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 Why Patch-and-Fill Won’t DoPosted on Jun 17, 2009By Marie Cocco You can’t get there from here. Not if there is defined as health insurance coverage for everyone in the United States, lower costs for the millions of insured who are being crushed by its price, and relief for employers who are burdened by an expense many wish they could wipe off their books. And not if here is where the health insurance political debate is stuck. At the moment, Republicans are gleeful and Democrats glum because of a Congressional Budget Office analysis—based on an incomplete and early draft of what is likely to be the most liberal-leaning health care proposal to emerge from the Senate—that shows the measure just won’t get the job done. The budget office says the partial draft put together mainly by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., would reduce the number of uninsured by only about 16 million (out of upward of 47 million) and cost about $1 trillion over the next decade. That’s very little bang for a lot of bucks. But no one should be surprised at either number. Advertisement Now President Obama has left the legislative “details,” as the White House likes to call them, to our esteemed lawmakers on Capitol Hill. This has fed an every-member-for-himself mentality, an instinct that needs no nourishment. Lawmakers of every political leaning are putting forward their own ideas, none of them as tough-minded or comprehensive as a single administration-initiated proposal might have been. Why? Because senators and members of the House represent discrete districts that are driven by their own local and political imperatives. They don’t represent the country as a whole—nor, when the subject is as complicated and has so many regional differences as health care, should we expect them to. The result is a raft of proposals that are patch-and-fill jobs on the current system—a system that pretty much everyone believes is crumbling to the point of collapse. This is an odd way to begin a major reconstruction project. No one has seriously proposed concrete cost controls such as discount purchasing of prescription drugs by a government entity, which would demonstrably cut costs. In fact, the initial CBO analysis that my fellow liberals are so upset about shows not cost savings but a great deal of cost-shifting: The government would save money it now uses to subsidize tax-free insurance premiums, because some employees would drop workplace plans and purchase insurance through a new “exchange.” But this savings would only partly offset the cost of providing subsidies to those who can’t afford to purchase a policy outright. Meanwhile, the private insurance industry would continue to be the chief source of coverage—and the only one, if the industry gets its way and Democrats produce legislation that does not create a public insurance plan as one purchase option. Advocates of a single, national insurance system that would involve explicit cost controls and guidelines for care—that might put an end to such wasteful practices as over-testing—have been shunted aside. This is in part because Democrats quiver when Republicans call them “socialists.” But Republicans cry “socialist” even when Democrats promote weak reforms that barely nick the vested interests. That’s what’s happening now. No one has seriously proposed an overhaul that would achieve what a single-payer system has been shown to accomplish in most other countries: universal coverage with lower costs that delivers better results than we now get in the United States. Instead, Democrats have all but abandoned the idea that everyone be covered without exception. They’ve so far avoided endorsing clear cost-containment measures that would pass the budget-scorers’ test of legitimacy. The wished-for savings that Obama says he wants the private insurance industry to achieve are exactly that—wishes. The winners so far are health industry lobbyists. They sense that their chances of protecting the interests of big insurers, drug companies, medical specialties, technology companies and the like are improving every day. They’re probably right. Marie Cocco’s e-mail address is mariecocco(at)washpost.com. © 2009, Washington Post Writers Group CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment |
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By Jim Yell, June 22, 2009 at 5:02 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
We have been consistently lied to about privatization of services. Where we have allowed this to occur services have gotten worse and more expensive and no accountablity at all.
Health care for profit means profit trumps care every time. Basic health care should be National Health care at a premium cost that can easily be paid by all working Americans, which should be no more than $50 per month and no spend down.
The mass of citizens have been sacrificed for huge profits given to investors who do no work except to invent ways to ruin jobs and steal money. The whole apparatus has become a ponzi scam.
We voted for change and instead seems we got a President who at lest is educated, but doesn’t seem willing to go out on a limb for the ones who put him in office, instead he caves to every hateful word from the Nazi Republican Party.
Report thisBy marriea, June 21, 2009 at 7:50 am Link to this comment
One of the big problems is the constant saying that everyone is equal in this country when it is not true. Sure all life is priceless and has worth.
Report thisBut let’s face it, we live in a capitalist society.
If you have the funds to pay for something, then you can get it, if not then you leave it be.
Politicans like to say that the average American can have a health care plan, just like the ones in Congress for every American. Yeah right. Congress can vote among themselves the type of plans they get and as American ‘servants’ the taxpayer foot the bill.
