One of the biggest selling points of the healthcare reform legislation -- a reason why we are supposed to just accept the massive concessions to the insurance industry and drug companies -- has been the promise that the private insurers would finally be banned from the disgraceful practices of denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
For anyone not interested in slogging through the debate on the 500-odd amendments to the Baucus bill, it has become increasingly and painfully apparent that the healthcare legislation soon to emerge from at least the Senate will fall far short in reigning in out of control health care costs.
That lapse is especially ironic in that "affordability" is perhaps the only goal that seems to top everyone's to do list, from President Obama to the "keep the government hands off my (government-financed) Medicare" crowd.
But as long as our policy makers refuse to throw the elephant out of the room, the insurance company pirates and their predatory pricing practices, all their subsidies and tweaking will amount to little more than an umbrella in a hurricane.
It's time to stop talking about make believe death panels, and talk about the real ones.
Six of California's biggest insurance companies have rejected more than one in five claims the past seven years -- according to data the insurance giants, Blue Cross, PacifiCare, Kaiser Permanente, Health Net, Cigna, and Aetna report to the state Department of Managed Care.
Nothing better symbolizes the corruption of the debate about healthcare reform than the rhetoric about "government-run" healthcare. Or, for that matter, the related argument that we need a "uniquely American" solution which precludes a public system like Medicare for all.
Two reports that notably received scant coverage from either the media or even those advocating the public plan "option" in Congress, reveal the seldom told truth.
Medicare is a "uniquely American" solution, and it works.
Before you start celebrating the pending passage of a healthcare bill in Congress, you might want to make sure you have enough savings to offset the huge out of pocket costs coming your way.
Enough already on the handwringing over the plan to start taxing employee healthcare benefits.
The tax is not a threat to the type of reform plan expected to emerge from Congress. It's a central element -- to pay for the massive public bailout of the health insurance industry and as a backdoor way to cut costs by discouraging people from seeking medical care.
A common thread is emerging in the right wing response to healthcare reform. Its opponents aren't claiming that public healthcare will be bad. Rather, they are terrified that the new system will be so good that no citizen would buy expensive private insurance--or vote for politicians who wanted to take public insurance away.
The Obama team is sending clear signals that healthcare reform is a core economic issue, and the health insurance industry is becoming increasingly anxious by the future administration's determination to bring healthcare costs under control. Some Americans are seeing their healthcare premiums rising at four times the rate of inflation, if they have insurance at all. Healthcare reform is a pocketbook issue for all of us, according to the Obama team.
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