The Untouchables Are Killing Health Care Reform
The other sacred cow of the debate is that "single-payer" (i.e., Medicare for all), has been taken off the table since early in 2008. By leaving the private insurance companies as the main payers in the health industry the swollen cost excesses of their profits, their executive pay and the paperwork that haunts every aspect of medicine are all left draining the system of room to change.
Among the danger these two sacred cows creates is that in order to cover the 15% of the population now without insurance, the 85% with insurance may find their costs increase. The Senate Finance Committee, for example, seems intent on making existing employer provided health benefits taxable. The effect will be to tax workers to pay for the health care of the poor-not a great way to garner broad political support.
Presently Medicare Hospital Insurance is funded by a payroll tax of 2.9% divided between the employer and the employee. In 2008 that tax produced $230 billion in receipts. In addition, Medicare enrollees pay for supplemental coverage for doctor's bills and yet again for prescription drug coverage. Medicare patients have free choice of doctors and hospitals; their federal insurance pays the bills within broad parameters of cost. Medicare's administrative costs are small fractions of the private insurance companies "take" from premiums.
As distinct from the British system where doctors are employees of the National Health Service, there would be literally no change in the employment structure of doctors under such a plan-and those of us now in HMOs might actually have more choice in the doctors we can visit. If such a broad based tax were to fund health insurance, what would be the fate of those employed who now have really good plans largely paid by their employers? The employers might then shift money now going to insurance premiums into wages; or after paying the payroll taxes, if they and their employees and unions agreed, they could offer various supplemental types of insurance, as Medicare now does.
While many elderly people and their doctors would like to fix various aspects of Medicare, there is no uproar to get rid of it -- it largely works. So why aren't we looking to this pretty good system as a model? Alas, with or without Obama in the White House, the permanent government of power brokers and money handlers is alive and well inside the Beltway. And the health insurance dinosaurs make the marble columns of government tremble with the impact of money hitting politics. According to the Center for Responsive Politics' Lindsay Renick Mayer, since 1998 the insurance industry has contributed $568 million (that's over one half billion!) to political campaigns. Pretty soon it'll add up to real money. They've spent $19 million just lobbying though June of this year.
So don't be surprised if, as the pollster Stan Greenberg told NPR, "it's beginning to feel like deja vu all over again" (in 1993 when he was a pollster for President Clinton he was getting the same results he is getting now). People want change, they favor public initiative, but they are afraid the price of improving the 15 percent will harm the 85%. Not much coming out of the Beltway is calming that fear and the reason is Washington won't touch the untouchables.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Actually, it's worse than you thought, given that the figures reported so far only cover the first quarter! Check out OpenSecrets.org later next week for the second quarter filings. We'll be updating our site periodically over the next few weeks to post the more accurate and comprehensive figures for the health care industry.
Single payer will reduce the cost of health care AND make it available to everybody. But we are not allowed to even discus it. That is because the health insurance companies own the government. Its really that simple.
Agreed. President Obama sold us down the river the day he took single payer off the table. Everything else is just negotiating the price.
Despite phony protests from Republicans, the U.S. health insurance market exhibits two characteristics of a market failure: 1) certain markets (elderly and poor) are neither profitable opportunities nor well-served and 2) the market lacks sufficient competition.
To Republicans alarming the public about the imminent rationing of health care, I submit that any health care system rations care. The U.S. just does it indiscriminately and insufficiently. It’s irrefutable that we prescribe and pay for too much unnecessary health care. Let’s move beyond the debate about whether we need a public insurance option. We do. Let’s debate the most relevant and most difficult question: how should we pay for comprehensive health reform?
http://axisofreason.com/2009/07/13/us-private-health-insurance-classic-market-failure/
The article is correct. I have been asking this question all along. The answer is simple to the hold up on single payer: campaign money. Very sad.
Health Care: The Public Plan Option
These Democratic Senators have NOT agreed to support it:
Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT)
These names are reported by The Hill here and here
Update: Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) says she supports a public option.
Update: Senator Jeff Binghaman (D-NM) says he supports a public option.
You can also contact the White House and voice your opinion
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Is it an insurance premium charge, or a tax? Do we want to have everyone pay a single payer premium, or choose a private insurance carrier who openly declares he will make as much profit off us as possible? This is such a no-brainer, it must have the world (all of which are single payer programs) in stitches over just how stupid Americans are. I'm embarrassed, outraged, and totally disgusted with this issue.
If you would like to help pressure Congress to pass single payer health care please join our voting bloc at:
http://www.votingbloc.org/Health_Bloc.php
When Obama took Single Payer "off the table" he killed real health care reform.
Agree!
Agreed.
I'm a little confused. Why would you base, in part, a health care on Medicare? Now I suppose success is in the eye of the beholder, but what's so successful about Medicare? I see from an article from the New York Times that Medicare is now projected to be broke by 2017. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's less than a decade away. Not bad for a program started a little over 2 generations ago.
Clearly President Obama is approaching this bassackwards. Let's see the government prove that they can fix a small health care system before trying the whole works. Any one will do - Medicare, Veteran's Health, etc.
I know I wish we had elected somebody with executive experience. Anyone knows you don't roll out a product without the necessary trial and error. And if this doesn't work there will be no going back.
Health care is not meant to be a product but a right. People will have to pay a bit more tax to obtain this right but it will be cheaper than paying for private jets and expensive bathrooms. Peer pressure could go far in limiting abuses, knowing that abuse is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
You might have missed my point. I didn't say one way or the other whether health care is a right or not. What I was trying to communicate is that the process is the same whether it is a product or a system. So far the government has not shown an ability to properly manage health care, be it financial (as in Medicare) or outcome (ever hear a vet speak highly of their care?).
