posted
I didn't get to watch all of it but enough to think I got the gist of the conversation at the round table today....
I thought positions crystallized pretty well today and a lot was talked about that will help the public understand what's in the bills and where the parties disagree.
Opinions??
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quote:The “rapacious” behavior that Rockefeller condemns includes raising premiums to increase their profits, denying coverage to women who have had Caesarean section pregnancies, and rescinding coverage of customers for frivolous reasons. Kevin Drum notes that Republican “have been relentlessly trying to talk about everything but this. They’ve barely acknowledged the preexisting conditions problem at all.”
Why is it that everyone complaining about the 'rapacious behavior' seems to forget that these companies are 'for profit'?
Their objective is to make money...not provide humanitarian services...
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It was fairly evident at a couple points that Obama was frustrated by the lack of admission of possible bipartisan working points by those who chose to attend.
It will be interesting to see if there is anyone in the house/senate who will actually stick their necks out to work on a piece of the legislation or if the battle line are drawn and we just wait until the Dems push it through via reconciliation.
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quote:The “rapacious” behavior that Rockefeller condemns includes raising premiums to increase their profits, denying coverage to women who have had Caesarean section pregnancies, and rescinding coverage of customers for frivolous reasons. Kevin Drum notes that Republican “have been relentlessly trying to talk about everything but this. They’ve barely acknowledged the preexisting conditions problem at all.”
Why is it that everyone complaining about the 'rapacious behavior' seems to forget that these companies are 'for profit'?
Their objective is to make money...not provide humanitarian services...
so SF, tell me who is supposed to pay for the care of the "uninsurable"?
taxpayers already pay, and we do that because we are basically decent.
so, as i've pointed out many times here before? we taxpayers subsidise the insurance co's. why would we do that?
oh yeah, because there's no public option
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It's a valid question Seek. Is it wrong for a for-profit to try and maximize it's profit ratio?
Part of why some of us wonder if government run universal healthcare isn't a better option is precisely that question only turned about. Is it right for a company to attempt to increase profitability at the expense of the fiscal and physical health of its clients?
quote:Health Care for America Now's study also highlighted the following statistics:
* The five largest insurance firms firms made $12.2 billion, an increase of $4.4 billion, or 56 percent, from 2008. * Four out of the five companies saw earnings increases, with CIGNA’s profits jumping 346 percent. * The companies provided private insurance coverage to 2.7 million fewer people than the year before. * Four out of the five companies insured fewer people through private coverage. UnitedHealth alone insured 1.7 million fewer people through employer-based or individual coverage. * All but one of the five companies increased the number of people they covered through public insurance programs (Medicaid, CHIP and Medicare). UnitedHealth added 680,000 people in public plans. * The proportion of premium dollars spent on health care expenses went down for three of the five firms, with higher proportions going to administrative expenses and profits.
P.S. According to the President more people are insured under government programs this year then under private plans. I haven't fact checked that yet though.
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Remember the 11th Commandment? "You do, too, know what I'm talking about."
I swear, it's like trying to reason with teenagers, when they know they're caught--and they get that glazed-over expression.
Anyway, the best thing I've seen recently is from Fortune, an interview with a doctor/CEO at a well known hospital in Cleveland. Some takeaways (some stuff, you'll have to read the interview):
quote:It's absolutely legitimate, and on top of that there's no incentive to stay well.
quote:Let's take obesity. It accounts for 10% of the cost of health care in the U.S. -- we will never be able to control the cost of health care until we begin to control the epidemic of obesity.
quote:Three things -- smoking, diet, and lack of exercise -- cause 40% of premature deaths in the U.S. They contribute to 70% of the chronic diseases, things like emphysema and heart disease. And that's 75% of the cost of health care. It's huge!
quote:Right now hospitals lose about 5% on treating Medicare patients and about 14% on Medicaid patients. If we push more people into the Medicare and Medicaid categories and decrease the amounts that private insurers pay, that's going to be a problem for hospitals. I tell people at our hospital that we have to figure out how to treat people more efficiently with a higher quality.
Notice--he doesn't attack Medicare/caid
quote:And part of the problem in health care is we really didn't have the numbers. We still don't have the numbers in lots of ways.
quote:Most people don't realize that we are organized in a very different way -- very few hospitals are organized the way we are. First, all of us have salaries. It doesn't make any difference, if I'm a cardiac surgeon, whether I do two heart operations a day or four. I take home the same amount of money at the end of the week. So there's no incentive to do extra tests or any of that.
