The Health Insurance Industrial Complex
Congress and President Obama's plan must include a Public Healthcare Plan Option because it's the moral thing to do, because it is the financially prudent thing to do, and because all the arguments against are merely-fear mongering. In 2007, the USA spent over $7500 per person on healthcare -- almost double the average amount spent by other developed nations. That tab for the USA was nearly $2.4 Trillion -- yes, with a 't.' What we have to show for that money is a sad example of the failed efforts of every President since Truman to reign in the Health Care Industrial Complex.
The Myth of Choice in a Land of Plenty
Today we have 46 million uninsured citizens, 11 million of those being children. As a land of moral people, this is inexcusable, especially for the children who have no healthcare choice. Opponents of a single payer system want to make America believe that it will cost them more and have less services. However, when the uninsured need critical care they go to the local emergency room, and not being turned away, the cost to cover their care is passed on to the insured in higher premiums. When push comes to shove we will pay for this in every emergency room, and every unnecessary death, if not in ever insured persons' premium.
Arguments abound that a public option will lead to "socialized medicine, rationing, and the inability to choose your doctor." Besides, the 46 million Americans that have no health care, how many folks get to choose the doctor they want? My doctor is part of a pre-approved list of in-network doctors, and every time I change employers I have to choose a different doctor. As for rationing, I cannot see any doctor beyond my primary care doctor without a lengthy preauthorization process. If the doctor I want is not in that network, my insurance will only cover a small percentage of the "reasonable and customary" cost for my visit with that in-network doctor. Inevitably, that coverage ends up being a miniscule portion of a bill that I am forced to cover the difference.
Citizens with health insurance, whatever the coverage, in the end don't have as much choice as they believe. If we had choice, Americans would seek non-revocable and complete coverage with no exemptions. There would be no need for a long policy book explaining all the reasons why the insurance companies are not going to pay. Even amongst those of us blessed with employer-based health insurance, I would posit many of us are not thrilled with the extent of the coverage, the cost, or the fear that it won't be there when we need it most. For many employer-based policies, when you get so sick you cannot work -- your health insurance premiums become your own responsibility to pay. If the injury is long term, and/or debilitating, your work-based insurance may end, leaving the full cost to that individual least able to pay. Health care costs is a leading reason for the declaration of bankruptcy, contributing to over 60%.
Then and Now
It has been 16 years since President Clinton tried to pass comprehensive healthcare reform -- and while you may criticize his approach, you cannot assail his motive and compassion in identifying the need. Our new President, swept into office with similar ambitions, has fielded a dream team of sorts with Jim Messina (Senator Baucus's former Chief of Staff) now on White House Staff, White House Legislative Director Phil Schiliro (Congressman Waxman's aide for 25 years), and President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual (former Congressman and Clinton White House Official). This team can get reform done with Congress.
This year, health care spending will top $2 trillion, and by some estimates, $2.3 trillion. Yet Obama must counter opponent's irrational fear, that over ten years, we might spend in excess of $1.3 trillion. To be clear, this year this nation will spend more than double the amount of what 10 years worth of coverage. For that, the USA will rank near the bottom on most healthcare outcomes, including one of the highest rates of infant mortality in the industrialized world.
The non-insured are seeking and receiving coverage -- and that cost is passed on to all of us in the form of higher premiums and costs. These costs will grow, like E.coli, until they bankrupt us individually and as a nation. Ultimately this intertwined relationship demands action to both control costs, increase access, and finally bring accountability (via competition) to the private insurance industry. In two decades time, if unchanged, health care costs will gobble upwards of 30% of GDP.
If Its Not Broke, Don't Fix It
The health care system is broken, and America must fix it -- and soon. The American healthcare system is the best in the world at developing new cures, at honest medical peer-reviewed journalism and has continually evolved leading the world in new discoveries. It now must continue to evolve -- and President Obama and Congress may argue about the details, but change is coming through reform, or moral and financial bankruptcy for America's inaction.
