After all the fanfare and high expectations that accompanied the prospect of national health care reform at the outset of this year, the legislation is staggering to a particularly inglorious end.
At its heart, the single biggest weakness of the bill rapidly advancing in the Senate, which mirrors the central flaw of the House bill as well, is that it "cedes far too much power to the tyranny of a callous insurance industry," as Karen Higgins, RN, co-president of the 150,000-member newly created National Nurses United, the largest union and professional association of nurses in U.S. history, has said.
In a year when lobbyists, led by the health care industry, are poised to smash all records for influence peddling in Washington, we should not be surprised.
But the greater tragedy is that the current bill may lock into place a dysfunctional and inhumane system that threatens to move beyond the reach of more comprehensive reform for generations to come.
For those who counsel us to accept the steady stream of concessions to the obstructionists and the health care industry with the anticipation that the legislation will be improved in the House-Senate conference process, or in future years, the experience of this year suggests a very different outcome.
As Jean Ross, NNU co-president noted, "the bill seems more likely to be eroded, not improved, in future years due to the unchecked influence of the health care industry lobbyists and the lessons of this year in which all the compromises have been made to the right."
Advocates of the current bill say it's most important feature is that it expands coverage to 30 million Americans. But their method for accomplishing what NNU Co-president Deborah Burger calls a "wishful statement" is an individual mandate forcing the uninsured to buy private insurance or be criminalized and subject to fines, in fact symbolizes the power of the insurance industry.
Individual mandate was the top priority of the insurance industry, which also succeeded in fending off meaningful restraints of its predatory pricing practices. The likely outcome is that far too many people will still face health care insecurity or medical bankruptcy due to ever rising out-of-pocket costs, or continue to skip needed medical care because of the high prices.
Indeed, discouraging provision of care as the preferred way to control costs, rather than rein in the pricing practices of the insurance and drug giants, is a central tenet of the insurance industry and conservative policy wonks.
That is also symbolized by the Senate bill's excise tax on comprehensive insurance, deceptively labeled as "Cadillac plans." In practice that tax will push employers to further reduce benefits for workers, and shift more costs to employees. Especially as more and more plans are subject to the tax every year due to the weak price controls on insurers in the legislation.
The Senate amendment exempting certain "high risk" occupations only serves to remind us of the inequity of the entire provision. Why are some protected, but others are not? It has not escaped notice that the targeted occupations are all male dominated -- mining, construction, police, and fire -- yet another gender imbalance in legislation that further erodes reproductive choice for women.
In exchange for lining up millions of new customers for the insurance giants, while failing to stop their price gouging or significantly cracking down on denials of claims they don't want to pay for, we're told that the legislation is historic for "ending" the worst industry abuses by banning exclusions of patients with pre-existing conditions and the shameful practice of dropping people when they become sick.
Yet both of those provisions are seriously marred by gaping loopholes for an industry which has perfected the art of adverse selection and gaming the system.
As the NNU has said in its statement on the bill, the loopholes include:
The health care industry hardly needs the help. Within the last 35 years or - at least dating to the 1970s the Nixon administration's push for the HMO Act to stave off the 'threat' of a single payer system - we have witnessed the emergence of 'corporate giantism" in the health care sector:
Helping these giant corporations become even bigger and more powerful is not a compromise with an eye to history or a step on the way to something greater; it is an historical blindness to the uniqueness of the current historical era and an ultimate surrender to corporate domination of our nation's health.
But nurses, who sustain the current flawed system and are highly motivated to continue to campaign for real change, are neither discouraged, nor giving up.
"NNU and nurses," said Ross, "will continue to work with the thousands of grassroots activists across the nation to campaign for the best reform, which would be to expand Medicare to cover everyone, the same type of system working more effectively in every other industrial country. The day of that reform will come."
Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of the National Nurses United.
Private insurers will be immune to any taxpayer interference. They only answer to their investors to create more profits . They will have the max leverage to impose lesser quality health care standards on hospitals and demand decreased staffing , benefits and wages for workers, in order to get hospital costs to bare bones.
Many hospitals will have to close down, if they do not toe the line set by the insurers.
We have seen what the insurers are capable of ... How could the Dems possbly think these ruthless corporations could be the best stewards of our health?
It sure has to make you wonder what is next.
It looks like a pretty good crowbar for GOPers to clobber defenseless Dems with.
Just goes to show you that the best idea is to let the GOP act as the Republicans,
and NOT do their job FOR them, because they will clobber you for such atrocious misrule,
as THEY THEMSELVES would have imposed, but escaped accountability for due
to their complicit Corporate Media.
Now, the Dems get the worst of both worlds.
It's coming.
"Helping these giant corporations become even bigger and more powerful is not a compromise with an eye to history or a step on the way to something greater; it is an historical blindness to the uniqueness of the current historical era and an ultimate surrender to corporate domination of our nation's health."
No, this is NOT a reform bill. Nowhere close. It's essentially welfare for big pharma and the health insurance corporations for decades to come, paid for on the backs of the middle class. Fits right in with Obama's welfare policies for the Wall Street execs, big banks and financial houses.
With this legislation, the Dems and this President are just ramming another huge lie down middle America's throat, doing it , sadly enough, with the help of those liberals and progressives still willing to buy into Obama's smoke and mirrors.
It is no surprise that the Repubs have determined to obstruct everything Obama. It is no surprise that the Dems are inept at governing and that, in the end, they act as the agents of big business. That was all quite predictable.
The only big surpise and, perhaps, it shouldn't be, is Obama's failure to fight for the people, as promised. Without that fight, the American middle class was bound to get the shaft, once again, and it's happening right now, this time with healthcare.
What the people are getting from Obama is the extension of Clinton's and Bush's trickle down economics to its extreme limits. The big question - just how badly can the middle class be squeezed before they decide they've had enough?
Essentially the exact same proposal , though with a different focus - retirement funds in place of health.But essentially a forced transfer of money from the taxpayer to private corporations,
CHRONIC SABOTAGE BY REPUBLICANS who work as corporate LOBBYISTS.
Repeat:
CHRONIC SABOTAGE BY REPUBLICANS who work as corporate LOBBYISTS.
CHRONIC SABOTAGE BY REPUBLICANS who work as corporate LOBBYISTS.
CHRONIC SABOTAGE BY REPUBLICANS who work as corporate LOBBYISTS.
REPUBLICANS: DETERMINED TO CRASH America's working and middle class.
darker's message is right, but it ignores the rest of the truth. The Dems are as bought and paid for by big business as the Repubs, and Obama didn't fight for the people, as promised.
maybe the nurses union could start an auxiliary
and we can all join
Because Obama wants to get re-elected first.
Then you will find out that you will have to shell out literally $20,000 every single year to buy health insurance.
If you can't afford that, you will be punished with no health care plus you will be fined and possibly worse.
To qualify for aid, you will first have to liquidate all of your assets including your home and savings.
Finally, Obama and Emanuel now freely admit that this is the exact legislation that they wanted.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
"You would think that people would want government out of their lives but that isn't the case. " You're right, that is not the case, most Americans want a government that works to their benefit, rather than be tossed into the maws of the greedy in the marketplace.
http://arran.wordpress.com/2007/04/13/trickle-down-economics-the-4th-conservative-failure/