Having already lost precious time confronting this cancer, we simply rushed to Deaconess. On hearing the story, the head of the chemo program told us: "HMOs don't care whether you live or die. They just want to save money.
I want to remind my loyal audience here that long before the slugs at Kos and Huffington got wound up about Obama abandoning the public option this little blog knew he would buckle. I said the health care debate was over on August 8th because he would surely shelve the public option, which makes "reform" laughable. Indications today are that the public option is dead because 3 Senators from tiny states don't like it and Obama doesn't have the stones to stand up to them.
Now it is August 16th. Before this is through one has to wonder what will be left that can be called reform? This bill should now be called the Saving the Health Insurance Cabal Act of 2009.
My hope now - though chances are slim - is for House progressives to join with Republicans and kill this rump reform bill entirely. The only aspect worth saving is the ban on denying those with pre-existing conditions. That can be a separate bill passed without the dishonest label "health care reform."
What's so Great about Private Health Insurance in the LA Times is a must read. All of us need reminding that in 1993 :...health insurance executives had assured Congress...they would work to secure universal medical coverage and end denials of coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
That was 1993. How'd that work out?
The reason the private insurance cabal cannot be trusted is that have proven beyond all doubt that they are not trustworthy. Not only does the "free market" system not work regarding health care - there is no health care free market system now.
This consolidation has produced functional monopolies in communities across America. The American Medical Assn. (itself no great fan of reform) found in a 2007 survey that in 76% of the country, defined as its major metropolitan statistical areas, one insurer had a share of 50% or more of the conventional insurance market. This phenomenon gives the companies enormous power to drive up premiums and maximize profits. Why do we tolerate this?
I am a cynic on this issue. I have no faith and less than no hope that Obama will affect real change in the way health care is rationed in the United States. He has fumbled this issue badly by handing it off to 635 little egos on Capitol Hill and refusing to stand firmly for any particular element. The result has left an opening for the usual clap trap about socialized medicine and granny dying because of "rationing."
(The poor are already dying because of rationing. The health insurance system is all about rationing. The natural competition to insurance companies is YOUR HEALTH. Less care for your health equals more profit for them.)
Further Obama's slothful delegation of health care reform has lead to a few "blue dogs" - who represent a tiny portion of the population and accept huge contributions from Big Insurance - being able to slow even the most obvious reform element, a public option. Which, since Big Insurance insists they provide the best health care in the world, ought not to be problem. Certainly these wizards of health care delivery can compete with a lowly government program. Fed Ex has survived socialized mail delivery for years now. Notre Dame has somehow survived the evil machinations of Indiana State.
Please note that those in congress who are holding up real reform and intend to kill it get a choice of 10 - that's right -10 health insurance plans - all on our dime. The current debate is a case study in just how comatose our democracy is. Money is power in the U.S. Not people, not votes. Money. Embedded power thwarts any movement that would limit even a tiny portion of that power.
YOUR HEALTH will remain the Big Insurance's competition after this round of "reform" ends. Your health will still be dependant on being employed and the overarching power of the insurance bureaucracy. More so, in fact. Insurance companies are busy making certain that we are mandated to buy their product. It may be illegal for you not to have their product. We are told this will be better than a public option. This, we are told, is freedom from the "tyranny" of the government.
Bill Kristol is a big, fat, liar. He flat out lies here. Of course, Right wingers screeching "socialism" 24/7 , and equating health care reform with "tyranny" is expected - and ridiculous.
The more dangerous question is - what are the dems. concocting regarding healthcare? It seems, as time goes on, Obama's primary mission with health care reform is to enrich insurance companies. A single payer, medicare type program is ideal. Barring that, a robust public option must be enacted. Without a public option there is no reform. There is only regulation. Regulation that will primarily benefit insurance companies. If we allow insurance companies continued, exclusive control of the system we will continue to have rationed care and diminishing choices regarding our health care.
Yes, America, the people rationing health care RIGHT NOW are insurance companies. Why?
Profit. Huge profit.
One other note:
Attacking FEMA is becoming a regular part of the attack of health care reform. Please remember: under Bill Clinton FEMA worked....
