Follow the Money on Health Care Reform

"What Happened to Single Payer?," asks the Washington Independent in a recent article.

One answer, the Independent suggests, comes from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. John Conyers, authors of the single payer bills in the Senate, S 703, and House, HR 676:

Both lawmakers argue that private insurers, who have a fiduciary duty to shareholders, are the wrong folks to dictate who receives what care when. "The function of a private health insurance company is not to provide health care; it is to deny health care," Sanders said last week. "Every dollar of premium that a health insurance company does not spend on health care needs is a dollar more in profits."

If the policy provisions that seem to be deemed politically expendable seem to be those that most accommodate the health care industry, perhaps it's time, as the adage says, to follow the money.

USA Today released data showing that the biggest drug and insurance giants have amped up their lobbying spending by 41 percent this year to make sure that reform gets done right -- for them anyway.

20 of the largest health insurance and drug companies and their trade groups spent nearly $35 million in the first quarter of 2009, up more than $10 million from the same period last year

And you have to love these quotes from two of the pharmaceutical behemoths:

"We believe that the private health care marketplace fosters competition, innovation and consumer choice," read a Merck statement.

Somehow competition, innovation, and consumer choice are not the words we'd use to describe what the health care industry has done to our health care system. Profiteering, care denials, and 37th in the World Health Organization rankings would be better descriptions.

Yes, there's tons of choice: the choice of which care services to self-ration because of the high co-pays and deductibles, the choice of which outrageously priced drug to avoid because big pharma prevents access to generic drugs or importing drugs from Canada or other countries where the government can actually use its bulk purchasing power to force lower drug costs, the choice of which doctors, hospitals, or clinics and medications are off limits because they are out of your insurance network or not on the approved drug formulary.

Yet somehow, the far right policy wonks and far too many politicians want us to believe it is the private market, not public plans like single payer, under which you would have one medical card and could go anywhere you want, which guarantee choice in health care.

Then there's this comment from Pfizer about the money they are devoting to lobbying.

A Pfizer statement read, "We are committed to making our voice heard and to be constructively engaged" in the debate.

To that, we can say Mission Accomplished.

Here's the scorecard from USA Today. You'll find that Pfizer's lobbying monies have risen 119 percent in 2009, and Health Net's 106 percent.

Is it any wonder that single payer is considered to be politically out of bounds, but forcing people to buy private insurance is a central part of all the other proposals, to name just one of many industry-friendly provisions likely to be in the final bill?

And, of course, this is just what they spend on lobbying. It doesn't include the millions the same companies spend in campaign contributions to those writing the health care legislation, as the Washington Post reported in March:

Health insurers and their employees contributed $2.2 million to the top 10 recipients in the House and Senate since 2005, while drug makers and their employees gave more than $3.3 million to top lawmakers during that period, according to an analysis of federal elections data by Consumer Watchdog, a California-based advocacy group.

All in all, it seems a safe bet that in the final analysis, we may yet end up with the best healthcare reform money can buy.

And the reason that plan is likely to end up preserving a key component of the status quo, defined by Geri Jenkins, RN, co-president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee in her testimony Wednesday, in the one Congressional hearing at which single payer has been on the table:

"Right now we are the only nation on earth that barters human life for money."

Follow Deborah Burger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NationalNurses

Comments

[RightsGuy]

A new study shows that SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE REFORM WOULD BE A MAJOR STIMULUS FOR THE US ECONOMY and would provide:

** 2.6 Million New Jobs,
** $317 Billion in Business Revenue,
** $100 Billion in Wages, and
** $44 Billion New Tax Revenues

The press release is here: http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/january/nurses-to-congress-expanding-medicare-could-reverse-job-losses-and-repair-our-broken-healthcare-system-and-safety-net.html

Here’s the study: http://www.calnurses.org/research/pdfs/ihsp_sp_economic_study_2009.pdf

YouTube clip (5 minutes) about how to pay for healthcare reform “HR676 - The Single Payer Solution, Part 4 of 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxi7DnCH3zk It’s about public financing and private delivery.

It’s clear that single-payer is the solution, not only in terms of providing quality care for all, but also economically!

ASK your Senators to co-sponsor S 703, The American Health Security Act.

