From the African T-shirt Factory (click image to buy)
This comment posted below this article, Public Option is Just Another Private Party – and We’re Not Invited, says it all about what is happening to the health care reform legislation:
mujeriego November 6th, 2009 3:53 pmHealth reform can never happen in the US until you have campaign finance reform.
As long as the insurance industry can throw millions at congressmen, congress will never consider any real reform. The basic problem is only greedy, power-hungry egoist scumbags tend to run for public office.
The US should change the motto from “In God We Trust” to “Fuck You, I Got Mine”
The thing that amazes me most about the health care reform debate is how much it exposes how very little our representatives actually represent the common good. Everyone with a functioning brain can see for themselves how our representatives are working for their corporate masters and not us. This health care bill, if it ever passes, is going to end up angering millions of people on both sides of the political spectrum. No preexisting condition clauses and no lifetime cap on benefits is not going to make up for millions of people getting hammered on insurance premiums or government fines. These things lurking in the House bill may also anger quite a few people:
- No insurance subsidized abortions.
- No state single payer programs.
- Allows insurers to charge twice as much for older people than younger people.
- Public Option premiums may be more than private plans thereby allowing private insurers to continue to gouge the system.
- Public Option does not take effect until 2013 giving the insurance companies 4 years to dismantle and/or sabotage its effectiveness. Provides millions of new customers to private insurers with no guarantee whatsoever that premiums will become more reasonable. Still will have high deductibles.
- Down the road if the Republicans or the insurance companies undermine the public option, everyone will still be required to carry insurance paid by them or their employer without any effective regulation of premiums or face a fine.
- Does not address the costs of over testing done by physicians.
Maybe all this will be a good thing. Maybe, just maybe, if people get angry enough it will divert attention to the causes rather than the symptoms of our failed government.
I think this list is only the tip of the iceberg as far as the problems are concerned. The major issue, however, is the insurance companies and what they will do. My guess it will be Medicare Part D on steriods with yearly jacking up of premiums. (I think Baird had his issues about that way back then as well … and he turned out to be right. {believe he expressed this at a town hall meeting he had at the Camas PD public meeting room.)
As an aside. A lot of folks have expressed their unhappiness with the end of what they call their Medicare which in reality is the taxpayer/medicare subsidized private insurance plans labeled “Medicare Advantage.”
This is a quote from the United HealthCare Insurance Company in the booklet “Turning 65?” they sponsor for AARP:
“What about HMO’s. Each year HMO’s re-evaluate their contracts with Medicare and can choose to drop out of the Medicare program at any time. Doctors can also leave the HMO at any time. Plus, HMO members are restricted to a network, which may limit their choices. But that is not the case with Medicare supplement plans.”
So the Advantage HMO plans are not so sweet as some believe…