Second, we all have one-year contracts, and we have annual professional reviews. So the quality of the doctors is controlled, there's no tenure, and if you don't make it, you don't get a pay raise or you may not stay. That is one of the most important things we do. It's quite different from most places, where doctors can practice for as long as they want to practice.
Also, interestingly, we are physician-led, which is quite different from most medical organizations, which may have an administrator running the hospital and a dean running the medical school. This is more like a corporation, and the CEO is a doctor. The chief of staff is a doctor, and the CIO is a doctor.
quote:so SF, tell me who is supposed to pay for the care of the "uninsurable"?
I would answer that one, Glass, but you already did...
quote:taxpayers already pay,
And I even agree with why...
quote:and we do that because we are basically decent.
Now, stop for a minute and let that last part percolate for a minute...we do it because we (as a society) feel that it should be done. If the Dems just wanted to create an expanded version of Medicare that would cover all of the 'uninsurables' I would say more power to them...IF it was part of a budgeted spending plan that didn't run up our national debt to achieve. As I have outlined in other threads, if Big G stayed within its budget, and through prioritization ranked public health care as high enough to receive funding, I'm all for it.
My beef is when they try to make the Insurance companies take people onto their roles that will NEVER produce a profit. The insurance model is based on the assumption that they will take in more money than they pay out. That's the only way the model works. To change that model destroys its viability and it will collapse.
As far as the assertion that we, the taxpayer, are subsidizing the insurers...that's (again) a false premise. The 'uninsurable' isn't part of the companies' pool. That means that they don't have to pay for their care, yes. But it also means that they aren't receiving money from them either. That's like saying that local 'feed the hungry' programs are subsidizing McDonalds. It's not McDonalds job or intent to feed everyone, only those that pay for the service. Same with Insurers. They never intend to cover everyone, only those they choose to do business with.
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The insurance model is based on the assumption that they will take in more money than they pay out. That's the only way the model works. To change that model destroys its viability and it will collapse.
remember when you told me that "entitlements" are going to drive US bankrupt and i agreed? these medical costs are a major part of the entitlements that are going to BK US.
we already agree that "we do it because we (as a society) feel that it should be done." so why don't we just do it right? this way the costs are born up front and honestly, not buried in a deficit for children and their children to pay in the form of taxes.
As far as the assertion that we, the taxpayer, are subsidizing the insurers...that's (again) a false premise.
no it isn't. in essence? the insurance co's are allowed to discriminate in order to make profit. if we pass laws forcing them to offer the same policies to everybody? then the costs would also be passed along equally wouldn't it? no, instead they choose which customers they want...
according to the words of the GOP's i heard at the summit meeting, (i listened to it all while i was working) the GOP agrees that we should pass a law requiring insurance co's to stop declining new customers based on previous conditions and stop rescinding existing policies...
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Big, let me break your response into two parts if I may...
quote:Part of why some of us wonder if government run universal healthcare isn't a better option is precisely that question only turned about.
The answer to that is based on what you mean by better. If by better you mean 'covers more people', then the answer is probably yes. But the current process isn't about simply covering more people. It's about soaking profitable companies to cover more people. The Democratic plans (in either version) are trying to force private companies to pay for the health care instead of the taxpayer. As I stated in my post to Glass, that's the part I disagree with. Not the expansion of health care to the less fortunate, but the offloading of the burden that is, by right, society's if anyone's.
Now, to the second part...
quote: Is it right for a company to attempt to increase profitability at the expense of the fiscal and physical health of its clients?
Tex and I went the rounds on this part within this very thread and I stick by my previous stated stance...
Now. If some companies are truly abusing this clause and simply using it to get out of an honestly entered into contract, then by all means run them up the flag pole and sue the crap out of them.
I apply the same to your situation. If they broke contract with you...SUE THE #$#$ OUT OF THEM. I meant that when I wrote it. If they failed to live up to the contractual agreement that they entered into with you then litigate till they do.
If the insurers either choose not to do business with someone due to the negative profitability, or rescind their coverage through contractually agreed to clauses, then what business does the Government have interfering?
If, however, they break faith with a client or don't live up to their agreed to coverage, then litigation is the corrective path...not legislation.
Finally, your postscript...
quote:P.S. According to the President more people are insured under government programs this year then under private plans. I haven't fact checked that yet though.
I have to say that even if it is true...so what. That means that those people aren't paying into the insurance companies. Why should they get service without payment?
