Here's a link to update this post….it's a must read.
From yesterday's Face the Nation on CBS with Bob Schieffer….
Schieffer countered (Senator Mitch) McConnell's(R-KY) contention that the Obama plan would choose (or deny) which treatments a covered individual may get; the White House is not proposing any kind of rationing board, he said. He also repeated the administration's assertion that a public insurance plan would give people another option. "If they want to keep their private insurance, that's OK," Schieffer said.
"I know they say that, Bob," McConnell countered, "but if the government is in the insurance business there won't be any other insurers, it's inevitable."
As I have blogged previously, I firmly believe that any health care reform coming out of Washington, inevitably, will exclude a public option and, most likely, will tax employer-provided health care benefits as well. Love to be wrong about that.
All that campaign bribery money, you know, has a purpose.
That said, consider Mitch McConnell's statement, "if the government is in the insurance business there won't be any other insurers, it's inevitable."
Why would that be the case? Why would the inclusion of a non-profit, public option health care coverage plan be the death knell for all the private health insurers?
Is it because the public option would be cheaper than private insurance and, therefore, American consumers would flock to the cheaper product? And why would Americans flock to a cheaper product if the cheaper product was inferior in every way, as conservatives insist a public health coverage product would be? Are American consumers just stupid?
In what other product or service industry is lower pricing a problem that should be prohibited? Take one example….Has the huge purchasing power and alleged lower prices at Wal-Mart eliminated all competition for consumer goods? Why, then, would a public option eliminate all private health insurers?
Has Social Security eliminated private for-profit retirement plans. If not, why not?
Republicans and conservatives say they are advocates of unfettered free markets. Belief in economic competition is one of the hallmarks of conservative economic ideology, at least that's what we're told. Why wouldn't conservatives favor a bit of competition in health coverage?
Now for the pot stirring part.
The Reverend suggests that the conservative opposition to a public health coverage option, both from Republicans and Democrats, is based on their true ideology of a non-competitive marketplace. In other words, those who shout the loudest in defense of economic competition are, in fact, opposed to economic competition.
I can already hear the boos.
But consider…..why are there so many corporate lobbyists crawling all over Washington? What's their purpose? Is it to cultivate active free market competition in the industry that they represent? Is it? Of course not.
The very purpose of all those lobbyists and all that campaign bribery cash is to gain marketplace advantage, not to stimulate more competition, not to advance a more level playing field for consumers. The reason tele-communications corporations, for example, pour so much bribe money into politicos' coffers is to slant the marketplace in their favor. And it has worked. Do consumers have a choice in broadband providers, or have cable corporations, with their 'bought and paid for' elected officials, tilted the free-market to successfully squelch competition?
The same dynamic is at work in the energy market and banking. Is there genuine competition in the gasoline market? Other than "introductory" bait-and-switch marketing ploys, is there really any competition in CD rates or mortgages?
No, conservatives who are shouting the loudest in opposition of a public option health coverage plan being included in a package of national health care reform aren't interested in enhancing market competition at all. They are only interested in skewing the "market" in favor of big bribing health insurers while creating the illusion of choice. They are only interested in maintaining the high corporate health coverage prices and schemes which have created the unaffordable situation we're currently being crushed by.
As elected officials addicted to Big Campaign Bribes from health care providers bloviate continually over the next 10 weeks or so about "choices"……don't allow yourself to be buried under the bullsh*t. The only choices these status-quo corporate defenders are worried about are the preferred choices of those who are bribing them.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
It is obvious that the rev has personal issues with authority figures-just like the lord obama. Let the same people who run amtrak,the post office and now gm in five years take the same busines sense to operate on you or your loved ones brain tumor or other critical issue. I wonder how a star like Lebron-who by then will have not choices but to use a government run mess that will be health care allow a govenment run hospital operate on a tumor. FAT CHANCE! He will go to some other country then because numbsculls will be running healthcare!
Private industry cannot compete with the government, because the playing field is not level. The government sets the rules of the game. The government also doesn't have to make a profit, whereas private industry does. The government has a guaranteed revenue source (forced taxation). Private industry does not. It iis dependent on consumer choice (voluntary). There is no way for private industry to compete with that.
If a public option is included in health care reform, it will drive the private insurance sector out of business. There is no doubt about it, and that is the actual gameplan of the left. Obama has said several times in the past that he wants a single payer option. He knows he can't pass it through the front door, so the public option is the back door, a way to get the foothold necessary to bring about the change he actually wants.
