Recision Is Proof Of Why We Need A Public Option As A Bare Minimum (4.00 / 3)

It's also why they hate the public option.

Who'd buy health care that could be yanked when they really needed it when they could buy health care that wouldn't be yanked?

How's this for a sales pitch:

"Here, here's a parachute that might not open. You should buy it, because the free marker makes us free to die any time. You don't want to buy that government parachute that opens every time. It's so boring and predictable--Where's the fun in that? Not to mention it's socialistic and will enslave your soul. So what if capitalism kills you? You may be dead--But you're free!"

Yeah!  That's the ticket!

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 07:57:58 AM CDT

Proof that the Corporations are Running the Country (4.00 / 1)

The refusal of our elected representatives to even consider much less vote for a single payer system or even a public option shows that our government is being run by corporations — just as revered economist John Kenneth Galbraith asserted just before his death, and Ralph Nader has documented beyond refutation.

The refusal of Congress to create the health care system preferred by a majority of Americans shows that the problem lies much deeper than greed or inhumanity on the part of our lawmakers.

It is our corrupt electoral and legislative system itself that allows business and financial interests to buy the votes of our elected representatives via campaign contributions.

In the case of health care reform, the insurance companies have outright bought the votes of the Congressional representatives who sit on the committees that formulate the legislation and have veto power over single payer and public option initiatives.

According to  OpenSecrets.org, since 1989, the health insurance industry has given current members of Congress $39.5 million. Much of it has been channeled to the chairmen of committees that have veto power over proposals to reform health care.

Until voters get control of government, we the people will lose fight after fight, regardless of which party is in power.

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by: Nancy Bordier @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 11:15:45 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

The public option is, at best, a band-aid over the abscess (4.00 / 2)

Three reasons:

1. One argument for the public option is that it's a stepping stone to a rational, science-based system like single payer (like Sasketchewan). Unfortunately, the administration has already foreclosed that possibility. Kathleen Sibelius tells us that the legislation will be crafted specifically to avoid evolution into single payer.

2. Accepting the cost frame (and not the rights frame), single payer has administrative costs of 3%, vs. 30% for CEO salaries, profit, and call centers  under the market-based model of denying care for profit. Public option captures only a fraction of those savings, estimated at $350 billion a year. That's a lot of money to leave on the table.

3. "Public option" is already being framed as a tax on those who can afford insurance on behalf of those who cannot; that is, as a form of welfare. They might as well paint a giant bulls-eye on it, so that Versailles can constantly play political games with the subsidies for it and cut the subsidies and the program back, just like welfare. Meanwhile, what happens when the mandate goes through? People will be forced to buy insurance, and you can bet that price won't be going down. Meanwhile, the ability to pay for that insurance, for those dependent on subsidy, will certainly go down (see above, at Games, Political). And that's before we even get to the insurance companies gaming the system and treating the public option as dumping ground by forcing everybody unprofitable (the old, the poor, the sick) into it. The best way to keep the insurance companies honest is to abolish them entirely, so they can't buy  Congress again; a good way to keep them honest is to regulate them as heavily as they are regulated in, say, Germany; but those options are, in yet another exercise in open-ness and transparency, off the table.

Something is not always better than nothing. A band-aid over an abscess, for example, will only make the infection worse. Instead, the wound needs to be properly cleaned and dressed. The public option does no such thing. It is a FAIL in the making.

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

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by: lambert @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 12:16:44 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Legal Cost Cutting (4.00 / 1)

The reasons companies do this is because it is legal.  Even if a company didn't want to do it, its competitors are, so it is forced to do it to compete.  This is the nature of capitalism; it adapts perfectly to its given environment.

The public option doesn't actually solve this unless people really learn to understand how dangerous private insurance can be.  In fact, if the private insurers are allowed to keep up this practice, the cost savings provided by the public plan will be less impressive.

So assuming we don't go single payer, the more important component of all these plans is to move to community rating and disallow insurance plans from rejecting anyone for pre-existing conditions.  My understanding is even the shitty Senate plan as this change in place.

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by: Mark Matson @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 14:37:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Healthcare Congressional Ethics (0.00 / 0)

I fully support a public option but I also understand the moral reasoning that many members of Congress use in coming to the conclusion that the right thing to do is to cater to the insurance companies.

How do they reason?

1. The last attempt at health care reform failed because two of the most important "stakeholders" (to use Obama's term), namely the insurance companies and the medical establishment, were excluded from the process. Instead policy wonks were assigned the task. This exclusion is now seen as a big pragmatic mistake and ethically "undemocratic."

2. The main goals are to provide coverage for the currently excluded and to contain costs. Any solution we come up with to deliver these outcomes will be a great victory for the American people.

3. No plan will work without the active support of the insurance industry.

4. No one wants to see these companies doing mass lay-offs.

5. We have to be careful not to do anything to spook the fragile financial markets that might cause another plunge and result in further destruction to people's pension funds.

You can see where this moral reasoning is heading. Any attempt to persuade members of Congress to pass a public option needs to address how they think, not just attack them.