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quote:remember when you told me that "entitlements" are going to drive US bankrupt and i agreed? these medical costs are a major part of the entitlements that are going to BK US.
I know, Glass, I know. But how it running the Insurance companies out of business (which forcing unprofitability on them will do) and bringing everyone onto the Government plan going to help that downward spiral?
quote:we already agree that "we do it because we (as a society) feel that it should be done." so why don't we just do it right? this way the costs are born up front and honestly, not buried in a deficit for children and their children to pay in the form of taxes.
Again, let's do it. But let's do it right, both financially and morally. If we as a society want to cover everyone, make Medicare into a publicly funded insurer available to everyone. Allocate the needed funding and simply do it. Don't go offloading the burden onto private companies through force. Just choose to do it as a nation and pay for it as a nation.
quote:the insurance co's are allowed to discriminate in order to make profit
I don't see it that way, Glass. Companies have to be able to choose with whom they do business to maintain profitability. To force them to take losses (which pre-existing condition-ers are) can only end one of two ways: higher premiums for everyone or the collapse of the business. To date, noone on this board has disputed this because it is absolutely unavoidable. One or the other has to happen.
Again, it's not their job to cover everyone...it's ours...
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now that suits are in the discussion? i think it's a good time to point out that doctors working under the umbrella of a public option would also be immune to liability. that would be tort reform in big way...
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insurance involved in health care is insane they are being left in for a few more years as a gift. They are crooks and we are forced into there hands.They don't have to worry if they are making money or not they can pack it in and leave as far as I care and most doctors have pretty much the same attitude to.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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the way i see this whole battle shaping up?
the insurance co's have been villified more than they deserve. they can and will absorb the "uninsurable" if forced to.
they'll charge everybody more, until doctors themselves are held accountable for what they are doing.
they blame tort on all these tests they perform, well those tests are profitable. I have refused treatmetns and or tests quite a few times, some of the doctors were pricks about it, i found others.
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Ray..Pagan and I already hit on this part too...in this thread...
quote:They are crooks and we are forced into there hands.
You're not forced into anything. You don't want to pay them their due premiums? Don't. Noone is forcing you. Just start saving your pennies and get ready to pay for medical expenses yourself. That's your right...for now. (shrug)
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: the way i see this whole battle shaping up?
the insurance co's have been villified more than they deserve. they can and will absorb the "uninsurable" if forced to.
they'll charge everybody more, until doctors themselves are held accountable for what they are doing.
they blame tort on all these tests they perform, well those tests are profitable. I have refused treatmetns and or tests quite a few times, some of the doctors were pricks about it, i found others.
Lest you have forgotten, Glass...under the current 'exchange' plans...there will be caps on insurance premium hikes.
The Insurance companies won't be allowed to compensate for the influx of uninsurables...
They WILL go out of business under these plans.
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the Congress has a pretty good exchange plan, i am familiar with how it works and they are doing quite well.
my understanding is that the law would offer the same plans as the Congress already enjoys, yet "everybody" says it's bad. Congress likes what they have.
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quote:Now, stop for a minute and let that last part percolate for a minute...we do it because we (as a society) feel that it should be done. If the Dems just wanted to create an expanded version of Medicare that would cover all of the 'uninsurables' I would say more power to them...IF it was part of a budgeted spending plan that didn't run up our national debt to achieve. As I have outlined in other threads, if Big G stayed within its budget, and through prioritization ranked public health care as high enough to receive funding, I'm all for it.
That's not bad. lol, I don't hate that.
What's wrong with that, as a starting place?
Now, listen, I still smoke and drank and occasionally raise a lil hell.
I don't cook with salt or trans fats. I get plenty of exercise in good weather, so right now I'm a lil overweight. I don't smoke much pot anymore, but when I do, I'd pay a little tax to support health care--and also to support a home-grown industry that sucks the violence outta Juarez and Mexico et al.
That being said, what's wrong with a "tax" on unhealthy products? Instead of the BS taxes on tobacco, earmark them for health care. Same with trans fats, etc... Give healthy-veggie producers a break over hormone-injecting meat producers.
Extend it all the way to crap going into the landfills.
Really, accountants are good at this stuff--you could *not* pay tax on a healthy salad from Mickey D's, but pay your share when gotta have a triple-cheesy double-cow.
I'm reminded of Amory Lovins: "do an energy audit."
-------------------- Nashoba Holba Chepulechi Adventures in microcapitalism...
