Healthcare ‘Reform’ Appears to Magnify Power of Insurers, Big Pharma
In These Times
July 23, 2009
So what is emerging from all this? At President Obama’s news conference July 22, he notably neglected to commit himself to a vigorous “public option” that would expand Medicare.
Meanwhile, both the House and Senate health bills have so enfeebled the public option that it represents no threat, as Kip Sullivan insightfully points out. The public option was supposed to serve as a measuring stick by which to judge and discipline the for-profit insurance industry’s cost increases.
While consultants predicted up to 130 million clamoring to sign up for the public option, both the House and Senate bills permit no more than 10 million people to join the public option before 2019. Workers for large corporations will be ineligible now—and perhaps forever.
The insurance industry, on the other hand, gets an enormous boost with a mandate for all citizens to buy insurance, and government subsidies to pay whatever the insurers charge.
At the same time, the drug companies have just won bans on importing cheaper drugs from Canada and the federal government negotiating drug prices for all citizens, along with a 12-year exclusivity deal for biotech drugs.
The current House and Senate bills—carefully tailored to specifically avoid insurance and drug industry opposition because they are currently seen as omnipotent on Capitol Hill—will vastly expand their already-overwhelming political power.
Please read the complete article at:
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/4646/reform_plans_appear_to_magnify_power_of_insurers_big_pharma/