Digby on a health insurance mandate….
Any plan that forces the uninsured to pay their hard earned money to wealthy private insurance companies under penalty of law is a huge political risk. These are the same companies that have brought us to this place where people are routinely denied the care they were promised, lied to about what was covered, scammed into paying huge sums of money for no security and no guarantee. Health insurance companies have dealt with their customers in bad faith for years and years and now we are being told that everyone must pony up and pay them even more. For all the talk of reform, when you whittle this down, that one fact comes roaring back at you and it sticks hard in the craw of anyone who considers themselves progressive.
That's exactly right. It is also the very reason a public competitive option MUST be included in the final bill. If we are forced to buy health insurance….and there is no mechanism to hold insurance rates down…..not only will Americans be forced to give their "hard earned money" to the same industry players who have created the clusterf*ck we now enjoy……but health insurance rates, and health insurance profits, will continue to skyrocket.
Politically, because nothing that will be passed will be implemented until 2013, all Democrats want to do is pass something they can boast about in 2010 and 2012. Republicans want to stop anything from being passed by Democrats, anything that could be perceived as good for America, anything that Democrats can claim as a victory.
You know the drill…grab the dirty end of the stick….cause that's the only end you're allowed to grab.
Suppose a mandate for health insurance passes but not a competitive public option….which is a likely scenario. 40 million new customers will be handed over to private, for-profit health insurers. In addition, it is very unlikely that insurance cost controls, of any kind, will be included….which will mean a huge new demand AND higher insurance costs.
Making things even worse will be the government subsidies that will be included to pay for private, even-higher-priced, health insurance for those who cannot pay for it themselves.
Consider the mess we'll have after all this goes in to effect in a few years. Higher health insurance prices, with little, if any, cost controls,……all Americans forced to buy this higher priced insurance….and tax dollars going to for-profit corporations, the same private corporations who brought us the diastrous situation which required…umm….reform, in the first place.
The problem with health insurance is that it costs too much. Many Americans do not have health insurance because it is cost prohibitive. With a reform bill that mandates coverage, prohibits any cost control competition from a government-run option, and pours billions of new tax dollar subsidies into the pockets of the very same people who created the crisis in the first place……Americans will pay even more for health care, exacerbating the very problem (costs too much) which created the need for reform originally.
It looks like Democrats are willing to f*ck over the American people by passing a bill that will actually make the health care problem worse. Democrats are prepared to go through with this potentially disastrous plan for Americans for the sake of political bragging rights….AND….the continued inflow of big pharma and big health insurance campaign contributions to their party.
Democrats, having partially sold out to corporate control during Clinton's triangulation days, seem prepared now to take triangulation to a whole new level. Democrats are triangulating with huge, for-profit corporations……guaranteeing them a huge windfall in the coming years….in return for campaign cash to keep Democrats in power. Those hoping for true and meaningful reform, on the other hand, are being told, disingenuously, that true reform is on the way.
It isn't.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
"Democrats are triangulating with huge, for-profit corporations……guaranteeing them a huge windfall in the coming years….in return for campaign cash to keep Democrats in power." Politics in a nutshell.
They are going to vote and they don't even know what they are voting for. The bill isn't even finished. If they would show us what the whole plan was in plain English without the bs spins and twists, we may want this whole bill and the people would get behind it, but as in all sales they have jumblef'd it and now the people don't trust them. Obama has that power. He can do this. Why won't he? I will tell you, because there is stuff in there he is hiding.
News flash Rev, the dems have always F'd over the people for the advancement of their special interest groups.
Not always….Medicare, Medicaid, SS, FDIC, unemployment insurance, etc.
Democrats have not jumbled stuff up. That's the Republicans and their followers who have done that…with main media's gracious assistance.
Behemoth corporations control America today. Both parties, apparently, like it that way. The final bill, I would almost bet, will specifically help those corporations while, simultaneously, hurting Americans.
It didn't have to be this way…but Clintonian triangulaters, like Rahm, seek political dominance over the essential needs of regular Americans.
Republicans are at least up front…..they never seek to help the American people, ONLY corporations. I guess that makes them more honest…I guess.
The reason that these bills are as long as they are (1000+ pages) is for the express purpose of hiding what they contain.
In the details will be examples of the bill helping certain groups. These groups may even contain the people that the bill is supposed to help. But it will also help companies that donated to the right person or party.
On the other hand, there will be portions of the bill that attack other groups. Maybe it is because they donated to the wrong side. Or it may be that it is just politically expedient.
The Constitution is only 6 pages long.
On July 5, 1948 the National Health Service (NHS), was launched with the expectation that it would make the UK the "envy of the world". However, by the 1950's, spending exceeded what had been expected. By 1956, the system was stretched financially and this resulted in a Royal Commission on doctors' pay being set up in February 1957.
From 1948 – 1969 the NHS looked like this:
—-Hospital Services of [14] Reginal Hospital Boards were created in England & Wales to administer the majority of hospital services. Beneath these were [400] Hospital Management Committees which administered hospitals. Teaching hospitals had different arrangements and were organized under Boards of Governors.
—-Primary Care GPs' were independent contractors (they were not salaried employees) and would be paid for each person on their list. Dentist, opticians and pharmacists also generally provided services as independent contractors. Executive Councils were formed and administered contracts and payments to the contractor professions as well as maintaining lists of local practitioners and dealing with patients.