Before you "break it" you better be sure it will work. Thus let them fix Veteran care or Medicare. Then I'll be all for nation health care coverage.
Medicare covers the sickest, most expensive people, the elderly. These are the people who would face the highest insurance rates and highest rejection rates if they had to obtain health insurance. Even then the administrative costs of Medicare are usually 70 to 90% less than health insurance.
Medicare is funded by the 1.45% portion on the social security tax on a worker's paycheck. This amount is matched by the employer.
The biggest part of the problem is the overall medical inflation in the U.S. We currently spend more than twice as much for every citizen in the U.S. than any other developed country, even though 25% are uninsured or underinsured. In the past 20 years the increases in health costs are about six times the increase in general inflation. Healthcare consulting firms are already projecting a 9% increase for 2010.
The excess costs are largely caused by insurance companies and other price gougers who add nothing to the health care of Americans. The U.S. is about 30 years behind in health care. Actually, Germany has had universal care for 120 years!
The other issue rarely mentioned in discussions of Medicare is the aging population. Usually when you see the "go broke" comment as related to Medicare it is due this problem where you have both increasing cost AND increasing numbers.
As an additional problem, older works tend to get hit the hardest in a bad economy and take the longest to recover. Right now there is no incentive to hire older workers because they cause higher healthcare costs and impact a companies bottom line. But if we are ever to get ourselves out of this fix we are in economically speaking we have to be able to keep the boomers working for as long as possible. They need to keep paying into both the social security system and the healthcare system while also contributing to GDP.
Having a Public Healthcare option of some flavor should help with this issue.
The are problems with expanding to a universal Medicare plan:
1. The reason administration costs of Medicare appear to be low is that
it excludes the cost of fraud which is massive;
2. It underpays providers; and
2. It is projected to have a $15 trillion shortfall while insuring only
45 million people.
In other words, Medicare is extremely expensive, rife with fraud and
financially unsustainable. Congress seems to want a plan where the
top 5% pay for everyone else and, not surprisingly, the numbers just
don't work out. Are there any countries with universal health care
where 43% of the population pays no taxes? It seems to me that for
there to be enough revenue for health care, everyone will have to pay a certain percentage of income as well as adequate co-pays. I am puzzled
by the belief that health care should be "free". Available yes, free no.
More than enough people have expressed a desire for a tax increase for single payer because they know it will be cheaper than maintaining insurance, including whatever malignancy the ''public option'' is. We the people know what it will take and are willing to do it. The noise makers keep throwing chaff into the conversation to distract and mislead us. The oligarchs are sweating this one big time.
"1. The reason administration costs of Medicare appear to be low is that
it excludes the cost of fraud which is massive"
The fraud is caused by the medical profiteering insurance companies.
Ex-Hospital CEO Battles Reform Effort
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051002243.html?hpid=topnews
Health insurers build up market clout
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/study-confirms-health-monopoly-fears
Health insurers refuse to limit rescission of coverage
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rescind17-2009jun17,0,3508020,full.story
The simple solution to getting the lobbying money out of congress' pockets is campaign finance reform. All campaigns should have to use only public funds, a level playing field money wise, no more campaign contributions from lobbyists to buy votes. But to do that, the media needs a smack, say, free airtime must be given to political advertisements/campaigns to avert that cost of advertising conflicting with smaller public funds available.
Then, when people can be elected to the house and particularly the senate without being beholden to these people for funds, they can start making independant decisions based on what policy choices are better, not which fundraisers they will help or hurt.
You cant get campaign finance reform for the same reason you cant get single payer.
Untouchables you call them. I call them oligarchs and ruling/elected elite. They are parasites sucking the life blood out of Americans and our democracy. Like most lower life forms that live in the dark we Americans need a very bright light to shine upon the problem and we cannot count on the MSM to do it for us because they are one of them. The Huffpost is the one place where some light can shine. But you have to separate the wheat from the chaff here too.
"While many elderly people and their doctors would like to fix various aspects of Medicare, there is no uproar to get rid of it -- it largely works. So why aren't we looking to this pretty good system as a model?"
Are you kidding? Medicare is bankrupting the country and creating doctor shortages.
Medicare is the closest thing we have in America to what is needed for the future. Doctors can make a very good living, just not a killing. Doctors who want to make a killing are in the wrong field. " Do no harm '' does not fit well with making a killing. Let these doctors care for the elite. They breathe the same heartless air.
Are you willing to foot grandma's medical bills? Or would you prefer to euthanize her?
How is it creating doctor shortages?
The AMA controls the number of applicants accepted into medicine.
100 Years of Medical Robbery
http://mises.org/article.aspx?Id=1547
The Biggest Risk To US Physicians: The AMA
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr.-daniel-palestrant/the-biggest-risk-to-us-ph_b_229068.html
As a former health care giver, I am shocked and saddened to see what has become of health care in America. $ 1. 4 million is being spent per day in DC by the health care lobbyists so your elected representative is getting taken care of and has quality health care we pay for and can't afford ourselves for our families, I know what is deemed, defended and supported in Tennessee and Virginia as quality health care and clearly profit care comes ahead of patient care. http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=62 MRSA ( methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureas ) is infesting our communities because filthy, uncaring hospitals and emergency rooms are breeding them and spreading them into our schools, homes, restaurants. How many more Americans' will be diseased or die while 74 % of Americans' are begging for health care reform ? More people died in America last year from MRSA complications than AIDS. When MRSA and a flu bug start mixing, it won't be pretty and we are being infected by the very health care system we depend on and trust to keep us safe and healthy.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