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: the way i see this whole battle shaping up?
the insurance co's have been villified more than they deserve. they can and will absorb the "uninsurable" if forced to.
they'll charge everybody more, until doctors themselves are held accountable for what they are doing.
they blame tort on all these tests they perform, well those tests are profitable. I have refused treatmetns and or tests quite a few times, some of the doctors were pricks about it, i found others.
Lest you have forgotten, Glass...under the current 'exchange' plans...there will be caps on insurance premium hikes.
The Insurance companies won't be allowed to compensate for the influx of uninsurables...
They WILL go out of business under these plans.
what *current plans* ???
It's all BS and clusterphuk, so far
-------------------- Nashoba Holba Chepulechi Adventures in microcapitalism...
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(2) ANNUAL LIMITATION ON DEDUCTIBLES FOR EMPLOYER SPONSORED PLANS (A) IN GENERAL .—In the case of a health plan offered in the small group market, the deductible under the plan shall not exceed—(i) $2,000 in the case of a plan covering a single individual; and(ii) $4,000 in the case of any other plan. The amounts under clauses (i) and (ii) may be increased by the maximum amount of reimbursement which is reasonably available to a participant under a flexible spending arrangement described in section 106(c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (determined without regard to any salary reduction arrangement).
.....
(4) PREMIUM ADJUSTMENT PERCENTAGE .—For purposes of paragraphs (1)(B)(i) and (2)(B)(i), the premium adjustment percentage for any calendar year is the percentage (if any) by which the average per capita premium for health insurance coverage in the United States for the preceding calendar year (as estimated by the Secretary no later than October 1 of such preceding calendar year) exceeds such average per capita premium for 2013 (as determined by the Secretary).
.....
(5) PREMIUMS .— 16(A) PREMIUMS SUFFICIENT TO COVERCOSTS .—The Secretary shall establish geographically adjusted premium rates in an amount sufficient to cover expected costs (including claims and administrative costs) using methods in general use by qualified health plans.
.........
Just pull up this link and do a search document for premiums, Glass. It's loaded with restrictions and outright price setting by the Secretary.
As for what's wrong with starting there...nothing.
quote:what *current plans* ???
It's all BS and clusterphuk, so far
I'd agree with that assessment, Tex. But I'm referring to the Bills already passed in both houses of Congress. They are three votes away from becoming the law of the land.
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(2) ANNUAL LIMITATION ON DEDUCTIBLES FOR EMPLOYER SPONSORED PLANS (A) IN GENERAL .—In the case of a health plan offered in the small group market, the deductible under the plan shall not exceed—(i) $2,000 in the case of a plan covering a single individual; and(ii) $4,000 in the case of any other plan. The amounts under clauses (i) and (ii) may be increased by the maximum amount of reimbursement which is reasonably available to a participant under a flexible spending arrangement described in section 106(c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (determined without regard to any salary reduction arrangement).
.....
(4) PREMIUM ADJUSTMENT PERCENTAGE .—For purposes of paragraphs (1)(B)(i) and (2)(B)(i), the premium adjustment percentage for any calendar year is the percentage (if any) by which the average per capita premium for health insurance coverage in the United States for the preceding calendar year (as estimated by the Secretary no later than October 1 of such preceding calendar year) exceeds such average per capita premium for 2013 (as determined by the Secretary).
.....
(5) PREMIUMS .— 16(A) PREMIUMS SUFFICIENT TO COVERCOSTS .—The Secretary shall establish geographically adjusted premium rates in an amount sufficient to cover expected costs (including claims and administrative costs) using methods in general use by qualified health plans.
.........
Just pull up this link and do a search document for premiums, Glass. It's loaded with restrictions and outright price setting by the Secretary.
OK, now do a search for state laws making the same determinations. You will find that these laws are standard. Instead of the Secretary making the ruling? It will be the State insurance Commission(er)...
selling insurance across state lines will create a huge debate between states over whether or not the state of the insurance buyer has control of the rules or the state of the seller has control of the rules.
assuming the rule will be "business favorable" as you seem to be the proponent of? then you will end up with all insurance coming out of one or two states that have the least restrictive laws that favor the screwing of customers.
it's the same argument used to kill the public option.
if you think i'm wrong? look at the credit card business.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.
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quote:Originally posted by SeekingFreedom: Being sick is not,yet, a recognized disability, Glass.
face it, the insurance co's are not denying coverage to people that are merely sick. nor are they rescinding people for having the flu....
if cancer is not a disability? then please define what it really is....
cuz that's who is being dumped, people with health care problems that are expensive.