Unless progressive learn to address, with some empathy, the thinking/moral reasoning process of Congress, as the insurance lobbyists do so well, the insurance industry will win. My opinion about what will happen? There will be no public option. Instead the insurance companies will get government subsidies to enroll and keep enrolled the "exceptionally expensive cases." This would accomplish coverage for everyone and appear, on its face, to be the cheapest option.  

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by: Citizen0 @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 08:33:56 AM CDT

Not so (4.00 / 4)

The Clintons tried a Law and Order ploy.  They'd deal with either the insurance companies or the doctors.  The first to roll would be in; the laggard would be out.  The insurance companies dealt themselves in and then spent $150 million on Harry and Louise and stabbed "reform" in the back.

The Milton Friedman school of "economics" specifically excludes morals guaranteeing the worst ethics possible.  We are living through the robber barons one more time.  They will be stopped but the high cost is driven up by the conservadems.  The Dogs usually "represent" poor districts.  What a joke.  Represent?

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by: David Kowalski @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 08:53:33 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

If appeals to moral reasoning worked... (4.00 / 2)

... then single payer advocates would have been at the table from the get go, since that's the only possible good faith interpretation of Obama's moral commitment to open-ness and transparency.

What did work was pressure and civil disobedience. More like that, please.

Incidentally, HR 676 (the single payer bill) provides for transition assistance and retraining for insurance company personnel. Two obvious places for them to go are to (a) business and institutions that provide care, instead of killing people by denying it, and (b) working in the Electronic Medical Records field, which is about to boom, and where their extensive knowledge of medical coding will be a great advantage. Incidentally, last I checked, there were no mass layoffs in any of the other countries that adopted single payer. Do you have any evidence that such took place?

I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  

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by: lambert @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 12:23:29 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

"Reign of Terror", indeed! Doesn't the RICO act apply? (4.00 / 2)

I mean, really, if you look at the conduct of health insurers in that way, isn't there grounds for prosecution?

Any act of bribery, counterfeiting, theft, embezzlement, fraud, dealing in obscene matter, obstruction of justice, slavery, racketeering, gambling, money laundering, commission of murder-for-hire, and several other offenses covered under the Federal criminal code (Title 18)

Check! Widespread evidence of fraud. Contractually promised benefits are regularly not delivered.

The U.S. Supreme Court has instructed federal courts to follow the continuity-plus-relationship test in order to determine whether the facts of a specific case give rise to an established pattern. Predicate acts are related if they "have the same or similar purposes, results, participants, victims, or methods of commission, or otherwise are interrelated by distinguishing characteristics and are not isolated events."

Check! All those acts have the purpose of increasing the healthcare insurers' returns, victims are all who need expensive treatments, and the result always is that customers have to wait for their reimbursements for years, driving many of them into bankruptcy, and even some into a premature death.

Really, how can the widespread, regular denial of coverage be seen in another way than as a concerted effort at defrauding customers of their contractually promised benefits? Instead of negotiating with the offenders, their  criminal activity should be exposed and the DoJ should start investigating the issue!

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by: Gray @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 09:14:02 AM CDT

Must Carry at Standard Rates (4.00 / 2)

Insurers must be compelled to take all willing buyers at standard rates* per age group. No more picking and choosing and denying coverage. The nation should be treated as one big pool needing and deserving access to insurance -- and the pricing should be determined based on what's required to cover that pool. Entire underwriting and fraud departments could be replaced by a couple of actuaries.

We see a lot about 'must buy.' How about a 'must carry' provision?

* To be clear -- Insurers would still be allowed to create their own coverage plans and set their own pricing to offer in an open market against their competitor's plans/pricing, however any/every plan offered must accept any willing buyer, with people in each age group paying the same rate.

"Don't take much, does it, elected Democrats, to get your balls tucked up." Cf.

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by: Steve in Sacto @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 14:22:53 PM CDT

Why isn't this an ad? Now? (4.00 / 2)

Really it strikes me that this video, with your post title, should be a 60 second ad running in key states where Senators are especially bending over for the insurance industry. You know, Arkansas for one.

You don't even have to give specific cases or examples. Just show your title (Stop Killing People for Profits), show the video, show how much money health care companies have made from recission over the past five years ($300 million?), then state that without a strong public option health care reform will force us to buy insurance from companies that already admit they ditch paying policyholders so they can make a profit. Then ask the viewer to contact their senator and demand a strong public option, demand their senators stand up for our health instead of lobbyists who admit to denying care to paying policyholders. If there is time in the ad, show how much money their senators have gotten from these insurance companies and their opposition to a strong public plan.

If there's no money for ads, why not put it on YouTube and ask bloggers to link to it prominently on their sidebars? Ask people to contact the local media in key states to point them to the video and ask the same questions?

Seems like a no-brainer to me, a low tech yet powerful media campaign at an important moment in the health care debate. This is flat out outrageous behavior and to have it on videotape. Amazing.

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by: TSlavin @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 15:40:56 PM CDT

Second to last link in Natasha's last paragraph offers some ideas (4.00 / 1)

Down with Tyranny is raising money on Act Blue for Pelosi and the public option. I see the MoveOn anti-industry ad is also there - that's a one-minute 58-second YouTube web ad that could go viral. I wanted to post this quickly, then will head over to read all about it.

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by: Books Alive @ Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 19:33:52 PM CDT

[ Parent ]