In the past week Obama has shifted his talking points on health care reform. Whereas, for much of the debate the line of attack has been on the inefficiencies and expense of the health care system as a whole, in the last week he's changed the tune:
As polls showed eroding support for his overhaul of the nation's healthcare system, President Obama spent Wednesday courting the majority of Americans who already have insurance and are most resistant to the proposed changes.
By doing this Obama has substantially improved his odds of getting something out of congress this year.
Obama highlighted a series of consumer protections he would like to see remain in the final bill-including requirements that insurers cover preexisting conditions and don't withhold coverage from the seriously ill.
With the Gates arrest taking center stage for a few days in the A.D.D. media, this shift has been somewhat overlooked. Obama will no doubt take to the bully pulpit throughout August with this new message directed at the insured middle class. It has resonance.
In resorting to its usual screams of "socialism" the GOP has missed a fundamental element in the current health care debate atmosphere: many, many insured people resent and fear their insurance companies. Regulating health insurers will be very popular.
I suspect the public option in any form will fade, then disappear, from the final bill. The House progressive caucus will have fits - but in the end they will cave. They always do. What we will end up with is a bill that forces people to buy insurance and forces insurers to accept everyone. Since most people are healthy this will be a boon for insurers.
Obama can claim victory and it will be a victory of sorts. But it's a far cry from what he promised and does nothing to address the essential problem: the massive insurance "middle man" bureaucracy that rations care for profit.
Obama in Green Bay: Broke no new ground; said Medicare/Medicaid on course to breaking Federal budget (by jawbone at Corrente) Alas, the speech is the usual Obama points about health insurance reform: His list of reasons for change lead inexorably to single payer, but he just can't do it. Won't do it. Would be "disruptive." Obama begins by discussing socialized medicine and, after a few sentences, says that single payer is not socialized medicine. Then he repeats his lament that since we have a different system in place, it's impossible to go with single payer. Altho' he has said in his answer that Medicare is an example of single payer!
COWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Democrats hint compromise to win Senate health care deal (McClatchy) Senate Democrats are offering to scrap a controversial government-sponsored health insurance provision in an effort to win more than a dozen moderate and conservative Republican votes to extend health care coverage to nearly 46 million uninsured Americans.
Should Health Care Reform Be Bipartisan? (by Ezra Klein, Washington Post) Are 10 Republican votes worth lowering the subsidies from 400 percent of poverty to 300 percent of poverty and leaving out, say, eight million Americans? Are five Republican votes worth leaving out eight million Americans? Two Republican votes? It would be nice if someone published a table or something.
Co-op Health Plan Emerging as a Senate Option (by Robert Pear at The Caucus, New York Times) Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Finance Committee...said Thursday that the public plan could take the form of an insurance cooperative, owned and operated for the benefit of its members. "I am inclined, and I think the committee is inclined, toward a co-op," Mr. Baucus said. "It's not going to be public, we won't call it public, but it will be tough enough to keep insurance companies' feet to the fire," Mr. Baucus said of the co-op. Isn't that what Blue Cross and Blue Shield were supposed to be? Look how well that worked out.- Caro
"Strong public option" = "peace in our time" (by vastleft at Corrente) Once you accept the "public option" frame, it's "goodnight, nurse!" for real health-insurance reform. It's only happening about everywhere in the liberal blogosphere. OTOH, maybe a compromise with the Blue Dogs, Republicans, and death-by-spreadsheet crowd will work out just fine. It would be irresponsible not to equivocate.
Going Postal: Reid's New Defense of Public Health Care (The Note, ABC News, thanks to Alegre) "I'm confident both private companies and the option of public plan can live in harmony," Reid said on the Senate floor Thursday. "When you send a birthday present to a relative to-say I want to send something to one of my children in Nevada, the products that I choose can be sent by FedEx, UPS, DHL, or the United States Postal Service...The Postal Service may not be perfect, but the public option is there, and the private companies, FedEx, UPS, know they cannot rip you off or be slacking on their service," Reid said.