ASK your Representative to co-sponsor HR 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act. (80 Representatives have signed on as co-sponsors so far).

You can find your legislators’ contact information here: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

[RightsGuy]

Health insurance companies play a major role in our current healthcare crisis. These companies make huge profits and their CEOs make millions, while the rest of us face skyrocketing healthcare costs, impossible bureaucracy, and life-threatening insurance denials.

HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY PROFITS IN 2007:

1. UnitedHealth Group -- $ 4.654 BILLION. UnitedHealth Group owns Oxford, PacifiCare, IBA, AmeriChoice, Evercare, Ovations, MAMSI and Ingenix, a healthcare data company

2. WellPoint -- $ 3.345 BILLION. Wellpoint owns BLUES across the US, including Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin, Empire HealthChoice Assurance, Healthy Alliance, and many others

3. Aetna Inc. -- $ 1.831 BILLION

4. CIGNA Corp -- $ 1.115 BILLION

5. Humana Inc. -- $ 834 million

6. Coventry Health Care -- $626 million. Coventry owns Altius, Carelink, Group Health Plan, HealthAmerica, OmniCare, WellPath, others

7. Health Net -- $ 194 million

The huge insurance company profits—BILLIONS EACH YEAR—could be used to provide quality healthcare for millions of people, and to pay physicians adequately for their work.

We need to get the insurance companies OUT of healthcare. The only solution is a NON-PROFIT SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE SYSTEM – and the single payer should not be an insurance company or a group of insurance companies.

[sscoop4]

It is obvious that Single Payer (Medicare) for all is the only option that fulfills the American People's need for a Health Care Safety Net! $02.3 cents of every Medicare Dollar spent goes to Management and Overhead. $0.23 to $0.25 cents of every Private Health Care Dollar goes to Profit and Overhead! Those are dollars stolen from the Patient and stuffed into the pockets of Private Insurers and Middle Men who have nothing to do with the actual treatment of Patient's illnesses!

[olip]

I sit on the board with Utah association of Health underwriters and http://www.BenefitsManager.net as well as http://www.HealthInsuranceSource.net for health insurance reform. Several interesting changes took place with H.B. 188 passage earlier this year that seems all too familiar on the federal level. The spirit of the bill allows private market place remedies. It essentially guarantees insurance providers a "no loss" or "no gain" over competing carriers in the insurance exchange portal which is http://www.UtahInsuranceExchange.info. On the surface it seems not to be attractive to participating carriers (voluntary at this point). But you have to understand the carriers’ goal is to cover their administration fees. That can be accomplished now. The other half of the equation is providers and their billing practices that need to be reformed. That is on the agenda. Keep an eye on Utah because the national health care debate seems much the same ground we have already covered.
In http://www.UtahInsuranceExchange.info which is the beginning of a state sponsored program addresses issues on a local state level that the federal level might look at. Coming from an underwriting background I know where the dime falls. I am of the opinion that large waste occurs from providers billing for procedures that developed "no outcome". Insurance carriers are not the only bad guys on the block. In most of our purchasing decisions.­...don't we pay ONLY when we know that we will get a desired outcome?

[PigLipstick]

Need we be surprised by the fact that our government moves in the direction of private money and against the interests of it's citizens. We have had years to end this Pay to Play mechanism that Congress fiercely protects decade after decade. Now our families are once again being denied real healthcare reform while politicians and private special interests continue to fill their pockets, here's a sampling of the corrupt politicians who are keeping us from joining all other industrialized countries that have real healthcare for all; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ktirxaeLw

[greyhound2]

Follow the money- exactly. In Obama's speech to the AMA, he said we should follow the currently employer sponsored health care system because, "that is what Americans are used to".

Americans are used to a fraud. The top ten other countries in the UN WHO list all use single payer systems. The US is sitting at the 37th spot in the level of health care available to the "average" citizen with a health care system which is criminal.

The power to control costs would only be available to a large organization like the government. They alone have the ability to standardize rates based on fairness and not on how much you think you can steal.

[Realization]

I have been writing my senators and rep three times a week, make an occasional phone call, and encourage friends to do the same (success rate could be better).

Actually, this will require marches and demonstrations. Note how the media, as usual, is opp point and deals mostly with "events" and not real information.