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You Eisenhower paraphrase is apropos. Having worked many years in the insurance and re-insurance industry I can share this: I was there when they were schooling their lobbyists on the language of deregulation to open up the banking and securities products, I was there when the backroom deals were being made to rape the consumer through complex reinsurance deals that would make Bernie Madoff blush. The insurance-industrial-complex is corrupt to its very core. Government control at local, state and Federal levels is rivaled only by big oil, and barely out-paces pharmacological mega corps. Any plan out of congress that guarantees windfall profits for insurance corporations would be a crime worthy of mention in Revelations! We must not trade a public/socialized option for guaranteed or mandatory coverage that fills the coffers of this most-insidious of industries.
Wake up America. A strong public option is our only hope.
Excellent post,Health care is leaving this country in a hole so deep it will take a long time to dig us out if we don`t get a public option or single payer.Health care cost for this country are making us more and more uncompetitive in this crappy globalization of an economy where we rank near or at the bottom in every category imaginable in health care.You would think that large businesses would chomp at the bit to get rid of their health care obligations especially if they are self funded ones like I have with my employer.By keeping the status quo we will fall even further if one can imagine it.
I'm surprised that more small businesses aren't interested in SP.
Excellent post. And good comments so far (4 as of this writing).
"Medicare for All" is what we need. That's the best "single payer" method in existence. Commenter aofh says it'll take a few years to work out the "kinks." No kinks. (oh, You Really Got Me with that one!) Medicare is tried and true.
It would be so great if our president would seize this historic opportunity. Medicare for All.
Fringe benefits:
- Separate health care from employment.
- End medical bankruptcies and related mortgage defaults.
- End our current "choice" of being robbed by insurer A or insurer B or insurer C ....
Sadly, our president is not on our side.
Another insightful and well-written post.
I believe people know that we don't have as much choice as we are being told. Everyone knows that the plan their employeer offers has severe limitations even when you are young and single. But I also think that moving to single payer is going to take a few years of transition to work out the kinks.
What I most don't understand is why major employers are not angling for single payer. Clearly, single payer is the rational way to go. Employee health care is a private tax on employers that gets more and more expensive every year while providing fewer benefits. It's a tax foreign competitors don't have to bear.
It's not just a question of economics -- it's innocent American lives.
Ambroz is leaving out important data.
1. People without health insurance frequently AREN'T able to get health care. Emergency rooms can and do turn away people who are in great need. If there are lines of people waiting, they are permitted to "dump" patients. Even if there aren't, here's what can happen, a case from here in Denver: http://www.wicuba.org/hospitals_turn_away_ill.htm And uninsured people frequently avoid the ER for fear of bankruptcy. I had a friend who died because of this, trying to wait out the weekend.
This means that:
2. People are dying unnecessarily because of corporate greed. An estimated 18,000 Americans die unnecessarily because of lacking health insurance. Yes, 18,000. That's several 9/11s. http://guaranteedhealthcare4all.org/sites/default/files/Real-Facts-on-Insurance-Industy-Page-One.pdf
3. It's not just lack of health insurance that's to blame; it's also having health insurance that turns out (surprise, surprise) to be inadequate. Health insurance execs admit that their whole job is to figure out ways to_decline_ paying for the costs that people have had to take on. Of the approx. 60% of personal bankruptcies that involve health care bills as Ambroz points out, approx. 60% of THOSE people DID have health insurance.
This means that Ambroz's basic point, that we _must_ have a Public Option, is of course correct. It also means that he is grossly understating his case.
Excellent comments, Thanks!
HMO or PPO is the choice private insurance gives Americans.
Today- how many of the 535 members have a clue about finance or economics or healthcare?
Have you watched some of those congressional hearings?
Just like the WMD in Iraq pre invasion- Over and Over and Over " WMD WMD WMD
Now- Tom Price from Georgia " Comparing the 'Fannie and Freddie' mantra to what your healthcare is going to be.
Once again "Fannie & Freddie nothing to do with Credit Default Swaps and Derivatives-
Does this congressman know what he is talking about?
How many of them actually know what they are doing or yapping about?
What % of congress understand the global issues and are dictating our policies?
Should the POTUS be more like Teddy Roosevelt - he pushed for Conservation and National Parks.
What did Teddy do?
Americans appreciate National Parks. Do they know how those parks originated? Same for conservation refugees?
Maybe POTUS needs to pull a Teddy Roosevelt!
I would vote for that!
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