Think about it. Who has to pay for the public option ? The public does. Who has to pay for private insurance ? That same public. It makes no sense for the public to pay for both things at the same time, and since they will be forced to pay for the public option, they will use it. It would be an economic disadvantage not to. Employers will also use it because it will relieve employers from having to pay for part of their employee's health insurance. They can just let the government do it instead.
The public option in health care will be the ultimate in non-competition. Your other complaints of non-competition are superfluous by comparison. The insurance lobbyists aren't just lobbying to gain a competitive edge here, they are lobbying against the elimination of their industry.
Another concern is, if we go your desired route with non-profit health care (which I don't think we will), where will the investments in new medical technology come from ? Where will the building of new hospitals come from ? Where will the incentives to acquire the latest medical equipment come from ? Those things all come from profits now.
Obama recently announced $313 billion in desired cuts to Medicare/Medicaid. How can you look at that and NOT conclude that the government will ration health care ? They will almost have to, or the costs will spiral even further out of control than they are now. Every other large country that has socialized health care has had to ration it. What would lead you to believe the USA will be any different ? Rationing is even built into the existing health care reform, though they call it "eliminating repetitive tests." The only difference will be, instead of insurance companies deciding what will and won't be paid for, as it is now, it will be the federal government.
Almost forgot to add….
But if the government structures it correctly (an IF the size of the Grand Canyon), it would be worth it. The current path is not sustainable. I've been saying so for years. I'm open to all options.
I do not know what the answer is and I do not know what I support because I have not learned enough to be comfortable with deciding what I support. That said I agree with King that the current path is not sustainable. After dealing with Medicare and Medicaid for my Mother, my Father, my 100 year old Aunt and a brother with issues I can say that Medicare and Medicaid pay for everything and in my opinion over pay for a lot. University Hospitals got close to 1.5 dolllars from Medicare for my Father before he died. He was treated for every little thing and he had incurable and as one doctor said untreatable cancer but they treated him and tested him for everything. And yes he had a good living will. With the treatments that were heaped on him he died within the time frame and in the same way the doctor had said he would with no treatment at all.
A neighbor of mine says the best thing that ever happened to him was going on Medicare because he used to have to pay for lots and lots of procedures when he paid for his own insurance but now Medicare pays for most all of it and he has lots and lots wrong with him. His wife is supposed to monitor what she eats because she is on blood thinners but instead she eats pretty much what she wants and had to have a blood test every week so they can juggle the level of the medication she takes. Medicare pays $250 for every blood test. If she followed her diet she would only have a blood test once a month but following the diet is too much trouble. My one brother has diabetes among other things but no way he is going to limit his carbs so he takes gobs of medications (16 of 'em) and averages more than 30 doctor's visits a year. I guess what I am saying is that perhaps rationing health care would not be all bad and then how do you ration it? — of course when I am sick I will feel differently and I know that. The last time I visited a doctor more than once a year I was pregnant — 41 years ago. I hope there is something left to take care of me when I am sick. It is a mess.
I do not know what the answer is and I do not know what I support because I have not learned enough to be comfortable with deciding what I support. That said I agree with King that the current path is not sustainable. After dealing with Medicare and Medicaid for my Mother, my Father, my 100 year old Aunt and a brother with issues I can say that Medicare and Medicaid pay for everything and in my opinion over pay for a lot. University Hospitals got close to 1.5 dolllars from Medicare for my Father before he died. He was treated for every little thing and he had incurable and as one doctor said untreatable cancer but they treated him and tested him for everything. And yes he had a good living will. With the treatments that were heaped on him he died within the time frame and in the same way the doctor had said he would with no treatment at all.
A neighbor of mine says the best thing that ever happened to him was going on Medicare because he used to have to pay for lots and lots of procedures when he paid for his own insurance but now Medicare pays for most all of it and he has lots and lots wrong with him. His wife is supposed to monitor what she eats because she is on blood thinners but instead she eats pretty much what she wants and had to have a blood test every week so they can juggle the level of the medication she takes. Medicare pays $250 for every blood test. If she followed her diet she would only have a blood test once a month but following the diet is too much trouble. My one brother has diabetes among other things but no way he is going to limit his carbs so he takes gobs of medications (16 of 'em) and averages more than 30 doctor's visits a year and smokes more than 2 packs a day. I guess what I am saying is that perhaps rationing health care (so people took more responsibility for their health) would not be all bad and then how do you ration it? — of course when I am sick I will feel differently and I know that. The last time I visited a doctor more than once a year I was pregnant — 40 plus years ago. I hope there is something left to take care of me when I am sick. It is a very big problem and no solution will be perfect.