I'm game for going up to Washington.

This isn't just fairness. It's national security and international competitiveness. The lousy system we have is draining America's economy. And for what? Health insurance isn't even necessary to have health care. It's worse than paying people to dig holes and then fill them. That, at least, doesn't cause human suffering.

We get into a real war and I can see the headline now, "America's health insurance industry ramps up for war production. Enemies run in fear."

[zest]

The private healthcare insurance industry states that it could not compete with a government backed healthcare option. Why are we trying to save private healthcare insurance industry. Did we try to save the buggy whip industry? Healthcare is not a commody it is a right.

[RoloTomassi]

I agree about the insurers, they are obsolete; however, I refer you to George Carlin's last HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya," so that yo can be disabused of your notions about "rights."

When it comes to healthcare in the US, it's never even been a priviledge, much less a right; it has always been a service industry; that fact and that ALONE is what all of the fuss is about.

The healthcare professionals who actually care about their work above their pay/profit have mostly come down on the side of a single-payer plan. The remainder do not value people above profit and couldn't care less about how we fair in the future.

[Nomccain]

I admire those who come on here and make posts. I just wonder how many of these same people just come here to discuss and Bit-h but are "out to lunch" when it comes to actually sitting down and sending their congressman or woman an email or letter by snail mail to endorse the health care reform bill and protest the present inequitable and unaffordable system? THAT'S what it's gonna take and I'm just about to write every darn one of mine and do that.

[RoloTomassi]

I fear email and once-removed advocacy will not get the job done. However, also think that a distinct failure for this process may provide what is truly needed: in-your-face, feet-on-the-street protesting of VAST proportions.

Currently we are no threat to the healthcare status quo; for real change to take place, I strongly suspect that will have to happen.

I know that sounds harsh, but when has anything of value in the US--on a national, social level--ever been paid for with anything less than blood & hard work?

The last social issue of this importance and magnitude to be thrashed out in the US was civil rights--and we all know that armchair advocacy played no part whatsoever in that battle.

[RightsGuy]

RoloT, you are right on! This has to become a full-fledged human rights, civil rights movement.

Our fight for equal access to healthcare for all is about democracy, human rights, civil rights, and basic human decency. WE MUST JOIN TOGETHER TO FIGHT FOR OUR CIVIL RIGHTS AND BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. Health care is a basic human right.

Congress and our legislators are violating our human rights by keeping Single Payer reform off the table, and not allowing the Congressional Budget Office to compare the costs of various reform bills (which would clearly show that single payer is the best for the country economically). Our legislators have sold out to corporate interests to the detriment of the health and lives of the rest of us.

It's time to take further action. Let's start with Max Baucus, one of the worst offenders.

ACTION PLAN:

1. It's time for Montanans to BEGIN CIRCULATING PETITIONS TO RECALL SENATOR BAUCUS. 50,000 signatures will trigger a recall election. The mere presence of petitions in circulation would concentrate the mind of Baucus on the interests of voters not donors.

[elbzee]

It really does come down to this one, simple sentence:
"Right now we are the only nation on earth that barters human life for money."

If that isn't an indicator of a dysfunctional nation, I don't know what is!

[RightsGuy]

Yep, and

IN VIRTUALLY EVERY OTHER CIVILIZED NATION, NO ONE FEARS LOSING EVERYTHING DUE TO SOME MEDICAL CATASTROPHE.

[Billl]

We can have a robust private system and a first class public system coexistng, here's how.

Hundreds of billions of dollars of annual savings could be realized for Americans, while eliminating debilitating financial burdens for individuals and businesses by using these health care reforms. This would also be the best economic stimulus package ever. Ask OMB.

1. Set up a civilian, VA style, public health care system for delivering all government funded health care and medications free to everyone choosing to use it, no restrictions, rich, and poor, Medicare, Medicaid, etc everybody who wants public care has it free, all services, all medications, free period.
2. Pay for it with a national sales tax.
3. Let private insurers and care providers compete for everyone who wants private care, unfettered by government mandates, dictating who must be served, at what level, for what price, and totally unregulated but for safety.
4. Businesses that choose public care for their employees will have no financial obligations or any other responsibilities concerning health care.
5. Dispensing health care efficiently, and collecting the money to pay for it cheaply, that's the purpose of the exercise, and no one can compete with the government at these two tasks.

