"Healthcare Reform" Will be a Boondoggle for Private Insurance and An Intolerable Burden on the Middle-Aged
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
By Mark Karlin
If "healthcare reform" were such a threat to private insurance, then why are they opposing the public option?
The reality is that the bill the WH worked most closely with -- the Baucus Bill -- does little to rein in insurance profits and fat cat salaries, while providing them a windfall of at least 30 million new insured lives.
I've written several earlier editorials about this grim reality, including" "Free Market" Welfare for Wall Street: Now Max Baucus's Welfare for Big Insurance and Big Pharma": "Big Insurance to Government: You Make it Affordable, We'll Gouge the Profit!"; and "Private Insurance Companies to Make Out Like Bandits Under So-Called 'Healthcare Reform.'"
I also noted the striking fact -- unfortunately not emphasized by the White House -- that if government administered insurance is so bad, then why have none of the Western nations -- even under Conservative governments, as Canada is now -- privatized their health systems? Even Maragaret Thatcher -- the Iron Maiden -- didn't touch the National Health Service in Britain. And in Britain, physicians are actually employed by the government, something that is not even proposed in what the corporate mainstream media considers the "fringe" idea of a single payer system (notice the word payer, not provider).
So, we read with great interest a recent column by James Ridgeway of "Mother Jones" (who recently quoted BuzzFlash on this issue) on just one of the ways that the private insurance companies will continue to get rich off of the American people.
In an article entitled, "How the Baucus Plan Screws the Over-50 Crowd," he notes:
The people who stand to get screwed most by Max Baucus's health reform plan are those who aren’t old enough to qualify for Medicare, but are still old enough to be discriminated against by insurance companies....[quoting the New York Times] Under Senator Baucus’s plan, insurers would be permitted to charge older people five times more for their health insurance premiums than younger people.
That proposal, first circulated in a Finance Committee policy options paper last spring, is a significant departure from the approaches put forth by three House committees and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Those bills would only allow insurers to charge older people twice as much as younger ones…. According to AARP, the lobbying organization for older Americans, the number of uninsured adults between 50 and 64 grew to 7.1 million in 2007, an increase of 36 percent over 2000. Among the main reasons for the increase: higher premiums demanded of older, sicker people seeking coverage in the individual insurance market.
By allowing insurers to charge so much more for older, often sicker people, “You’re just using age as a proxy for health status,” said Uwe Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton University. He estimates that Senator Baucus’s age-rating plan would allow insurers to cover roughly 70 percent of the additional risk they’d take on by being required to accept all comers, regardless of health.
Ridgeway and BuzzFlash see the same reality in the scam of the Baucus Bill, which the White House backs.
Just today President Obama is telling the Sunday morning news programs:
Telling people to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase, Obama told ABC's "This Week."
"What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore," said Obama. "Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase."
But Obama famously responded in a debate with John McCain that healthcare is a right not a privilege.
And if it is a right, the profits and excessive salaries of even non-profit insurance companies like the Blues should not come out of the pockets of America's dwindling middle and working class.
Obama's corporate tilt is once again leaning toward Wall Street instead of Main Street.
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
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Democrats not on our side
Thanks, liberals, for saddling us with yet MORE corporate-funded Democrats.
Why are you complaining -- you got what you wanted. From their prior support for NAFTA and the other NAFTA-like trade agreements, you KNOW their alliegence is to corporate profits.
From them keeping impeachment of Bush off the table, you KNOW their claims to impeach Bush and end the wars were just lies to get your votes.
Now that they have majorities every place you look, and they STILL won't give us decent health care YOU HAVE NO EXCUSES LEFT!
THE DEMOCRATS AREN'T ON THE SIDE OF PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR A LIVING!!
How can we change this?
The first step is to start supporting parties (like the Green Party) that don't accept corporate campaign contributions. Parties that accept corporate money are not on your side. This should be obvious, but you liberals have a long history of being unable to see Democratic-Party corruption when it's occuring right in front of you.
