On Health Care, if Everyone Is Happy, Nothing Is Getting Done
There is a buzz building in the traditional media and in some DC Democratic circles about how we should just accept the fact that we are not going to get a bigger health care reform bill passed, and should just agree to accept the things that the insurance industry has already said they are willing to give us. The insurers say they are willing to give us doing away with coverage denial for pre-existing conditions, for example, or not charging sick people high rates. Let's just take what we can get, some Democrats are saying, declare victory, and go home.
This line of thinking reminds me of a piece of legislation that all you non-health care wonks out there probably have never heard of: the Kennedy-Kassebaum Act of 1996. This bipartisan bill passed the Senate 98-0 and the House 421-2. Its stated aims were to protect health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose jobs, and to limit to the pre-existing conditions denial problem. It was all policy the insurance industry agreed to, and the bill passed with a lot of fanfare. There was a very nice bipartisan bill signing ceremony (which I attended) on the South Lawn of the White House. Pundits were delighted.
There was only one problem with it, which you may have noticed if you think about it: it didn't actually do anything to solve our health care problems, even the ones it was specially intended to solve. People still lose their health insurance when they lose their job. Insurance companies still deny people with pre-existing conditions. And the problems of our health care system get steadily worse year after year.
You see, the insurance companies are really good at writing loopholes for themselves, especially if you announce in advance that you will only pass what they agree to.
Look, this should be obvious, but apparently it's not: when some big piece of our economy is really messed up, but some major corporate interest is making lots and lots of money off the system, if that corporate interest doesn't object to the "reform" being proposed, whatever legislation being proposed will not solve the actual problem. The 98-0 votes that folks like David Broder love and extol, the bipartisan bill signing ceremonies that thrill the hell out of everyone in DC -- they don't actually solve or resolve anything important.
If Democrats take the easy path, and get that big bipartisan love fest on the White House lawn, health care will still be messed up in all the ways it's messed up now: health care costs (and the federal budget deficit) will still be spiraling up and up, the number of uninsured will keep going up as well, people who lose their jobs or have pre-existing conditions will still be priced out of the ability to get insurance. And instead of congratulating us for our great bipartisan compromise, voters will be pissed. President Obama and Congressional Democrats need to grit their teeth and stick to the business of comprehensive reform. It will make the insurance companies, and the Republicans, really mad. But failing to actually solve the problem again is a train wreck. Stick with it, folks, put your noses to the grindstone, and do what needs to be done.
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The current bills in Congress are designed to actually increase the profits of a parasitic private health insurance cartel that already costs the U.S. economy more than $400 billion a year, money that could otherwise be used to insure all 47 million uninsured:
http://www.pnhp.org
To pass a bill that mandates ordinary Americans to buy private insurance, and then to pay subsidies using tax dollars to help pay for that private insurance, is plutocratic corruption of the worst kind. Any bill that results in increased revenues for the private health insurance cartel is by definition making the crisis worse, because it is only wasting more money. But any bill that uses government taxpayer funds to pay graft to the private cartel when a public plan would save at least 30% of the cost per plan is so outrageous that any congressperson who votes for such a thing ought to be lynched.
NO penny of U.S. tax dollars should go to pay for or subsidize ANY private health insurance plan for ANYONE, including federal employees such as congresspeople.
To spend tax dollars in that way is to willfully pay graft to a syndicate. It defies economic common sense and is immoral and criminal plutocratic betrayal of the American People.
It's time to end our "risky experiment" of "For-profit health insurance". It's a proven failure.
Support HR676. It's a Single Payer system that is proven, pro-business and pro-people:
* Slashes at least 30% of costs off the top by removing private insurance overhead.
* Companies take health care expenses off their books. Stock value increases. Better able to compete internationally.
* Small companies could have access to higher skilled workers because previously they couldn't compete in the labor market by offering similar benefits.
* More entrepreneurial ventures will launch since they have more money and less unrelated risk.
* Dramatic drop in bankruptcies.
* Dramatic drop in lawsuits. Most of these lawsuits are simply to obtain money to cover health care if something interrupts their coverage.