King, thank you for saving me from having to organize my thoughts on this complex subject.
Rev, much of your anger seems to stem from the fact that you may be taxed on your health plan, I assume you have a good one. I am surprised your not eager to be taxed on your good fortune. Not only will you be a solider in creating a health system that covers all the people but you can take pride in helping those less fortunate than yourself.
First of all….health care is rationed in America right now. For-profit insurance corporations determine who gets what when it comes to health services. Non-insured Americans receive no coverage at all. And the emergency room is not health coverage.
Obama has never said he was for single payer coverage. What he said was that if we were starting from scratch, single payer would make the most sense. The problem now, however, is that Obama will allow the bribed Congressional officials to dictate that Americans can't even have a public option for insurance. That is a sorry state of affairs.
"Who has to pay for the public option ? The public does. Who has to pay for private insurance ? That same public."
What? Citizen A has a choice between United Health Care and Medicare. The Medicare policy covers a few less exotic procedures but costs less, so Citizen A chooses Medicare and pays for it out of his own pocket. Citizen B has the same choice but needs more extensive coverage, so he chooses United even though it costs more. That seems like choice to me and the public isn't paying for both plans.
"The insurance lobbyists aren't just lobbying to gain a competitive edge here, they are lobbying against the elimination of their industry."
This is the stuff I don't understand about conservatives. Our national health system is a total mess while for-profit corporations bleed the system from the top down thus causing coverage to be unaffordable. Any challenge to that corporate gravy train is dismissed as a threat of elimination of the for-profits. I just think that claim is silly. And I included other government programs as proof.
I do agree with mary and others about the layering of services in our current system, under both private and Medicare programs. Excess procedures, testing, etc. I blame that on our inherent capitalistic greed system which contends that if you have a customer base….exploit it for every last penny. That's why insurance company profits, stockholders, dividends and the like need to be taken out of the equation.
But no worries…..as we witnessed with banking, corporations rule the United States. Existing benefits will be taxed, while services are culled even further. No public option of competition will be available causing pricing to skyrocket even further….and from what I've been reading, millions of Americans will still not have coverage. But, by god, those profit-mongers will be happy.
I apologize for messing up my post yesterday and I left out the word million after 1.5 as in the money Medicare paid to University Hospital for treatment that according to the literature and doctors at Summa said was untreatable.
Some food for thought on our Health Care — The Biggest Problem with Health care in the US and how to fix it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-dychtwald/the-biggest-problem-with_b_216446.html
Good piece there mary. I found this spot on….
"And something that no one seems willing to talk about is the fact that the extension of dying in this fashion all too often becomes a capitalist feast as some medical companies see their profits grow, the longer the dying process is extended."
When it comes to making profits from the suffering and death of others, I have no tolerance. It's the same with defense contractor's making profits from the widespread killing and mutilation of other human beings.
Something about that dynamic really pisses me off.
My grandfather had a major open heart surgery at the age of 93. It was tough finding a surgeon, but he found one at a university who thought a lot could be learned about the heart and aging from such a procedure.
It was 50-50 on whether gramps would make it through the surgery, but he only had about 6 months without it. He made it through and got five extra years of pretty healthy life. He would have lived longer if not for a car accident.
What is the price on those five years? Who should be able to tell someone they can't have the five years? How will medicine improve if doctors can't try procedures that government charts say are not efficient enough?
Rev says Obama is not for single-payer health care, and that is what Obama said in front of the AMA, a powerful lobbying group that Obama wants to appease to get his health care plan passed. Obama even said his opponents were not being truthful about Obama's desire to implement single-payer health care in this country.
But it's actually Obama who is talking out of both sides of his mouth. Here he is talking to a different group in 2003.
“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program.” (applause) “I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.” – Obama, speaking to the Illinois AFL-CIO, June 30, 2003.
Oops. Busted, Barack.
Regarding the public paying for both the public and private options, I was talking about how it would be AFTER a public health care option was passed. I wasn't talking about Medicare. Once a person goes on Medicare, he/she isn't paying for private insurance any longer.
You might not think the elimination of the private medical insurance industry was so silly if you worked for an insurance company and your family depended upon it for survival. Also, why don't we eliminate profits from other essential industries as well, like food, clothing, and shelter if profit is so bad ? Those profiteers are equally silly, according to your standards. Reality isn't quite so simple. Goods and services are often supplied BECAUSE of the profit motive. You shouldn't be so quick to eliminate it, or you might eliminate the goods and services as well.