Wake up! The Green Party represents liberal values better than the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party will only start representing citizens' interests when they see "their" votes starting to go to a REAL liberal party.
A Boondoggle for Private Insurance companies
"We the people" really don't want to create a boondoggle for the poor, misunderstood Private Health Care Insurance Companies, do we..?...so I suggest...throw them out on their greedy butts..shut them down, to hell with them..they do exactly nothing for anybodys health care, they feed off the most unfortunate, the sick, the poor, the young and the old, alike, like nasty leeches, blood sucking vampires... so, let's get real reform and throw the private insurances companies out of our Doctors offices, the E.R.'s, and out of the Hospitals...Medi-Care for All...!
Reform, my ass
The piece of trash awaiting Obama's signature might just as well have been written by that other piece of trash, bush.
wow...
wow. Now I fully believe that Hillary would have been a complete disaster for Democratic voters - as First Lady of Arkansas, she sat on the Board of Directors of WalMart, and didn't make a peep of protest as she COLLECTED her DIRECTOR's PAY, WHILE WalMart embarked on a 20 year Jihad to keep women OUT Of management positions, and to keep unions of of the stores, the Gender Discrimination case agaisnt WalMart one of the easiest ever brought to court, because WalMart had practically no women in management. Indeed, all of Hillary's Arkansas & First Lady dramatics were but a prelude to her chaotic presidential campaign, where she claimed to be opposed to NAFTA (and to have been opposed to it, despite video to the contrary), and to CAFTA... even though her campaign 'senior advisor" was taking $100,000 "consulting fees" from Colombia to push CAFTA in the US Congress!
But Hillary's chaos is beginning to look like tranquility compared to Obama's over-the-cliff subervience to his corporate lobbyists and Wall Street banksters. This past week, Obama put a Monsanto former lawyer (and VP) as senior advisor to... the FDA. It's hard to get more "distilled evil" than Monsanto. And now Obama wants to force MANDATES on American citizens, pouring billions of dollars into already bloated insurance coffers. And Obama STILL REFUSES to give taxpayers an accounting of the massive financial fraud on Wall Street that led to Economic Crisis 2008... much less, heaven forbid, will Obama INTERVENE to keep homeowners from being EVICTED by predatory bankers FORECLOSING on mortgages, even when banks could restructure the loans to help homeowners keep making payments (and keep their homes).
IT is simply astounding how arrogant the new president is... he can't see the woods for the trees, he can't see how his GS bubble is worse than Bush's Enron & Exxon bubble.
What the hell ......
.... does either the article or the post you're responding to have to do with Hillary Clinton? The same Clinton-haters who were trashing her during the primary and selling Obama as the candidate for true progressives are simply trying to make themselves feel better. They were duped ....... again, ........ so now they try feebly to excuse Obama's actions by comparing them to a hypothetical Hillary Clinton presidency. Or only slightly less pathetic ....... the third-party true-progs who swore that their candidate was the true savior, and now gnash their teeth about Clinton and Obama.
Tooo funny, ........ and delusional.
BTW - So what if Clinton served on the Walmart board in the 1980s? It's been discussed ad nauseum during the campaign. Beyond that, while she was seving on Walmart's board, she pushed Walmart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices and practices that treated women more fairly. No one's claiming she was perfect, but she was trying to push for progress in a conservative company on a board in which she was virtually alone. As Bob Ortega, Walmart critic and author of "In Sam We Trust" said of her tenure: "Clinton used her position to urge the company to improve its gender and racial diversity. Because of Clinton's prodding, Walton agreed to hire an outside firm to track the company's progress in hiring women and minorities. These were things the company was not addressing and wouldn't have, had she not pushed them to do so," Ortega said. "She's somebody who could definitely get things done." In fact, Clinton proved to be such a thorn in Walton's side that at Wal-Mart's annual meeting in 1987, when shareholders challenged Walton on the company's lack of female managers, he assured them the record was improving "now that we have a strong willed young lady on the board." Clinton was particularly vocal on environmental matters, pressing the company to boost its sale and use of recycled materials and other "green" products. Garry Mauro, who served with Clinton on a Wal-Mart environmental advisory committee, pointed to many successes, such as persuading the company to establish recycling centers and sell products like recycled oil and long-life light bulbs.
