Medicare spends 3% on overhead. A Medicare-style public option could pay for everyone – “illegals” too – pay every provider just as much as they get now (way too much BTW), and we’d still be paying less than we collectively pay now.
Meanwhile, on your current plan, just wait until you actually get sick. That’s when you will face the executive who gets one more Porsche, or luxury trip to the Bahamas, by denying you and letting you die. If you don’t think that current insurance executives would not allow you to die if it would put one more penny in their pocket, you are naive. Any insurance executive who behaves any differently was long ago weeded out of the industry.
Its a tough sell. Please.
Adding to the comment:
What some people refuse to realize is that when your health care is run by a private insurance company out to make profits, you are only valuable while you are healthy, and paying a premium. During that time, the insurance company works as hard as it can to extract more and more money from you.
Once you get seriously ill, you are worthless to the company. Bedridden cancer patients cannot pay insurance premiums. That’s why they will immediately deny you, cancel you, etc. Once you are unable to pay premiums that are more than what you need them to pay out for you, they want you dead.
Your only hope in that circumstance is that you are not alone – that is, that you do not have an individual plan. If you are lucky enough to have a large employer paying your premiums, your insurer has had some incentive to pay for individuals in order to keep the large company premiums coming in. They do so because if they deny you, there is some risk that your employer might look for a different company.
So, for freedom lovers like Emerald and Mario, consider this: If you actually want any chance of benefit from your insurer, the current system makes you a slave to your large employer.
If you are one of the suckers in an individual plan where you have none of the large employer’s leverage, unless you have a prepaid lawyer on retainer, you are just wasting your money. Because all you are buying is the right to sue the insurer from your hospital bed as they deny you.
Of course, all that has already changed dramatically. In the past ten years, the very worst bottom feeding insurers have taken that war chest of illicit premiums (which they amassed by not paying out for health care) and bought up their rivals, who were financially weaker because they actually did pay out. In many markets, there now is only one insurer in town. In those markets, your employer doesn’t have any leverage either. And so we’ve been starting to hear more and more of people covered through an employer who are wrongfully denied.
Now just wait until Congress passes its “mandate,” requiring you to buy private insurance from one of the large conglomerates. They may just stop paying claims entirely at that point. Why not? Free money in the pocket, and the government will prosecute anyone who doesn’t pay the premium.
Just waving your wand and calling a question “stupid” doesn’t make it so. And it won’t go away. And it deserves to be answered.
Here’s a question for ‘Are You Kidding’: where do you get your figures? Please cite your source for doozys like “…30-50% of your health care dollar goes into insurance executive and administrator pockets.” If you make an assertion and then can’t back it up, you have a credibility problem.
As for the “3% Medicare overhead”, please don’t just retype what you read on DailyKos. Put on your thinking cap, and realize that Medicare patients are over 65, therefore costing much more in their last years of care. The operations, drugs and therapy all run up costs which are much greater in proportion.
The following link will help you grasp the reality that government is not somehow a cheaper and more efficient provider of services. Enjoy!
http://timerealclearpolitics.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/admincosts1.gif
OK, all of you brainiacs in here. Listen up – especially you spk, here’s a chance for you to ACTUALLY finally get a win (in your typical delusional fashion).
In 2007, health care in the U.S. cost 2 trillion dollars, but it is estimated to go to 6 trillion in 2010. OK, let’s say there is some waste, some overcharging, some duplication. Cut it in half, make it 3 trillion. Only half of the people in the country pay any income tax.
Now class, get out your calculator, and tell me how the gumint does this.
The guy who wants to be responsible for himself probably has it right. The rest of you are moochers.
re: administrative costs of the healthcare industry – New England Journal of Medicine says 31% in 1999, and growing much more rapidly than Canada against which it was compared:
http://nejm.highwire.org/cgi/content/short/349/8/768
re: the image you linked to – its heritage.org – they would love to see healthcare reform killed, to (1) protect the existing industry and (2) to cripple Obama’s presidency. So the data is presented in a way that supports their argument, which may not be the core argument but a distraction. (i.e. the news that organics aren’t any more nutritious than non-organics, conveniently ignoring pesticides)
Anonymous is dead-on in describing the insurance industry’s motivations – it’s for-profit with a fiduciary duty to its shareholders. And they do it with virtually no competition. That’s not the “free market” – why is the right so afraid of a public option?
You’re not going to have to euthanize your grandparents, you know.
Tyler, rate of growth is meaningful when compared to a baseline.
The table provided by Heritage is accurate. Noting that you disagree with the worldview of a source does not invalidate that source.
The “for profit” is ALL competition. The government has bottomless pockets (ok, it assumes taxpayers have bottomless pockets) and will never have to turn a profit or go out of business. This proposed monopoly will have to ration care (just as Canada and all socialized programs do). Ask any Canadian, when the chips are down they will come to the U.S. for care.
I never said the image was inaccurate – I said it was presenting data in a way that doesn’t address the core issues.
The healthcare industry IS the monopoly. That’s the problem.
I’m self-employed.
Why did my rates go up 29% this year, my deductible go up and my benefits go down, despite my perfect health and record industry profits?
What recourse do I have if I get sick and they drop me?
What if the insurance company says I have a pre-existing condition and drops me?
What if they point to legalese and say there is a donut hole that they don’t cover, and I’m on the hook for thousands of dollars?
Why do faceless bean counters in far-away offices make decisions about peoples’ health and what medical care they can receive?
Do you like this current system? I feel totally disempowered – if something goes wrong, I have no confidence that what I have been paying for will actually do what they say it will.