* Reduced system complexity. Greater efficiency due to fewer regulations.
* Savings from employees not having to fight with their insurers during work hours.
* HSA and MSA dollars redirected back into the economy for goods and services.
* Additional money to spend from not having to carry "uninsured motorist coverage" on your auto policy.
* Contract employment is more viable for workers since they are guaranteed access to health care.
* People are covered when unemployed. No chance of being wiped out financially if you lose your job.
* Health care providers (doctors, hospitals, therapists...) see increase in business with much less administrative expense.
how can i possibly be expected to support a bill for me and my family, when congress will not be using the same thing?
James Madison, one of our founding fathers said this:
[Congress]......shall make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of society. This has always been deemed on of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny...If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate anything but liberty.
But what does he know?
I like your post.
Yes another reason single payer would be the fair choice.
And once again the politicians wouldn't want their own families on that either . . .
I think you are somewhat misinformed...if you have insurance now and you likeit, you keep it. The objective is to find an affordable option for the 48 million neighbors that done have any....besides, I suspect you have the predisposition to think anything the governement offers will suck..well, think again...consumer index of medicare (governement run) and the VA (governement run for veterans) is consistently higher than that of the average private insurance...and at a lower cost. its a no-brainer....just because some republican congressman won't sign up for it sones't mean its worthless...talk to anyone whose been dropped because they got sick or laid off or can't afford it.
My husband did a surgery program in the Army, and he was so frustrated because the clinics closed every day at 4 pm, and no one would do any work after that. The OR crews, the nurses, etc., said that they got paid the same no matter if they worked or went home, so at closing time, they were going home. He thinks that it is interesting that none of the lawyers in DC are addressing the malpractice abuses. In Texas, now that physicians limits have been brought down, lawyers just aren't interested in "justice" anymore, because they can't get a million dollar payoff. Also, why can't insurance companies be forced to compete across state lines? Simple and competitive. Finally, my husband is a cardiovascular surgeon, working 15 hour days for the past 20 years. It used to be that 4 medical students vied for each cardiovascular fellowship. Now, most of these spots are vacant. No one wants to be a CV surgeon anymore, as the physical demand is great, the pay off is small (if any),and the lawyers are rubbing their hands together with glee at the pot of gold around every doctors' head ....easy prey and fairly easy money for anyone with a law degree. With lawyers and insurance companies running decisions in Washington, we don't stand a chance.
Everyone reading this article, and feeling outrage should read the http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/28/does-the-congressional-progressive-caucus-care-about-its-public-option-principles/rinciples/
Even the so called Progressive Caucus is selling the public down the river to the insurance companies. What is true is that we can't trust our representatives to look out for our welfare and wellbeing. Please do read this article and post your responses.
Eight stitches in emergency rm: $800
Kidney stone attack:
Lab, chemistry: $143; Lab,hematology: $162; Lab: urology: $122; CT scan: $3,503, Emergency rm: $2,211, drug (IV Dilaudid) $380 - total: $6522. Try that without insurance! Glad every1 got (OVER) paid! "Out of pocket" $125 :-)
HealthCare Bubble
the band aid? mandatory insurance...
Well, the dirty little secret is this - the insurance companies don't pay that. They get a big discount. But if you don't pay, that's how much they sue you for. You can, of course, negotiate a better price if you're paying cash. Much better. So, they say it's $6500. The insurance company pays, say, $4000, but manages to get you over time for $5000 or $6000. But if you just paid cash, with none of the paperwork and delayed payment, you might have paid even less than the insurance company.
The insurance companies work with the hospitals to make the price of healthcare seem super scary, so they can force you into insurance. Once you have insurance, they can charge whatever they want. Single payer might help a little, but ObamaCare won't. HSAs would have. Because you'd have just gone in and written a check for $3000. Price dropped in half. Maybe even less. But no one wants healthcare to cost less, they just want it to cost *them* less and someone else more.