In terms of NAFTA, Hillary did oppose NAFTA privately, as confirmed by David Gergen, George Stephanopolous, Sally Bedell-Smith and Dee-Dee Myers. She didn't do so publicly, because that would have been contrary to Bill Clinton's policy at the time, which favored its passage. She subsequently said NAFTA has been good in some respects (ans is supported in this argument by all of the major studies on the effects of NAFTA), but that it also needs to be revised, and said she would push for its renegotiation.
BTW - Love to see the video "to the contrary". Too bad that it's a fairytale .......... just like your irrelevant, little rant.
Nothing is ready for Obama's signature
There is no piece of trash waiting to be placed on the Presidents desk..that process has barely started...if you don't understand how a "Bill" moves through Congress....you either missed Civics in High School, or have forgotten how it all works..you can look up the Legislative Process of a "Bill" by using any internet search engine...its way to early to get your knickers in a twist about a final bill ("piece of trash") that is in no way (not even close!) ready for the President's signature
correct on all counts
"Health care reform" is just the next in a long line of excuses for transferring wealth upward. Its been a staggeringly huge and long running scam scince the 80s. The progressive caucus in the house needs to hold the line on this. It cant be allowed to pass in its current form. This would be the straw that breaks the back of the middle class. If the white house and senate wont do right by the people, this bill must be defeated until more bluedogs can be rooted out of the senate. A strong government health plan, or single payer, are the only options that wouldnt be a "boondoggle" for the medical/industrial complex.
the 'ump' has spoken
MK > calling 'em as he 'sees' 'em... and, for this vantage point (58y old, no helath insurance (eg 'naked') 'cept for 'major event' Veteran care (and that is going away).
as for: commentors 411: "... Blue Dog founder and Big Pharma shill-in-chief Billy Tauzin had mobilized tens of million$ in Harry&Louise ads in support of such "reform."
if that whore Tauzin (R-Idiot-LA) that sold out America after hours in the HR and then 'walked' to BIG Pharma for his 'reward' for the donut (black) 'hole' is involved...
you KNOW it's a gift-wrapped early Xmas present to health care/ins/pharma if his greasy mits are lube the wheels for adoption.
that should be reason enough for the progressive caucus to resist and, make it about the re-thugs killing TRUE reform and using that as a club in 2010 and if needed, 2012 to deliver the SUPER MAJORITY necessary to pound in REAL helathcare reform.
we can wait another year, or two, it has been 100y since progressive Teddy R pushed it forward.
Kenneth E. Tucker
One PISSED OFF Viet Vet ('72-'73)
Give us consistency, not faith and bipartisan Kumbaya.
Of course, telling people to get insurance is not a tax increase. For one thing, it's far more expensive than simply adding a tax. I'd far rather pay taxes on health coverage than a monthly mandatory and far more expensive insurance premium. And the taxing would be infinitely easier to control than keeping track of who doesn't have insurance to levy a tax fine against, not to mention determining and allocating subsidies. In contrast, it would have been so simple to have expanded Medicare in increments to age groups by reducing eligibility age from 65 to 55 until the entire population is covered.
Unless an authentic public option is mandated along with mandatory coverage, the insurance companies will prevail in a more bloated form than ever while the average American gets screwed. Meanwhile, Obama is pushing for a quick bill passage without insuring (sorry for the pun) a public option to go along with it. His present rhetoric of "believing" in a public option is hardly comparable to stating that he will veto any bill without a public option from 2 months ago. He needs to dispense with the faith and double messages if he actually intends on delivering his campaign promises from less than a year ago.
Bravo, Mark.