Overall it’s a big tag, but considering that for the most part there are probably less than 5000 members of Congress with their staff, we’re talking in the range of 5000 X maybe $600 per plan. In the general scheme of things that not really a lot of money.
But to apply that to the number of Americans in this country then no way can such a plan be feasable. Then take into the added cost for things that are not insurable. It ain’t gonna happen.
I wish it was possible for us to have a feasable plan that would cover ever American.
I wish I could honestly say that every one is on equal footing financially, but realistically it ain’t so. Until we get rid of the myth of what we would like and what actually is and stop sugar coating everything to the public, we will always have this problem. We are not a country of equals. Some people do have more rights than others. Some people are able to afford things that other can’t. All jobs don’t pay the same. Everybody don’t live in homes with 2+ baths and three or more bedrooms with a fireplace den and kitchen nook. It ain’t fair, but it’s a fact. Let’s start with the truth for a chance. Then work it from there.
Then maybe we can lower the gambit on people who unwittingly put their own lives at risk. If you smoke, drink and eat excessively, do drugs ect, then your health premiums will cost more. And please lets dispense with this claim of self infected addictions habits being a medical disease. They might become medical habits, but come on. To classify everything as a disease means that one doesn’t have to take responsibily for their own actions, ever.
Obama had it right to have government paid insurance for kids. Ok, I can live with that. But after a certain age, one should know better.
By AmiBlue, June 19, 2009 at 5:33 am Link to this comment
I hope they leave it alone if they are not going to really change it. They CAN and probably WILL make it WORSE if they just fiddle with it! The Democratic cowards in congress are not worth the time it takes to vote for them.
Report thisBy jonr, June 18, 2009 at 10:15 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
For those who like to talk about what is “American” and what is “un-American,” maybe what it comes down to a basic level of patriotism as to whether we believe that ALL AMERICANS are important and/or valuable enough to be provided with some level of guaranteed health care. If so, we need to do what it takes to find a way to make it happen.
Canadians apparently value EACH OTHER enough to believe providing health care for them is a “must,” as do the English, Germans and French. Most industrialized nations, in fact, consider ALL of their citizens important enough to guarantee some level of health care for them. Even businesses in those countries benefit by having healthy employees who don’t miss work as often and not having to worry about providing health insurance coverage as an additional cost of employment.
There seem to be many Americans, on the other hand, who believe that the lives of other Americans are not important and/or valuable enough to worry about… that it doesn’t matter whether they receive health care or not, really whether they live or die. In a country that claims to pride itself on patriotism and high moral values, that seems like a pretty poor opinion to have of our fellow American citizens.
Just not worth it, eh? Who cares? That’s something.
Report thisBy boggs, June 18, 2009 at 7:13 am Link to this comment
We must demand single payer healthcare. Its the only solution to take the high cost out of illness.
Report thisMoney should not even be a concern to a Congress who can continue to pass Billions of dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan, over and over.
If we don’t get our single payer healthcare I will always think because congress thought Haliburton profits were more important.
Betch they are all stockholders, as repulsive as the Company is. Some people don’t care where the money comes from as long as it finds its way into their hand.
By Outraged, June 18, 2009 at 12:57 am Link to this comment
Article quote:
“Advocates of a single, national insurance system that would involve explicit cost controls and guidelines for care—that might put an end to such wasteful practices as over-testing—have been shunted aside. This is in part because Democrats quiver when Republicans call them “socialists.” But Republicans cry “socialist” even when Democrats promote weak reforms that barely nick the vested interests. That’s what’s happening now.”
A lame excuse. These “Republican political tactics” (whining) all but PROVE how many dollars they’ve recieved. How bottom feeding do you have to be if you’re aping Republicans! As if anyone is buying that…... Single Payer is BETTER that a public option, and it’s more cost effective. Single Payer would also ensure The People the power to KEEP the plan funded and the coverage adequate.
Single Payer Action:
“A new article on insurance company holdings, published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine, shows that U.S., Canadian and U.K.-based insurance firms hold at least $4.4 billion of investments in companies whose subsidiaries manufacture cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco and related products.
Tobacco products currently contribute to the deaths of 5.4 million people worldwide annually, according to the World Health Organization”
http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=796
And we thought Blackwater or Xe rather, was in the business of death….. tie the insurance companies to the tobacco companies and we’re talking TRUCKLOADS…...maybe more accurately railcars full full of death. How fitting.
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