Here's yet another example of how the Republicans, led by Speaker-designate John Boehner, are corporate lapdogs who would sooner throw the country under a bus to help their ultra-rich patrons and corporate sponsors than give working families a break.
This week Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a new rule under the Affordable Care Act that will give consumers rebates when health insurance companies misbehave by spending too much of our premium dollars on excessive profits and CEO salaries and not enough on health care. These rebates are cash-money that would help working families and businesses ripped off by their insurers.
Naturally, Republicans are unified against it. They think insurance companies need the money more than we do, which is one of the reasons they call endlessly for repealing the new health care law. After all, in this last quarter the nation's six biggest for-profit health insurers made $3.4 billion in combined profits. The chief executives of the 10 largest insurers took home $228.1 million in total compensation in 2009, more than doubling their average pay from the year before.
As you can see, the Republicans are against giving consumers these rebates for good reason - the insurance companies need the money.
Here's how the new rule works: Starting in 2011, health insurers must spend 80 to 85 percent of consumers' premiums on patient services and efforts to improve the quality of care. To comply with this so-called "medical-loss ratio" rule, insurance companies are going to have to disclose a lot of financial data that will show how they do business and mistreat consumers.
Hardworking families and businesses footing the growing bill for health insurance have a right to know how their money is spent -- whether their premiums pay for the medical care they need or big insurance bureaucracies and bloated CEO compensation. And if the companies spend more on profits, executive pay and administration than the new spending rule allows, they'll have to directly rebate consumers the difference. This is one of the ways the Affordable Care Act makes insurance companies directly accountable to consumers, and it's a big deal.
Based on current projections, up to 9 million Americans could be eligible for rebates worth up to $1.4 billion. Average rebates could total $164 per person in the individual market and $312 in the small-group market in 2012, according to government estimates. These rebates will go directly to consumers and employers. This may not be a huge amount of money to millionaires like Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, but it's real money, and every little bit helps these days.
This is one reason why the Obama Administration's commonsense new rule is good. And it's a very tangible way in which the new law will deliver on its promise of giving Americans more value for their health care dollar and bringing transparency to the way insurance companies operate.
These rebates won't blow a massive hole in the federal deficit. In fact, they won't cost taxpayers a dime. Compare that to the huge tax cut the GOP is determined to give to the richest of the rich--the top 2 percent of earners. While Democrats want to extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, the Republicans refuse to give working families a break unless they can also make the Bush tax cuts for the super rich permanent, a fiscally irresponsible and immoral proposal that will raise the deficit (which they say they want to reduce) by an astounding $700 billion. It is such an irrational idea that the two richest Americans, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, think its the worst thing Washington could possibly do.
The new medical-loss ratio rule puts a lid on the outrageous profits and indefensible executive pay of insurance companies. Both grow the most when they deny the most care. It's an important part of the Affordable Care Act, which the Republicans desperately want to repeal -- from the consumer rebates to the ban on denying people care just because they're sick.
The Republicans will say and do anything to help their rich friends and their corporate political investors. In the world of post-shame politics, they're the poster children -- they just don't seem to care how extreme and unconscionable their hypocrisy is, or how nakedly direct their payback to their political donors appears to be.
Follow Ethan Rome on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@HCAN
The GOP motto: " We can't govern, so neither can you"
This whole "Democrats good Republicans bad" meme is getting very old. The Democrats are a bunch of lying corporate wh_res and just because the Republicans are even worse does not mean the Democrats are good guys. Get a clue: BOTH sides are the bad guys! We are never going to fix anything as long as our government is for sale to the highest bidder because the highest bidder will always be Goldman Sachs. Do you thing Goldman Sachs bankrolled Obama's campaign as they were simultaneously pulling off the largest fraud in human history out of a sense of civic duty?
This can't be emphasized enough. Missing housing bubble was act of astounding incompetence for economist. This is driving the school bus into oncoming traffic; it is kitchen cook burning down the restaurant; it is computer technician causing a complete freeze of company's systems.
None of these highly-paid, highly-educated people got fired or even missed promotion. Instead, they are running around telling people earning $20,000-30,000 a year that they have to tighten their belts and accept lower Social Security benefits.