Sadly, even though I have insurance (approx. $6K/year for just me), it would still cost me about $4000 because that's my deductible before insurance pays. I'm not sure what it would cost after I meet the deductible, because I (fingers crossed) never go to the doctor so I never meet the deductible. I'm "eagerly" awaiting September, when they will tell me how much they will be raising the premiums and deductible this year. All I want is to buy into the same plan that Mitch McConnell has.
Would someone please read pages 1013-1016 of the Healthcare Bill and explain to me why the government should set up grants for all healthcare people to go back and continue/get their education; and why the government under this healthcare bill can/would/should pay for that as part of this healthcare plan. The "takers" on that freebie could well be a tipping point on the cost to us (taxpayers). I realize what a large lobby hospitals and healthcare providers have, and the exorbitent amount of money spent by that lobby...but free education for them as part of this bill is not acceptable to me.
And that just 3 pages of excess buried in this Bill.
This is such a huge issue - I think this Bill should be put a nationwide vote - this is just too important to leave in the hands of our elected leaders - not this 2009 group anyway.
Listen to Jon discuss this huge bill with Henry Waxman. IMHO Waxman didn't a very good job in explaining anything. Jon was pushing him a lot to explain health care reform in simple terms -- why we need it and so on. It didn't work out so well and public option was not talked about.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-4-2009/henry-waxman
currently private hospitals pay for it for their employees and thus the costs get passed on to YOU anyway... just like any continued training for employees of private corporations...its all embedded in the product cost...that is healthcare is in america... a handful of big corporations doing everything for profit....so if the government is running an option, its only normal that they pay their employees a fair wage and ensure their continued education...
Thousands of people around the world are committed to meeting this challenge and improving health care, health policy and health systems. Healthcare Policy/Health policies aims to help to wire this gap. Our goal is to provide insights one of the policy questions that keep you up at night and that perhaps more important.
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Without a PUBLIC OPTION there will be NO REFORM. It will only be more B.S. and useless rhetoric, while the people in this country who need care the most will not get it. Aren't we tired of this yet??
Why must we be decades behind the rest of the industrialized world, as if we were a third world nation...oh wait! Since 2000 we've been on that slippery slope to becoming a banana republic, thanks to the obstructionist GOP. If we don't get the health care reform we really need, we can thank them for that.
If one has no real choice in choosing the pubic option, it is already DOA.
And remember, they ARE going to pass the requirement that EVERYONE purchase insurance...and the AHIP is the one pusing for a higher ceiling on the subsidies becuase they KNOW how expensive the premiums will be.
SINGLE-PAYER
Even with a public option it still leaves the insurance industry front and center.
I have not seen how even a robust public option that has to be “deficit neutral” in other words, at least break-even, can be remotely attractive to anyone with existing employer provided insurance, whether they like it or not.
Equally, for the uninsured, unless the subsidies are massive, it will not be affordable.
As the option emerging is a pale shadow of what was initially talked about and as the cut-off point for subsidies is not very high, there are still going to be many uninsured.
This is why, for example, the talk now is of “access” to “affordable” health insurance for everyone.
I know what “everyone” means but anyone care to tell me what “access” and “affordable” mean separately and, more to the point, when together in the same sentence?
The more things change the they stay the same. Please see this video an please, if you agree with this person if you have Medicare opted out now least you be an absolute hypocrite. Enjoy the tripe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0NWqvRidlk
Single payer health care paid by taxes. It's simple and fair. But it will not happen in the U.S., there are too many vested interests at stake, too much BIG money involved in health care. What might happen is some sort of unsatisafcatory complex compromise that satisfies these interests but essentially milks the government and does not serve people very well. Sad time in public policy.
Just curious....nothing is being said about malpractice reform (because everyone making the laws are lawyers and that would cut into some big profits). Also, why don't they make it mandatory that insurance companies cut across state lines? That would force insurance companies to be competitive .Also, why did Obama put Michael Taylor as senior advisor to the FDA when Taylor used to lobby for Monsanto? (If you don't know about Monsanto, just watch the movie Michael Clayton and substitute TRUNORTH with MONSANTO...same deal.) We are supposed to trust THIS government, now, with our HEALTH? I don't think so!