Health Care Overhaul Opponents Use Selective Stats (All Things Considered, NPR) It's become one of the most commonly cited statistics by opponents of the health overhaul being put together by Democrats in Congress: Creating a new government-run public health insurance plan would result in 119 million people losing their private insurance...The point of the study was to show that the number of people who would eventually join a government-sponsored public insurance plan would vary-dramatically-depending on how that plan is designed...For example, Sheils says, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York "has a plan which would require the public program to pay private payer rates- the same rates that other private insurers have to pay-and under that scenario we get only between 10 and 12 million people dropping private coverage."
Good Gravy. Grassley calls Schumer's plan "obnoxious" (by Alegre) At least Nancy Pelosi is standing up for the public option. She's taken a head-count and told HuffPo that she won't have the votes to pass a reform bill unless it includes a public option. She also said that Conrad's compromise (a system of co-ops) won't be enough. It's got to include a public option or no deal. Meanwhile Grassley continues to be the mouthpiece for the party of NO when it comes to health care reform: "No public option, no employee mandate to either provide insurance or pay a penalty, and nothing that leads to rationing of health care." If you stick to Grassley's criteria here we won't have ANY changes to our current (and messed up) system.
Well I've got news for Grassley...we've already got rationing. With nearly 50 million Americans living without access to health care services, I defy him to show us how anything they could do in Congress could make things worse than they already are.
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At long last the health care battle has arrived. Obama has entered the fray - FINALLY. Not content to let the Senate work it out, the Admin. is sending a little army up Capitol Hill to ensure that the "public option" is part of the final bill. Single Payer is still a no go - which, as much as it galls me, may be a reminder that "politics is the art of the possible." Of course, the only reason single payer is not "possible" this year is because the phrase "single payer is off the table" keeps being repeated by the chattering classes. A statement they are never asked to back up or explain by the chattering class's stenographers - also known as the mainstream media. It reminds me of those other media elite kabuki performances: the run up to the Iraq invasion (There was no opposition to be found on television though 50% of us DID oppose it - often in the streets.) and the "inevitability of Obama" meme that was amplified by the media goons every time Clinton won a big state primary - which should have logically caused the talking heads to assume that Obama was not inevitable at all. The "manufacturing of consent" is still in full flower on the boob tube.
Saying "single payer is off the table" relentlessly is the only reason it is off the table. There is not a good reason why single payer is verboten so we get "it is not on the table" spoken with finality- as if that phrase was a law of nature.
So the 4 remaining options are:
1. Do nothing. 2. Make health insurance mandatory for all. This is favored by the insurance companies. 3. Make health insurance mandatory and provide a government funded public option. This is opposed by the insurance companies but favored by the BHO admin and many Dems. 4. Give large tax breaks for purchasing health insurance. This - or something like it - will be the GOP solution.
Given those four options I have to support the Admin and go with #3. When critics complain that a public option is just a sneaky way of getting single payer done sometime soon - let me speak a truth you won't hear in the next few months from the Admin: Yes. Yes, it is.
So be it. My empathy level for the health insurance cabal hovers just slightly above dog fight ring leaders and N.A.M.B.L.A. members.
Greed is not good. People's health should not be subjected to the whims of shareholders and "the market". Nor do I trust the health insurance executives as far as I can throw an operating table when they say they will "cut costs".
It is bullshit. You know it. I know it. Aliens in other galaxies know it. They will mime "cost cutting" until another Republican is elected POTUS - which could well be in 2012.
Obama's win here (and I bet he will win) may end up being a train wreck. But remember this: The health care system in America is already a train wreck. It is time to shake it up. If Obama can put the fear of God in those greedy C.E.O.s that literally play with people's lives to ensure a profit, then we can make some real progress. Insurance companies will get it together if enough of their customers have a public option choice and can ditch the obscenity of possibly going bankrupt when a family member falls ill. It is amoral that people are punished in this country for getting sick. Amoral and medieval.
As a blogger, I have no reason to lie about this fact: the public option is a backdoor entry point for single payer in the next few years - though many, many liberals will lie about this particular fact in the next 4 months.
And you? What do you think? I know many disagree. Dandy. It is a big issue we ought to have a big conversation about it.
