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.
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.
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.
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?
Yes another reason single payer would be the fair choice.
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 :-)
the band aid? mandatory insurance...
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.
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.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-4-2009/henry-waxman
http://www.ccsipool.com
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.
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
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?
Oh, and as for tort reform: the malpractice insurance companies are currently PROFITABLE.
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.
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.
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.
$ 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?