Will It Be Affordable Universal Health Care or a Government Bailout for the Insurance Companies?

OBAMACARE: Will It Be Affordable Universal Health Care or a Government Bailout for the Insurance Companies?
By Miles Mogulescu
Huffington Post
June 10, 2009

There is a version of health care reform that would be very much to the liking of the for-profit health insurance industry and is very much in line with proposals being discussed by health insurance shills in Congress like Baucus and Grassley who have received huge campaign contributions from the for-profit health care industry.

• First, it would mandate that every uninsured American buy private health insurance or be fined by the IRS. This would provide the health insurance industry with 40-50 million new paying customers. (Obama argued against Hillary Clinton's proposals for such individual mandates in the Presidential debates, but now appears to be prepared to accept them as part of the price for insurance industry support for a health reform bill.)

• Second, it would provide partial subsidies to families who make less than two to three times the poverty level to buy private insurance, money that would go straight into the pockets of the for-profit insurance companies.

• Third, it would pay for this government subsidy by making workers pay income tax on their employer-provided health benefits. (John McCain supported this approach and Obama opposed it during the campaign, but Congressional opposition to other taxes to pay for health care reform may leave it as the last available option to Obama.) As Obama pointed out in his debates with McCain, this would lead many employers to drop health coverage for their employees and force them into the individual insurance market which is the most profitable sector for the insurance industry.

• Fourth, it would jettison the implementation of a public non-profit insurance option that might cut costs and provide serious competition to the private insurance industry, or more likely, include a neutered public insurance option that would be barred from seriously negotiating with providers for lower prices, and that might well benefit private insurers by offering a dumping ground for older and less healthy consumers whom private insurers don't want to insure, anyway.

The question now is, having taken single payer off the table, how far is the Obama administration and its progressive supporters--both in Congress and in the grassroots movement--willing to further compromise in order to say that they passed some kind of health reform bill? Will they continue to say that "everything is negotiable?" Or will they say that unless there is a robust public option, a viable means to finance subsidies to the uninsured to buy insurance, waivers to any individual mandate for those who can't afford insurance, and continued tax-deductibility of employer-provided health care, Obama will veto the bill, key House and Senate liberals will vote against the bill, and the progressive movement will oppose it?

Unless Obama, Congressional liberals, and the progressive movement are prepared to draw a line in the sand behind these key, non-negotiable, reform principals, the health industry lobby will eat their lunch, health care reform will turn into a government bailout for the insurance companies, and over the next few years the public may turn against Democrats who allowed such a flawed form of health care reform to become law. It won't be a matter of the "perfect being the enemy of the good" but of the bad being the enemy of the even worse.

Please read the complete article at:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20090610/cm_huffpost/213430


Obama didn't call for a bi-partisan healthcare bill today, unless I missed it, and that's good

On the "public option" the devil is in the details.

What kind of public option?

so why not slam Bills we have not read? Seriously.
Any Bill that mandates the purchase of products should be slammed, even the mention of such a thing should be slammed.

I don't feel each salvo/speculation is worthy of the invective-laced gnashing of teeth here. But, hey, knock yourself out.

think we should all treat any proposal that comes out of this with a good degree of skepticisim.

what the end result will be. I'm all for examining ideas as they are introduced, but no one has a crystal ball, even though they'd like to think so.

It is what it is and all the shots you take at it don't change the paradigm. And all the shots you take at the public option are preemptive speculation.

That the writer shouldn't discuss or present an opinion on taxing insurance benefits, the public option or private insurance companies?

Since we don't yet have a draft of the final Senate or House healthcare bill, any discussion, including any views you might have, should be considered "preemptive speculation" according to your logic. That being the case, I assume you have no views on the healthcare debate that you'd like to share with other DU'ers.

That's OK, but don't demand that everyone else withhold their comments and views on this discussion board. After all, this is a discussion board in case you didn't notice!

You wrote: " And all the shots you take at the public option are preemptive speculation."

It appears you are again commenting on posts without actually reading them! If you've read my post, you'd know I'm an advocate of single payer Medicare for All, however, I do support a strong public option that would challenge the private insurance industry and replace them.

Do you advocate anything or will you be waiting until after Congress passes healthcare legislation to make your views known?

What I haven't done is scour the internet for anything and everything slamming Democrats over a final bill that doesn't exist yet. I'll leave that to you.

The Republicans and Blue Dogs are throwing all kinds of crap at the wall to prevent competition with the private insurance companies including but not limited to the proposal of taxing employer-based healthcare benefits, the so-called trigger of the public option, and now co-ops.

It's a campaign that is worthy of comment but not to use as a cudgel politically by some on the left to beat up Democrats that have to operate within that mine field. This is a work in progress and the preemptive accusatory finger-pointing isn't helpful.

"The Republicans and Blue Dogs are throwing all kinds of crap at the wall to prevent competition"

So-called "blue dog Democrats" are Democrats and yet you object to others criticizing their attempts to gut a meaningful public option!

You seem confused.

So we agree on something.

Now will you be stalking me the rest of today until you find another post you can attack?

Oh dear. Can't abide by a dissenting opinion? No worries. DU admin is obviously fine with your one-note posting so you're good to go.

Bye.

Find someone else to stalk.

*snort*

I'll be their pets have better access to health care than a lot of Amercians.

The other day I estimated I had spent approximately $90,000 in health insurance premiums over the last 15 years before retiring and submitted claims totaling maybe $500. WTF happened to the rest of that money? I would hope it would still be there as I get older and need more care but I'll bet it's already gone for stock dividends and pay raises for the insurance company mucky mucks.

The insurance industry is facing a declining market as baby boomers move over to medicare in the coming years.

The insurance companies want access to those 50 million uninsured Americans.

We've had a lot of practice and experience with Wall Street and the banks, so maybe this is the way we're going with health care. I don't like it, it places the greed of big corps over the needs of the people, but that seems to be the way we're going...

You aren't allowed to ask questions!!!!!

62% of bankruptcies are from health problems (78% of which are insured people). 22K people die a year from denied treatment, and 1 in 4 Americans have to self ration care.

Thats gotta have some impact on social mobility.

as a psuedo "public option", knowing full well that it would NEVER be able to compete with the corporations the way that a true national public option would.

They will push this co-op shit, and if they get away with it, they'll claim "public option done, problem solved" and no REAL reform will ever happen.

Not. Fucking. Acceptable.

Pelosi rejects proposal to skirt government healthcare
By Alexander Bolton
Posted: 06/11/09 12:11 PM


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has rejected a Senate proposal floated in recent days to create privately-run healthcare cooperatives in place of government-run insurance plans.

Pelosi told reporters on Thursday morning that House Democrats want healthcare reform to include a government-run insurance option to ensure that all Americans can receive affordable healthcare.

“Not instead of a public option, no,” Pelosi said when asked about the proposal unveiled by some Senate Democrats to set up privately-run co-ops.

“In our house there is strong support for a public option,” Pelosi said.

more...

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pelosi-rejects-proposal-to-skirt-government-run-healthcare-2009-06-11.html

of Obama, but because of the cowardice of the Senate Democrats, many of them do not want to hear about public option (not to speak of single payer).