No, it would not. Each state has a different set of rules, especially about mandated benefits.
Oh, and as for tort reform: the malpractice insurance companies are currently PROFITABLE.
That's what I mean....Obviously, the states would have to have uniform rules in order to force the insurance companies to be competitive,.that would be simpler than the brouhaha going on now.
My father had good insurance and from all the fancy ads, billboards, television commercials and infomercials I thought he was in the best (hospital) health care system in East Tennessee. Boy was I duped. His care was called "horrifying" by the state of Tennessee, but said it was perfectly within the parameters of what they deem, defend and support as "the acceptable standards of care" in E. TN. He had a nurse playing doctor who was practicing medicine as a physician without a physician's license. The man was showing all the signs and symptoms of internal bleeding and was going into shock yet the nurses prognosis was Sundowners Syndrome. They finally had a nursing instructor who teaches at The University of Tennessee who said the reason my father was going into (shock, was sweating profusely, confused, no urine output, blood pressure dropping 55/35, heart rate increasing 255,blood sugar was topping out around 600), it could have been caused by the room temperature being set too high. It's on record in Greeneville, TN Federal Court. Case no 2:04-cv-375.
See what is called quality health care in TN and VA. http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=62 He rotted to death for ten long months, his legs were amputated. He was begging for a gun, looking back I should have granted him that wish.
There will only be change when those unaffected are as outraged as those who are.
You hit the nail on the head, Mike. I wish people were listening, but all I'm hearing today is precisely the kind of nonsense you criticized at the beginning of the article: we've got a deal, let's just be happy with it and pretend that it's the reform we were fighting for, be quiet, don't rock the boat. It's insulting and disheartening.
"The insurers say they are willing to give us doing away with coverage denial for pre-existing conditions, for example, or not charging sick people high rates. " sure they would agree to that if everybody had to buy insurance.Then they could collect from all the healthy folks who refuse to participate in their rip off scheme.
Yes, especially if the government were paying subsidies with tax dollars to help buy the private insurance. Such a thing is an obscenity, and any elected official who votes for it is merely the criminal agent of a corrupt plutocratic syndicate. We can also be certain that the cartel will use the existence of subsidies as leverage for pushing up plan prices to extract even more tax dollars from the American People. Any elected official who supports such a brazen scheme must be reviled as an evil plutocrat and a shameless agent of the industrial cartels and must be replaced in the primaries.
Lux hits the nail on the head.
Here's the numbers from the Center for Responsive Politics: For the second quater of 2009.
Pharmaceutical and Health Products Industry spent $67,959,095.00 on lobbyists.
Health Insurance Industry spent $39,760,477.00 on lobbyists.
Hospitals and Nursing Homes spent $25,552,088.00 on lobbyists
Thats a total of $133,271,660.00 in just 3 months.
How can voters compete with that kind of money being thrown around? And, what is the significance for our Republic? The smell I detect from D.C., is Democracy being swamped by capitalism.
Two things -
1. You're admitting that government is not responsive to the people, something Republicans and Libertarians have always known.
2. If one word were spoken over and over on capitol hill, there would be no need for lobbyists - "unconstitutional". All of lobbying goes into convincing congressman to take unconstitutional laws and tweak them for the benefit of the lobbyist. Every congressman should stand up and say "ObamaCare is unconstitutional, we send it to the states for them to pick up". Problem solved. Well, they'll have to bribe a lot more people and the voting is done closer to the people, tipping the balance towards the people.
Think about it for a second. More people they need to bribe in 50 times as many places and the people that voted for them live right around the corner. Makes bribery a lot harder.
The average corperate benefit expenditure in 2008 for employee healthcare was $ 9,312 per-employee and the employees contrabutions exceeded $ 2,000 and that did'nt include the deductible.
$ 9.312 + 2.000 =$11,312 devide by 26 (every two weeks) = $ 435.00 How many people out there would'nt settle for their employer giving them an x-tra $ 435.00 every two weeks and letting them go out and get their own healthcare insurance if there was a public option. ? And the way the rates are going up how many emlpoyers would'nt want to do that?
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