[socalgal38]

There is the flaw that if people are paying sales tax for this plan, why would the ones that ops for the personal insurance policy pay for the single payer? Just saying that is going to be the argument.

Personally i feel that if someone is on single payer than they should pay for it thru income tax. Like we are doing with medicare now. I am one of the working poor and need the single payer without the deductable or co pay or out of pocket charge. The ones that don't opt for the single payer get refunds. I also think that everyone even the ones that opts for private insurance and keep the single payer would benefit when it comes to the extras like private rooms, and private doctors. At least for me with single payer I will not be turned down for medical care because of being a diabetic.

[Shaddup]

Do you really expect a country that embraces greed and torture to care about human suffering and dignity?

[Dosadi]

Get rid of the "middle man" and costs will come down. We cannot survive this farce any longer. It is the middle man that has driven costs so high. Health care providers are not getting mega-rich off health care. It is the insurance companies that make billions every year off health care and do not provide any service. That's right, the insurance copmpanies do nothing but reap huge profits every year. A single payer, national, universal system will allow one entity (the government) to pay all doctors and hospitals. A single payer system will allow people to go to any doctor they want and receive care. I have experienced the system in Great Britain and it beats ours hands down. The tax increase between the US and Great Britain was 3%. For a 3% tax increase we can cover every citizen in the country.
On another note, we are going to spend about 4 trillion over the next 10 years under the current system and 2 trillion under Obama's plan. Do the math and decide that it is truly time to get rid of the "middle man".

[jmpurser]

Single payer is the best solution and quite possibly the only solution. Nothing else we're looking at even proposes a real solution. And it's not being considered because it won't generate bribes for congressmen.

[outnow]

Nurse Burger is telling you the facts. Single-payer is the best solution but Obama will settle for second best or third best. By the time he is done "reaching across the aisle," the reform will be watered down and meaningless. Sometimes you have to do an unpopular thing as did FDR during the Depression. If it's a "state secret" where the bailout money is going, why would health care be any different. Insurance companies will not open their books because information is "proprieta­ry."

All that will happen is a second--rate reform with massive tort reform as a perk some providers and carriers.

It is all about the money - campaign contributions - that controls our elected officials. As soon as elections are funded by someone other than banks and insurance companies, there might be real reform of health care or other areas where government is afraid of the bought-and-paid-for campaign contributions being halted.

[socalgal38]

here you go:Here's why

ANNUAL COMPENSATION (2006 and 2007):
� Ronald A. Williams, Chair/ CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834
� H. Edward Hanway, Chair/ CEO, Cigna Corp, $30.16 million
� David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/ CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million
� Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc, $20.06 million
� Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529
� Angela F. Braly, President/ CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771
� Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million
� Jay M. Gellert, President/ CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million
� William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits
� Charlie Baker, President/ CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million
� James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million
� Cleve L. Killingsworth, President/CEO Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million
� Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million
� Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc, $ 1,061,513
� Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
� Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
� Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
� Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
� Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
� Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751

[socalgal38]

here you go info on who are taking bribes from the insurance companies:

according to an analysis by Consumer Watchdog, insurance companies contributed over $35.7 million to members of Congress during the last two election cycles. Top recipients:
Senate House
McCain, John (R-AZ) $2,287,345 Kanjorski, Paul E (D-PA)* $491,545
Dodd, Chris (D-CT)* $1,102,056 Rangel, Charles B (D-NY) $480,290
Baucus, Max (D-MT) $449,125 Pomeroy, Earl (D-ND) $474,769
McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $448,633 Boehner, John (R-OH) $383,175
Lieberman, Joe (I-CT) $403,644 Bean, Melissa (D-IL) $358,
Nelson, Ben (D-NE) $363,636 Frank, Barney (D-MA) $342,796
Cornyn, John (R-TX) $324,194 Tiberi, Patrick J (R-OH) $332,609
Chambliss, Saxby (R-GA) $308,386 Crowley, Joseph (D-NY) $325.18

[socalgal38]

These people have no business being in Congress! They do not work for "WE the people".