If politics and media in United States were not so corrupt, this would have been topic No.1 in election. Candidates would have been pushing plans to aggressively stimulate economy and to throw Wall Street crowd in jail. But a candidate who said such things would not get enough money to run a serious campaign, because you need to court the Wall Street types to pay for a campaign these days. And media would have ignored and/or ridiculed such a candidate.
So, we have an election based largely on nonsense. People are rightly angry that their lives are being ruined by disastrous economic policy. But they have no idea where to turn. And latest data tell us that the situation is likely to get much worse in the year ahead.
http://www.counterpunch.org/baker11012010.”
We need to stop voting for these people. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are in on it. Everyone needs to vote third party or write in ‘none of the above’. Write in your dogcatcher. Write in Mickey Mouse. Vote for anyone or anything as long as they are not a Democrat or a Republican. The ‘press’ will sneer and say that you are ‘throwing away’ your vote. I hope so. If several dozen million people threw away their votes that alone would send a pretty powerful message, eh? I have heard that in Nevada there is actually a line on the ballot for ‘none of the above’. What if ‘none of the above’ won some elections?
Stop voting for the bad guys. Just stop doing it.
Regarding accountability, It seems 'presidential priveledge, in war time was a very convenient and powerful tool.... Just MayBe THAT Was A Factor In Bush's Rush To Invade Iraq...hmmmm....
Also, Isn't 'minimizing goverment' a claimed position of the republican party? Homeland Security is a labryinth of goverment involvement and on and on it goes. It is dizzying!
To lighten things up, about the new TV series, 'Sarah Palin's Alaska', Is Alaska 'hers' now?
Without more ado, I Say 'BRAVO to Y0U Ethan Rome!' Keep up the good fight because no matter what the opposition says, the facts speak for themselves.
For the rest of us out here--the poor, the working poor, the unemployed, the folks losing their homes, the folks in pain with no medical help--it's like screaming into the wind to be heard. No one hears. No one cares.
Now, how much lack of character and integrity does it take to mislead the elderly into believing you have their best interests at heart? How could someone, in good conscience, take away the very small pittance that most seniors must live on?
The rethugs are happy to do it.....
So lets vote for Democrats!
I am sorry. The lesser of two evils is still evil. I refuse to vote for evil.
RR
Dress it up however you want, the republicans aren't about freedom, they're about control, selfishness and resentment.
Your beloved GOV plan would cost the Americans billions, limit who they can see and completely halt research and private funding for new facilities. Socialized health care would put us on par with Mexico within 20 years. Here's an assignment. Get in your hybrid and drive down to the DMV. Just walk in, stand there and take in all the incompetence. Now imagine these same incompetent rubes handling your life.
It's really arrogant to claim that the US is the only country in the world doing medical research. If you actually read vetted scientific journals, you find out that research is a global thing and the US isn't even on the forefront in many fields.
The US is actually number one in a lot of areas. Number one among developed countries in infant mortality. Number one among developed countries in the number of people who don't receive basic medical care. Oh, and that cancer recovery statistic everyone is so fond of quoting? That's among those whose cancer is detected. The dirty little secret is that the uninsured are dying in record numbers of untreated heart disease because your precious US system limits who can be seen by how much money they have.
It is absolutely absurd to think that the US would turn into Mexico overnight. That hasn't happened to the rest of the world. Maybe if you out from in front of FOX and traveled a little, you might learn a few things!
See, it is not a better way. Not if we want to continue to find cures and lead the world in many areas of medicine.
I don't know of ONE Republican who, upon retirement, said 'no thanks' to Medicare or Social Security. But, I could be wrong. Is it possible that you are not going to use either?
What the Republicans are up to is more like misanthropy. It's class warfare being waged by the rich and powerful against everybody who isn't in their club, including the destitute, the poor, the middle class, and millions of defenseless elderly and children. Terms which come closer to describing conservative policies than "hypocrisy" would include naked avarice, pathological selfishness, and unfeeling inhumanity. Even these terms seem a little inadequate, but they are nearer the mark than "hypocrisy".