Intelligent Article on Health Care Reform

Our country is still wresting with the way we’re going to fix the health care system. It’s personal to me as the cost of carrying health insurance is a crushing weight on my budget and really unsustainable in the long term. I really like this article I found in The Sun Signature. I really hope you post your comment, have a say, give your opinion or view on health care reform so we can have have a good dialogue on this important issue.
After all the right-wing screaming
at town hall meetings that “government-
run health care” would kill
granny and throw the country into
a communist state, we find from
a recent New York Times/CBS News poll that 65% favor
a public option plan to compete
with private for-profit insurance
companies. Poll Shows Wide Support
But the powerful Democratic
Senator from Montana, Max Baucus,
Chair of the powerful Senate
Finance Committee, caved in to
the powerful insurance lobby and
his bill has no public option, just
a mandate that everyone buy insurance
and anyone who doesn’t,
gets fined.
Baucus reported $1,763,799 in
donations from the health industry
for just his last election.
Insurance companies simply pool
the premium money and pay the
claims (sometimes after multiple
denials and delays.). They don’t
provide care. Doctors and nurses
do that.
But, who does Max Baucus support…?
the insurance companies.
When he rolled out his plan at a
news conference, smiling and dripping
with platitudes, he appeared to
me like a 4th grader giving a book
report on a book he had not read. It
was as though an invisible gun was
pointed to the back of his head, held
by the invisible insurance company
lobbyist.
His health bill would offer subsidies
(your tax dollars) on a sliding
scale to help pay the companies
for the mandated plans. It would
create state-based exchanges where
individuals and small businesses
could shop for insurance.But the
companies have free rein to charge
whatever they can. The companies
get a captive market of 40 million
new clients and make even bigger
profits. The cheaper plans will be
the ones with the fewest doctors to
choose from and the worst benefits
and reliability. The CEOs of the
largest insurance companies get
paid about $24 million a year to
figure out all this stuff.
We are the only country with
a for-profit system as the driving
force in health care. We spend
more than enough to have universal
coverage, but we don’t get it
because one third of our healthcare
dollars don’t go to pay doctors and
hospitals for healthcare but into the
pockets of middlemen.
We spend $7,290 per capita,
still leaving almost 50 million
uninsured. Over 60% of bankruptcies
are the result of medical bills.
Compare that to countries with
single payer/nonprofit health care:
France, $3,601; United Kingdom,
$2,992 and Japan, $2,581. The
average cost in developed nations:
is $2,964. And they have healthier
populations.
The public option is critical to
control costs and act as a check on
private insurance companies because
no anti-trust regulations are
applicable to private insurers. Real
competition is currently stymied by
large national insurance companies
buying up smaller firms and creating
a monopoly.
In some states, a single company
may control over 83 percent of the
insurance market. Even lower premiums
are out of reach for millions
of Americans because of the lack
of competition. Family coverage,
even in large risk pools is $13,000
a year.
Baucus thinks co-ops would be
good (whispered into his ear by
the guy with the gun.) Companies
could sell across state lines. But
some states have regulations with
strong protections for consumers
and aggressive enforcement while
others do not.
If you buy a plan that is issued in
Wyoming and you live in California,
you are subject to the laws of
Wyoming if there is a dispute over
payment of claims. Older people
will pay more for coverage and
most will get fewer benefits. The
proposal will limit out–of-pocket
payments when you get sick, but
that will just be shifted back onto
the premiums. They call it sausage
making. I call it instant garbage.
The real solution is single payer.
Check it out at: en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Single-payer_health_care.
Sylvia Hampton is a resident of
Scripps Ranch
With permission from The Sun Signature.