Private Insurance Companies to Make Out Like Bandits Under So-Called "Healthcare Reform."

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG 

By Mark Karlin

In a stunninng revelation in the LA Times today, it appears that that the for-profit health insurance companies are poised to make out like bandits under the so-called "health reform" bills being considered by Congress, particularly if they succeed in defeating the "government option" in the Senate.

The LA Times article is a must read because it shows that the "change" being supported by the WH is going to make the for-profit companies fatter and wealthier at the expense of a healthcare system bloated by the excessive administrative, profits, and grossly high salaries of the health insurance and drug companies.

Here is one of the more understated quotations in the article about how the insurance companies are crying wolf while they tailor the bills to insure even greater profit at government expense:

"The insurers are going to do quite well," said Linda Blumberg, a health policy analyst at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, a Washington think tank. "They are going to have this very stable pool, they're going to have people getting subsidies to help them buy coverage and . . . they will be paid the full costs of the benefits that they provide -- plus their administrative costs."

Particularly concerning is that Tom Daschle has emerged, according to the mainstream press, as Obama's key go-to guy for mediating between the gang of six in the Senate, led by Max "Where are my K Street Campaign Contributions from the Insurance Companies and Big Pharma" Baucus, and the insurance companies.  Daschle was almost Secretary of HHS until he ran into some lobbyist reporting problems involving a free chauffered car, but the biggest concern anyone worried about lowering healthcare costs should have is Dashcle's history as a lobbyist for the for-profit health insurance industry:

UnitedHealth spent the most, $2.5 million in the first half of 2009, and hired some of Washington's most prominent political players, including Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader who served as an informal health policy advisor to Obama.

So the Obama Administration, which was elected on the promise of shaking up Washington, has an ultimate Washington insider giving our tax dollars and running up the costs of healthcare to benefit for-profit insurers. Tom Daschle is bearing everything but frankincense and myrrh to Big Insurance and Big Pharma:

Consumer advocates argue that a lower government minimum might quickly become the industry standard, placing a greater financial burden on patients and their families.

"These are a bad deal for consumers," said J. Robert Hunter, a former Texas insurance commissioner who works with the Consumer Federation of America.

Meanwhile, companies would probably see a benefit by providing less insurance "per premium dollar," Hunter said.

"It would be quite a windfall," said Wendell Potter, a former executive at Cigna insurance company who has become an industry whistle-blower.

Consumer and labor advocates acknowledged the industry's lobbying success.

In the first half of 2009, the health service and HMO sector spent nearly $35 million lobbying Congress, the White House and federal healthcare offices, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

That's some chunk of change lavished on the Repulicans, Blue Dogs, and the revolving door lobbyist Tom Daschle, who was a "centrist" lapdog to the GOP when he served as majority leader because of concern if he were perceived as "too liberal" he would be defeated in his home red state of South Dakota, which he was anyway in a dirty -- of course -- Republican challenge.

But Daschle is back fixing things up good for the for his K Street profiteers. 

In a cynical and disingenuous statement that undercuts any WH claim to be seriously backing a government insurance option, Daschle laughably told the New York Times that "he sees no conflict between advising the president as well as private clients for whom he's working, such as the insurance giant UnitedHealth and the Tennessee Hospital Association, because he's telling them all the same thing -- there is not enough support in the Senate to pass a public option component."

And the "change" that Obama promised is really just more of the same, on steroids, a current mega-bucks lobbyist for the profiteering medical industry being his de facto point person and declaring the government option DOA in the Senate, based no doubt on Daschle's coordination with the gang of six.  Because without the public option, this "healthcare reform" will be a windfall for Daschle's clients

This is like Medicare Part D all over again, where Big Pharma practically wrote the bill to increase their profits, even though it is part of a "socialized medicine" program.  Seniors got breaks on prescriptions, but the bill was constructed through fees for drugs to enrich pharamaceutical firms.  The seniors were a cover for a major contributor to the Republican party to get their payback.

The LA Times article ends with a telling quotation:

"They [the insurance lobby and Big Pharma] have beaten us six ways to Sunday," said Gerald Shea of the AFL-CIO. "Any time we want to make a small change to provide cost relief, they find a way to make it more profitable."

Oh, how much we would like to hope for that change that Obama road to a landslide victory promising.  But more and more it just seems like a Trojan Horse.

There are many BuzzFlash readers who are upset that we criticize Obama.  But we lost about 20% of our readership when we criticized the conduct of Hillary Clinton's primary campaign (and she is making a fine Secretary of State).  That is why we are fully independent. We're Democratic and progressive, and the policies we support -- when presented to the American public free of the misinformation of the right wing and mainstream media, not to mention the GOP -- are generally supported by the majority of Americans.

But Obama has bought into the great "centrist" myth that is perpetrated by FOX and the corporate media -- on behalf of the entrenched corporate and D.C. insiders and wealthy -- and he is being led rather than leading.

The biggest irony about healthcare reform is the reality that it it is only going to jack up the cost of healthcare because of the for-profit industry.

As the LA Times revealingly notes:

Some insurance company leaders continue to profess concern about the unpredictable course of President Obama's massive healthcare initiative, and they vigorously oppose elements of his agenda. But Laszewski said the industry's reaction to early negotiations boiled down to a single word: "Hallelujah!"

That's not change you can believe in. That's fraud upon the American public, a giveaway at a time when our nation is economically in dire straits, and change that is for K Street, not for the average American.

The House is ready to pass at least one bill that might herald some reform, including a government option (although single payer makes the most economic sense). But Obama has left it to Daschle and Rahm Emanuel to let 6 senators in the Senate Finance Committee produce a bill that provides all sorts of gifts at our expense to insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms.  These senators, as others have noted, represent less than 2% of the American population.

As BuzzFlash has observed, "The health of the individual insures the health of the American nation."

It is tragic for us that President Obama doesn't have the courage of his promises to ensure such a goal.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG 

Afternote on Medicare Part D: We try not to quote from Wikipedia, but sometimes on deadline it is the most expedient.  So read this revealing passage, which is exactly what the White House has done with Big Pharma:

By the design of the program, the federal government is not permitted to negotiate prices of drugs with the drug companies, as federal agencies do in other programs. The Veterans Administration, which is allowed to negotiate drug prices and establish a formulary, pays 58% less for drugs, on average, than Medicare Part D.^[32] For example, Medicare pays $785 for a year's supply of Lipitor (atorvastatin), while the VA pays $520. Medicare pays $1,485 for Zocor, while the VA pays $127.

Former Congressman Billy Tauzin, R-La., who steered the bill through the House, retired soon after and took a $2 million a year job as president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the main industry lobbying group. Medicare boss Thomas Scully, who threatened to fire Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster if he reported how much the bill would actually cost, was negotiating for a new job as a pharmaceutical lobbyist as the bill was working through Congress.^[33][34] A total of 14 congressional aides quite their jobs to work for the drug and medical lobbies immediately after the bill's passage.

Tauzin negotiated the agreement with the Obama White House that would prohibit the government from negotiating rates with Big Pharma.

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