King, Obama is the biggest lying flip flopper in the history of our presidents. The reason? He is just a mouth piece and he isn't in charge.
That's what I've observed so far, Joe. BO is always trying to convince the public that up is down, as in, he's for "fiscal responsibility," or he's going to "bring down health care costs." It's continually the opposite of the reality.
larry d I am glad that your grandfather had 5 more years of a good life and I would never begrudge that to anyone.
Now let me tell you about my Father. He had bone cancer in his sinus cavity. Doctors in Akron said radiation was not particularly effective against this kind of cancer. Surgery involved removal of 1/2 the bone in his face and covering the area removed with a flap of skin with perhaps some rebuilding of the area in the future with composite materials. My Father was 86 and said no surgery. My Brother flew in from CA, made an appointment with another doctor in Cleveland who was supposedly the "best in the world" at this procedure then flew back to CA. I took my Dad to Cleveland and the doctor said the same as the Akron doctors. My Dad said no to surgery and told me "lets just go home and have a beer." I left his room to call my Brother and update him and when I came back my Dad was not in the room. The doctor had taken him to Oncology. I went there and here was the head of Oncology telling my Dad that Radiation would work — he did explain wearing a lead mask and receiving radiation for 30 some treatments but not much else. My Dad said ok so it all started. My dad could barely see because of macular degeneration but he could hear well. Within 5 treatments. His teeth had to be removed. The tumor broke through the roof of this mouth and he had to have a tube inserted for feeding. His hearing was destroyed and he got a staff infection so everyone had to wear a mask and he could not read lips or facial expressions to know what they were saying to him. Turns out the hearing loss and the loss of teeth is a normal outcome of radiation in that area. He wanted to stop the treatments but the head of oncology kept encouraging him to keep on — this guy had a golden tongue — sorta like you all accuse Obama of having. Two days before his medicare hospital time ended they told me I needed to find him a nursing home which was not easy with the staff infection. He died from pheumonia after 7-8 more months in the nursing home. He died from pneumonia because my Father asked me to not let them treat him for pheumonia AGAIN. I finally got doctors to agree he was terminal and he was allowed to refuse antibiotic treatment for the pneumonia . I was too naive when dealing with the oncologist and should have asked more questions upfront. The Akron doctor said he had about 9 months and he died in about 9 months. So there are good endings and there are bad endings. His cancer was rare and I feel University Hospital wanted to study my Dad's tumor because they paraded medical students through his room almost every day.
larry and mary's personal accounts illustrate the difficulty almost every family faces at one time or the other making choices involving health care.
My 89 year old father-in-law is at this moment undergoing radiation to shrink a lung tumor threatening his life…..and so far, it's working.
There can be no price tag placed on life. That's the very reason why the profit motive in health care should be minimized.
King states…
"You might not think the elimination of the private medical insurance industry was so silly if you worked for an insurance company and your family depended upon it for survival. Also, why don't we eliminate profits from other essential industries as well, like food, clothing, and shelter if profit is so bad ?"
It's not that I'm not sympathetic to those who might lose their jobs if for-profit health insurers went under because of a new public plan. I'm most certainly not going to be sympathetic to those currently receiving passive dividend or stock option "income" off the suffering of others, should a public plan destroy the private sector.
But none of that is going to happen. And that's the point. There are approximately 1600, mostly for-profit, health coverage providers in the country. If a public option is offered up, it will make those 1600 shape up and eliminate the waste and the greed.
The "market" is working in food, clothing and shelter. We're not experiencing huge leaps over inflation rates in those industries. With health care, we are. The "market" isn't working, and that's exactly why a public plan is the right thing to do.
I'm sorry about your father, mary. But it sounds like he and your family had choices throughout the process, just like my grandfather had choices. I'd like to see everyone retain that right as much as possible.
larry d, I agree with the choices. What I do not agree with is what in my opinion was rather strong arm tatics on the part of the hospital and the doctors involved with "selling" the procedures done to my Father. Granted he agreed to them but the doctors in Cleveland painted a rosy picture for him and I take the blame of not questioning enough. As soon as the radiation treatment began my Dad became goofey. They could talk him into anything and they did. Besides the damage was done — he could not see well, he could not hear at all, he could not eat, and he had a staff infection. If he had known that he would loose his hearing and his teeth and would be given a feeding tube before the radiation treatments started I suspect he would have said –" forget this — let's go home and have a beer." I feel it was for the profits Rev is talking about. And let me tell you this Oncologist was totally out of line because he called me a couple of months after my Dad died and asked me out for a date.