—-Community Services such as Maternity and Child Welfare clinics, health visitors, midwives, health education, vaccination & immunization and ambulance services together with environmental health services were the responsibility of local authorities. This was a continuation of the role of local government.
As you can see, I've just described Englands National Health Services (NHS), to you. Since 1969, the NHS has grown to be the third largest entity in the world. Which is why once this bill is passed, it cannot be stopped. It's not going to be the trickle down effect, it'll be the trickle up effect. So many people will be put in place it will be impossible to stop.
You yourself are finally beginning to see the light. It's very unfortunate however, that you're still seeing party lines. If you listened carefully to Obama's speech, you'd realize that there are no longer Democrats, he referred to them as "my Progressive friends". I'm not a Dem, Repub., or Ind., and I'm certainly not a Progressive. What I am is an American who simply wants her country back.
No one should be forced to buy health insurance. And that's what he's planning. We all heard him say it. That's why many of us have been telling everyone else to read this bill. It also says that should the government not like the [private] insurance that we've chosen for ourselves, we'll be taxed 2.5% of our total gross income.
Medical training under the government in England was so unsuccessful that the Secretary of State for Health was forced to apologize publicly. Thus the "Agenda for Change" (AFC), was born. Another government agency sticking their nose in telling nurses and doctors how to their jobs. And out of that one came, "Knowledge and Skills Framework" (KSF). This government agency put together a work/skills sheet for nurses and doctors to determine how much money they should make.
In 1998, more than $1Billion was wasted on red-tape alone in government spending. Can you imagine what that figure must be today?
Everyone's under the impression/assumption that those of us who are against this bill are ignorant people. We're being called Nazi's and racist. Personally, I preferred it when I was a child growing up in the 60's being called a n@^^@r. At least then they were looking right at me and saying it. Now however, they're saying it to the media and talking heads on television.
We want health care reform. Please, fix what's broken. Put those in prison who are committing fraud. And impose fines on those who are milking the system with inflated prescription cost. Also, make insurance companies more competitive by reaching across state lines.
Don't let this bill get pass Congress. Not in it's present form.
They are being scared with wording such as government take over as if it is a boogey man . And you know republicans will oppose anything plan that has any government involvement. What must be done is to educate Americans on why the pubic option is good and good for them. If enough people want it things will change. But too many are in the dark and do not know what it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBi8A_HutII&
Rev,
You're right that there don't seem to be any cost controls on private insurers in the health care reform bill(s). All I see is demands made upon those insurers that will drive costs up (no exclusion for pre-existing conditions, no dropping of coverage, etc.). Those demands are the right things to do, but it will make private insurance more expensive. Without the public option (which I'm against and appears to be headed for failure), the current bill is exactly what you say it is, a huge giveaway to the insurance companies. Therefore, it shouldn't be passed without some serious cost controls in place. Bending the cost curve down is the primary economic reason for health care reform. Obama thinks adding tens of millions of new customers for insurance companies will drop individual costs, and that should help, but it's not nearly enough. The Republicans don't have many ideas, but their idea to allow insurers to compete on a national basis would help a lot. There's NO reason that shouldn't be included in health care reform. It would foster tons more competition and drive prices down in a functioning free market (something we don't really have now). The government should do much more on cost controls than that, however, and they aren't doing it. The Republican tort reform idea should be included as well. Dem special interests are getting in the way there. We have an opportunity here to create a real bipartisan bill that would make things better. Obama says he wants that, but his actions say something else. As always, politics is getting in the way, on both sides.
There is also no reason for the health insurance exchange to take four years to go into effect. The only reason for that is politics, so Obama and the Dems can be re-elected in 2013 by saying "the Republicans are going to take away your health care." To prove what I'm saying, when Medicare was created in 1965, it became functional less than a year later. It doesn't take four years to "get it right," as Obama weakly stated. The insurance companies ALREADY exist. They could roll out the health insurance exchange in six months (or at least anyone other than our bureaucratic nightmare of a federal government could).
And kudos to Ashley.
Mandatory health insurance to me is along the same lines as letting people invest their own social security $$. That is what do you do with those that fail? If I don't have health insurance and I break my leg I should be required to either pay up front or leave the hospital/doctors office. But our society (nanny state) wouldn't sit still for such cold bloodedness. Perhaps any/all politicians that have taken any money from groups other than there own constituents should be prosecuted under the RICO act, seems like bribery to me. Health care insurance and parades are fine, as long as you keep the politics out of it.
Ashley's comment weaves a comparison of what Obama suggested last night with a totally government controlled health care system in the U.K. which began 60 years ago.
What Obama proposed last night was nothing even close to government run natonal health care. Insurance reform, a mandate much like we have with auto-insurance, and an exchange for the uninsured to buy insurance. The exchange will have several private insurance plans and one public insurance plan.
If implemented as laid out last night, perhaps 5% of those insured nationally will be on public insurance. That's not government run health care. That's a timid attempt to lower overall health costs. Slowly weaning the bloated insurance and pharma companies off big profit margins and inefficiencies seems like the goal. It is a start, so if what Obama said last night becomes law, it won't be a total catastrophe. But I still believe the public plan will be nixed before this is over.
Then it will be a catastrophe.
Rev,
Why are you still trying to pretend the public option isn't designed to lead to a government takeover of the health insurance market, and thus, health care itself ? It couldn't be more obvious.