Ten Reasons to Pass Health Reform

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Mike Bock

Interesting article at Truthdig. Joshua Holland of AlterNet outlines ten benefits that health care reform should bring. Holland writes, “Understanding what’s actually contained in the legislation leads to an unavoidable conclusion about the anger we’ve seen in recent weeks: it’s doubtful that at anytime in the history of our nation have a group of people been so furiously opposed to something that would so obviously be an improvement over what they now have. It’s nothing less than a testament to the power of industry propaganda.”

Here is an abbreviated version of Holland’s Ten Reasons To Pass Health Reform:

  1. The First Thing That Will Happen Is Absolutely Nothing. At least that’s the case for a lot of people who now have quality health insurance. … Your current insurance company would have a harder time screwing you over if you get sick. That’s because, although your policy wouldn’t change, it would be governed by new public-interest regulations for the entire health insurance industry.
  2. New Protections for Consumers. New regulations would take effect in 2010 that would go a long way toward curtailing the insurance companies’ worst abuses. … The legislation (especially the Senate HELP bill) creates new tools for fighting insurance fraud and abuse.
  3. Medical Bankruptcies Would Plummet. One of the most significant of these regulations is in the House bill: a cap on out-of-pocket expenses. … In 2007, Harvard researchers studied thousands of bankruptcy filings and found that medical causes played a role in more than 6 in 10.
  4. People Who Could Never Get Decent Coverage Will Finally Be Able To.  So far, one of the great victories for the anti-reform movement has been convincing many small-business owners that health reform will put them under.  The reality is that small-business people, their employees, independent contractors, freelancers, entrepreneurs, part-timers and the “marginally employed” would be the biggest winners from the legislation if it passed as currently drafted. Small business owners and their employees—as well as those other groups—would, for the first time, be able to get decent coverage at a fair price, and if eligible, both employer and worker would be able to get extra help paying for it.
  5. (Almost) Everyone Gets Covered. That brings us to another “controversial”—but ultimately commonsense—piece of the puzzle, the “individual mandate.” It means that (almost) everyone would either have to buy health insurance or pay a modest penalty that would contribute to the system. In the House bill, the penalty would max out at 2.5 percent of income. Waivers would be available in the cases of economic hardship or for those who have religious objections.
  6. Those Who Can’t Afford the Premiums Will Get Help Paying. Ultimately, even if the public exchanges were to succeed in bringing the price of health insurance back to earth, a lot of people would still be priced out of the market. All of the Democratic plans come with subsidies to help those at the lower end of the economic ladder get access to decent health care. The most generous are in the House bill, and how extensive the subsidies will be in the final legislation will be a point of heated debate.
  7. No Free Lunch for Businesses. Currently, large employers that rely on low-skilled workforces usually offer little or no health coverage, and much of these workers’ health care is already subsidized by taxpayers in the form of Medicaid and Medicare payments, other public programs and unpaid bills for emergency-room visits. Under the proposals in Congress, medium and large firms would face a simple choice: Offer their employees decent coverage or pay something into the system to offset the burden their employees’ health needs impose on the American taxpayer.
  8. More Low-Income Workers Eligible for Medicaid.   All of the plans being considered by Congress make more of the working poor eligible for Medicaid by lifting the income limits on eligibility.
  9. Some Things Will Change, But You’ll Never Notice. There are measures that would impact the way doctors are paid, allocate additional dollars for developing the health care workforce and bring new technologies online. …Ordinary people looking for health coverage are not going to notice anything different about their health care.
  10. Over Time, the System Will Become Healthier.  Everything depends on what the final legislation entails. But if it were done right, those systemic changes—greater competition, tighter regulation, technological improvements, a greater emphasis on prevention, the buying power and efficiency of less-fragmented insurance pools and an end to treating the uninsured in emergency rooms—would gradually “bend the cost curve” of health coverage and offer insurance to tens of millions of people who today struggle with the health problems and stressful economic insecurity of living without insurance.
Posted in Special Reports | 15 Comments

“President Obama Has Blown Health Care Reform Big Time … The Opportunity Has Been Squandered”

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Mike Bock

Depressing to read this assessment at Huffington Post written by Michael Bremer: “Obama has blown health care reform, big time. The opportunity of a lifetime has been squandered. …Serious health care reform is gone with the wind. It cannot be retrieved.”

