President Obama's announcement yesterday began the final chapter in the 14-month war over health care reform. The decisive battle will obviously take place on the floor of Congress. But the most symbolically powerful battle may take place next week some miles from the Capitol, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on the edge of Washington's tony Georgetown neighborhood.
That's where executives from America's health care industry will gather under the banner of AHIP (America's Health Insurance Plans) to plot - and then execute - a last-ditch attempt to defeat health insurance reform.
That's also where, on Tuesday, March 9th, thousands of demonstrators from Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and allied groups will mass to confront the insurance executives - and their attempts to effectively deny quality health care to millions of Americans.
The term "battle" is entirely appropriate. The insurance executives who run America's health insurance companies are, in fact, waging war on the American public. Their goal is the continued domination of the American health care system. They want to be able to continue to raise their rates more than three times faster than wages - and twice as fast as the underlying cost of health care - so they can continue to gorge themselves with record profits. They want to continue to siphon off the healthiest, wealthiest customers and deny access to insurance for anyone with a "pre-existing condition" or illness.
Just like all wars, their war on the American family costs tens of thousands of lives and untold suffering. Each year, the lack of health insurance costs 45,000 lives. In other words, each year we lose 80% as many Americas to insurance industry greed as died in the entire Vietnam War.
What's worse, these insurance executives don't get a first-hand look at the suffering and death that results from their policies, or their attempts to block reform. They manage their war from pristine office towers. They don't have to look into the eyes of a husband whose wife has just died of cancer that could have been cured if it were caught early - but went undetected because for financial reasons she had no insurance and kept putting off a routine check up.
They don't have to face the family who lost their home -- and everything else -- to bankruptcy because an uninsured medical emergency wiped out the fruits of decades of hard work.
They don't have to explain themselves to the millions of Americas who worry they are just one pink slip away from losing their insurance coverage and know that a spouse's history of cancer or heart disease or diabetes will prevent them from ever getting insurance again.
On next Tuesday, thousands of those Americans will demand to confront those executives in the lovely halls and conference rooms of the Ritz.
Like the mythical mobster Tony Soprano, the kids of these insurance executives think their parents have respectable jobs. In fact, just like Tony Soprano, they traffic in lives and suffering in order to make more and more money for themselves.
Time to rip off the patina of respectability.
Take people like Ed Hanway, the former CIGNA CEO who retired at the end of last year with a $73 million golden parachute - money he earned by denying coverage to people like Nataline Sarkisian. Nataline died in 2007, just before Christmas. She was 17. She died because CIGNA wouldn't pay for Nataline's liver transplant - even though she had health insurance.
The average transplant operation and hospital stay costs about $250,000. Ed Hanway's $73 million golden parachute would have bought 292 liver transplants. Nataline only needed one.
Or people like Wellpoint's CEO Angela Braly - who last year took down almost $10 million in compensation. Wellpoint's Anthem Blue Cross division just announced a 39% premium increase; it says it needs more money to meet its expenses - like Angela's $10 million salary. And by the way, Wellpoint's profits for the fourth quarter of 2009 skyrocketed to $2.7 billion - accomplished by actually providing health insurance to 185,000 fewer policy holders.
Or people like AHIP chief lobbyist, Karen Ignagni, who once worked to promote health care for average people at the AFL-CIO. She took her thirty pieces of silver and switched sides.
These people are coming to Washington to use their enormous economic power to prevent their fellow Americans from having secure, affordable health care. They cannot be allowed to succeed.
In fact, they should be greeted with the same enthusiasm with which we would greet the forces of an invading army. They should be met at National Airport and Union Station with signs declaring they are unwelcome in the nation's capital.
HCAN has sent letters asking the dozen speakers listed on their agenda to cancel their appearances. HCAN has demanded that these academics and consultants stop giving aid and comfort to the enemy - stop giving them the cover of respectability.
These insurance executives are not here to negotiate. They are not here to shape legislation. They are here to stop health care reform dead in its tracks. They will not be "convinced" to allow health care reform to pass the Congress. They must be defeated.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," available on Amazon.com.
Of course, if the Democrats can pass off this sham as 'reform', then passing it might benefit them next November - but only those who for some reason are still loyal to the party after its treachery of the past year will actually care. For the rest of us, the epic 'battle' which you describe is about as meaningful as watching Survivor.
Why aren't you screaming 'BUY AMERICAN', 'FOR AMERICA', 'FOR AMERICANS'.
We are one nation divided by the corporations so that they can steal the country away. Let's face it a corporations whole purpose is profit not for America or for Americans.
But of course if you listen to $20mil a year Glen Beck (if that's his real name), it's the eradication of liberals (other Americans) that's important, not the restriction of multinational corporations that pay him and move our jobs to foreign countries. Wake Up!!
Big Business, including insurance companies, are in business to make money - not to provide a product or a service. To condemn them for doing their job is like blaming a rattle snake for striking any warm-bodied object. Federal regulation helps to provide a level playing field for us, the American Public. This regulation, with due diligence on the part of the consumer, also helps level the playing field. I would not dream of buying a car without looking up its NADA value.
Oil companies "compete." As Ralph Nader once said, they always raise prices to keep up with the competition. Health Insurance companies also "compete" in he same way. One insurance company raises rates and all of the others raise theirs the keep up with the competition. Selling insurance across state lines to increase competition is a red herring. and it smells, too. AARP sells its Medicare Supplement Insurance across state lines. But the cost of this insurance to the consumer depends upon the state in which the consumer lives.
This is true for most of what goes on in Congress, NO AUTHORITY. Read the law i.e. the Constitution.
/s/ Jim
BTW corporations are not persons in the constitution yet the supreme court, the republicans and our government has been treating them as if they are.
The HII is a high-priced middleman, attempting to maximize profits by minimizing
costs. Guess what? ANY benefits paid by the HII are COSTS. Your (hypothetical)
late onset Diabetes is a high, long-term COST. So, if there is a way to thow you and
your costly disease off of their rolls, they will do so. All the rest is a veneer of B.S.
Why is that so difficult for people to understand? Are other facets of the Healthcare
Industry (i.e.-Pharmaceuticals, Lab Testing, Malpractice Insurance) out of whack? Of course
they are. But the Healthcare Insurance Industry ADDS ON overhead to all of these already
inflated costs.
Remember, Clinton tried (barely) to reform healthcare and failed; but the issue returned to the spotlight - albeit 16 years later. It returned, however, with an energy far greater than it had during Clinton's tenure. If it fails this time, it will be addressed again and perhaps a plan will be developed that will actually help people more than (or at least as much as) large, for-profit corporations.