Going back to the health care debate debacle for a moment; it looks increasingly like the public option is dead or dying. If I start on about this I’ll type for page after page, so I’m just going to pass on a few things worth considering-
From Robert Reich
Without a public, Medicare-like option, health care reform is a bandaid for a system in critical condition. There’s no way to push private insurers to become more efficient and provide better value to Americans without being forced to compete with a public option. And there’s no way to get overall health-care costs down without a public option that has the authority and scale to negotiate lower costs with pharmaceutical companies, doctors, hospitals, and other providers — thereby opening the way for private insurers to do the same.
It’s been clear from the start that the private insurers and other parts of the medical-industrial complex have hated the idea of the public option, for precisely these reasons. A public option would cut deeply into their current profits. That’s why they’ve been willing to spend a fortune on lobbyists, threaten and intimidate legislators and ordinary Americans, and even rattle Obama’s cage to the point where the Administration is about to give up on it.
And if you don’t think the the insurance companies are ultimately behind the resistance to a public option, then here it is from the horse’s mouth- an exec who was in public relations for 20 years, most recently with Cigna (if you only follow one link from this blog, make it this one):
How Insurance Firms Drive Debate
The higher I rose in the company, the more I learned about the tactics insurers use to dump policyholders when they get sick, in order to increase profits and to reward their Wall Street investors. I could not in good conscience continue serving as an industry mouthpiece. And I did not want to be part of yet another industry effort to kill meaningful reform.
I explained during the press conference with Rep. Slaughter how the industry funnels millions of its policyholders’ premiums to big public relations firms that provide talking points to conservative talk show hosts, business groups and politicians. I also described how the PR firms set up front groups, again using your premium dollars and mine, to scare people away from reform.
What I’m trying to do as I write and speak out against the insurance industry I was a part of for nearly two decades is to inform Americans that when they hear isolated stories of long waiting times to see doctors in Canada and allegations that care in other systems is rationed by “government bureaucrats,” someone associated with the insurance industry wrote the original script.
The industry has been engaging in these kinds of tactics for many years, going back to its successful behind-the-scenes campaign to kill the Clinton reform plan.
And from Dennis Kucinich, who may be one of only two truly honest people in Congress (the other is Ron Paul, but he’s just a little crazy):
Health care reform is now a private option: WHICH FOR PROFIT INSURANCE COMPANY DO YOU WANT? You have to choose. And you have to pay. If you have a low income, under HR3200 government will subsidize the private insurance companies and you will still have to pay premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
The Administration plan requires that everyone must have health insurance, so it is delivering tens of millions of new “customers” to the insurance companies. Health care? Not really. Insurance care! Absolutely. Cost controls? No chance.
…
The hotly-debated HR3200, the so-called “health care reform” bill, is nothing less than corporate welfare in the guise of social welfare and reform. It is a convoluted mess. The real debate which we should be having is not occurring.
Removing the “public option” from a public bill paid for by public money is not in the public interest. What is left is a “private option” paid for with public money. Why should public money be spent on a private option which does not guarantee 100% coverage nor have any cost controls? A true public option would provide 30% savings immediately which would then cover the 1/3rd of the population who presently have no health care.
Unfortunately, under HR3200, the Government is choosing winners and losers in the private sector; proposing to spend public funds on subsidizing insurance companies who make money not providing health care. This process will insure only the expansion of profits. Gone is the debate over cost.
So that’s it. If the public option fails, the private companies stay in control. If that happens, and there aren’t some significant changes in the bill, they have your money, your employer’s money, and now your tax money too. And no competition. Even my friends who think a public option is a bad idea would likely agree- a plan that takes public money and feeds it to private insurance companies who already rule the health care industry like rapacious bastards is the worst of both worlds.
If anyone believes such an outcome will make things any better, I’m amazed. You’re managing to believe things they wouldn’t even believe at a Scientology meeting.