Bremer catalogues, “the dismaying reality”:

  • no public plan;
  • no wealth tax to help pay for cost incurred; no right for the government to bargain with Pharma on drug prices;
  • no meaningful enforcement mechanisms to ensure that vested, for profit interests comply with whatever undertakings, explicit or tacit, that they have made.

And, in answer to the question, “What do we gain?”, Bremer says, “Not much.”

  • A commitment that everyone must be insured, yet with a much weakened employer mandate to accomplish it.
  • An elimination of the most egregious practices of insurance companies re. e.g. pre-existing conditions, arbitrary termination of coverage.
  • Some small subsidies for the working poor. These last are minimal. Someone earning $20,000 a year will get no subsidy unless insurance premiums reach $2,400 — according to the Finance Committee bill.

Bremer says, “It is Barack Obama who is to blame for this. For months, he stayed aloof from the out-of-control Congressional maneuvering based on a strange belief in some kind of bipartisan collective will emerging by osmosis. He never leaned the weight of his person and his office to elements of reform that has been touting as candidate and then President. He deceived the country by pursuing secret talks with the very lobbies who are the heart of disgraceful national health care situation. He entered into deals that were weighted heavily in their selfish interest rather than the national interest. In short, we have gotten from him the antithesis of what we were promised and expected — in the substance and process of policy both. We have instead a conventionally minded politician overly respectful of the status quo and deferential to those who control and profit from it, A man with no apparent fixed convictions.”

Posted in M Bock, Opinion | 10 Comments

Joan Walsh: Grassley’s Euthanasia Trash Talk Proves President Obama Should Pull Plug On Bipartisan Effort

Posted on August 13, 2009 by Mike Bock

Interesting article in Salon by Joan Walsh, “Throw Grassley From The Train,” says that recent comments by Iowa’s Republican Senator Chuck Grassley proves that a bipartisan approach to health care reform is impossible. Walsh says that Grassley’s trash talk about euthanasia, as part of health care reform, even “went beyond Sarah Palin’s ignorant rant.”

Walsh says that Grassley comments are astounding because Grassley is “one GOP senator who’s been held up as a paragon of reason and bipartisanship, one of three Republicans negotiating with three Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee.”

Grassley at a town hall meeting said, “There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life. And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear … We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.”

“If he (President Obama) compromises with the likes of Chuck Grassley after Grassley betrayed him,” Walsh writes, “he can give up the rest of his agenda — and maybe even a second term. But I trust Obama to know that he’s been punked by Grassley, and to act accordingly.”

Walsh writes: “ ‘You have every right to fear.’ What a statesman! Where to start? … To me the silver lining here is that maybe Obama and Democratic leaders will wake up and realize they have no partners in the GOP on healthcare reform. (Well, that may be too precipitous — Olympia Snowe? Susan Collins? Please?) Unbelievably, roughly 24 hours before Grassley — call him Judas — sold out Obama for 30 pieces of silver from his insurance industry backers, the president named Grassley as one of the reason he continues to negotiate with Republicans, at yesterday’s town hall.”

Walsh writes, “I admire Obama’s desire for conversation, consultation and, if possible, bipartisan support for his agenda. But it’s been clear since early in his term that the GOP marching orders are to thwart him whenever possible. … I think it’s time for Obama to use his political capital to whip the Democrats, including the nippy, yippy selfish and untested Blue Dogs, into shape.”

Posted in M Bock, Opinion | 2 Comments