Ask any Canadian, when the chips are down they will come to the U.S. for care.
Another absolutely baseless canard and lie. Wait times in Canada are shorter than in the U.S. Outcomes are better. Canadians do not come to the U.S. for care, Americans go to Canada! Get real facts.
And no, I’m not going to your research for you until you actually come up with something that has not long been disproven as a baseless lie. Your canard comes from a survey from decades ago in which many Canadians polled said they were unhappy with wait times, which for certain elective procedures then averaged about three weeks. They did not say they would prefer a U.S. system. Most Canadians I’ve met are well aware that we just don’t get elective procedures paid for, period, and if and when we save the money for one, we will wait far longer than three weeks. That survey was taken out of context and used by the insurance lobby back in the ’90s to claim that Canadians wished they were in the U.S. Absolute lie.
Think wait times are shorter here? Call up a decent doctor and try to make an appointment. Then compare with Canada.
I’ve never met a real Canadian who has done anything but guffaw when presented with the U.S. myth that Canadians wish they had our healthcare. Go ahead and present paid industry shills who say so, I know they are out there, but real Canadians wouldn’t wish our healthcare on their worst enemy, much less themselves.
Meanwhile, when you look at all the outrageous stretches and lies told by the private insurance industry and its supporters, don’t you have to ask yourself why you are supporting such a liar?
When you say private insurance, for-profit, is all competition, you are completely out of touch with the facts. First of all, health insurance as a product, by nature, is not competitive, period. It is not a computer, which you buy and use and know right away if it works as promised. Insurance is something you buy and do not use. You buy it based on a promise – and with all the mergers of the last ten years, the track record of your company in actually keeping the promise you’ve bought is nonexistent. For example, Blue Cross over decades built a reputation as more or less paying when the time came. But it was bought by Wellpoint, which is notorious for NOT paying, denying coverage, canceling you once you are sick, and every other bad practice of a totally unaccountable private insurer. Private insurers can do this because competition is illusory in the insurance industry by the nature of the product – by promising something it has no intention of delivering, a company quickly swamps those companies who only promise what they do intend to deliver. The result is by nature, the private insurance industry can only end up being a consortium of companies that collect premiums, but deny health care – because those companies that deny and cancel coverage make the most profits and thereby swallow the competition.
Second, there are now seven major insurers who use about 1,300 dbas. In hundreds of markets around the country, there is only one company offering coverage. That is monopoly.
Third, the insurance industry has lobbied and obtained massive government aid ensuring it does not have competition. Health insurers have all kinds of exemptions from normal tort liability when they screw you. Routinely you are unable to recoup attorney fees when you successfully sue an insurer, meaning if you do not have a six figure war chest when you are diagnosed with cancer and denied coverage, you might as well just go die. There are limits on liability, higher evidence threshholds, and all kinds of distortions that protect the industry from having to compete on the only thing that should matter – whether they actually will pay when the coverage you’ve bought is needed.
And, when your insurers win what Heritage and the industry you are shilling want – a mandate that you must buy their product at pain of government prosecution – how much competition do you think there will be then?
Tyler, it might be a good deal for you, a self-employed person, to get “free” medical, but someone has to pay for it. And pay for the illegals.:-) Who will pay for all this “free” medical? I think it might be me, but if it isn’t that doesn’t make it right to force somebody else to pay. And it doesn’t work to try to make me feel guilty, or assert “rights” to confiscate my money, or make me wait in longer lines. I pay for my own health insurance, too, and I have never had a problem. I have called my primary care physician at 3am for authorization to treat a broken rib in emergency care. They are happy for my business, I don’t burden them with nonsense calls when I have a cold or flu, and it is worth the cost in case of catastrophic illness. My doctor is great, and gives me confidence in him and who he does business with. Sorry you pay good money for insurance that you doubt will provide what you are paying for. Have you tried the other six mega-insurers? Somebody will have the lowest price, it is up to you to make them compete.
Anonymous, I am nobodies shill, I just disagree with you and Tyler. Here is a short video on Canadian Linsay McCreith who was diagnosed with a tumor, and required an MRI. Canada’s system wouldn’t allow him to get one for four months, and would not allow him to pay for one out of his own pocket. So, he came to the U.S.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Rf42zNl9U
Canadians, who have the means, come to the U.S. for the best treatment in the world, and get it when they want it. This takes pressure off the Canadian system, so those who pay nothing can remain smug. Another reason Canada and Europe has money to fund “free” medical is that the U.S. is defending them, so they pay just a fraction of their true cost of defense.
Richard Baker’s Timely Medical Alternatives, based in Vancouver, says his company annually helps 150,000 Canadians on medical waiting lists receive care in the U.S. This is just one company, and doesn’t count other facilitators or people that come to the U.S. on their own. U.S. citizens don’t go to Canada for treatment.
I’m sure we will all read, hear and talk about this subject more in the coming months. Cheers.
#26 was me
Johnny – when did I say I want free healthcare? I have no problem paying for it – how else would we pay for healthcare reform?
I just want it to work. And I don’t want 29% annual price increases for no good reason. And I don’t want to be dropped by an industry bureaucrat for a “manufactured” pre-existing condition or some other sort of loophole that happens ALL the time. That’s not going to differ much from megacorp to megacorp.
Any discussion of a public option allows you to keep your own healthcare plan. Where does it say you don’t?
I might not even switch from my current plan – just having a public option might create the competition in the marketplace and assurances that I won’t be dropped at some point to make the industry plan palatable.