1. When is diabetes a disability under the ADA?
Diabetes is a disability when it substantially limits one or more of a person's major life activities. Major life activities are basic activities that an average person can perform with little or no difficulty, such as eating or caring for oneself. Diabetes also is a disability when it causes side effects or complications that substantially limit a major life activity. Even if diabetes is not currently substantially limiting because it is controlled by diet, exercise, oral medication, and/or insulin, and there are no serious side effects, the condition may be a disability because it was substantially limiting in the past (i.e., before it was diagnosed and adequately treated). Finally, diabetes is a disability when it does not significantly affect a person's everyday activities, but the employer treats the individual as if it does. For example, an employer may assume that a person is totally unable to work because he has diabetes. Under the ADA, the determination of whether an individual has a disability is made on a case-by-case basis.
The answer to that is based on what you mean by better. If by better you mean 'covers more people', then the answer is probably yes. But the current process isn't about simply covering more people. It's about soaking profitable companies to cover more people. The Democratic plans (in either version) are trying to force private companies to pay for the health care instead of the taxpayer. As I stated in my post to Glass, that's the part I disagree with. Not the expansion of health care to the less fortunate, but the offloading of the burden that is, by right, society's if anyone's.
Your response to Glass in your second post...
quote:Again, let's do it. But let's do it right, both financially and morally. If we as a society want to cover everyone, make Medicare into a publicly funded insurer available to everyone. Allocate the needed funding and simply do it. Don't go offloading the burden onto private companies through force. Just choose to do it as a nation and pay for it as a nation.
To my mind you just made a very compelling argument for a public option Seek, which last month you were saying would destroy the insurance business. On a personal note I agree that would be better but our pro-business conservative friends stuck up for the industry so now that isn't going to happen.
Instead we are going to regulate the current industry in their administration of national healthcare and see if they can make it work and keep it profitable. If they can great. If they can't then we look at the evidence and figure out what they did wrong and create a new plan.
This is what happens when lies are told. Sometimes they stop forward action, sometimes they just skew the trajectory. In this I agree (less vehemently) with Ray. Those who fought for status quo using unethical tactics may have bought the industry a little time but in the process have ensured a painful transition for the healthful industry sector IMO and gave the nation a worse health plan in the bargain. Say La Vie. You reap what you sow.
On another note: Tex, I agree with you. Costs may go down some with better administrative practices at the top but it won't be until we change the process at ground level that true savings are seen. A national campaign promoting healthy living with the willingness to tax unhealthy activities and foodstuffs would do much to help.
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Seeking Freedom says you are not bound to health coverage just don't pay. What a bright statement if you are not wealthy where do you go. And if this weren't trure why do the ins co.s fight a public option so hard?
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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February 26, 2010 The Cost of Doing Nothing on Health CareBy REED ABELSON “Hands off my health care,” goes one strain of populist sentiment.
But what if?
Suppose Congress and President Obama fail to overhaul the system now, or just tinker around the edges, or start over, as the Republicans propose — despite the Democrats’ latest and possibly last big push that began last week at a marathon televised forum in Washington.
Then “my health care” stays the same, right?
Far from it, health policy analysts and economists of nearly every ideological persuasion agree. The unrelenting rise in medical costs is likely to wreak havoc within the system and beyond it, and pretty much everyone will be affected, directly or indirectly.
“People think if we do nothing, we will have what we have now,” said Karen Davis, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health care research group in New York. “In fact, what we will have is a substantial deterioration in what we have.”
Nearly every mainstream analysis calls for medical costs to continue to climb over the next decade, outpacing the growth in the overall economy and certainly increasing faster than the average paycheck. Those higher costs will translate into higher premiums, which will mean fewer individuals and businesses will be able to afford insurance coverage. More of everyone’s dollar will go to health care, and government programs like Medicare and Medicaid will struggle to find the money to operate.
Policy makers, in the end, may be forced to address the issue.
“It will break all of our banks if we do nothing,” said Peter V. Lee, who oversees national health policy for the Pacific Business Group on Health, which represents employers that offer coverage to workers. “It is a course that is literally bankrupting the federal government and businesses and individuals across the country.”
Even those families that enjoy generous insurance now are likely to see the cost of those benefits escalate. The typical price of family coverage now runs about $13,000 a year, but premiums are expected to nearly double, to $24,000, by 2020, according to the Commonwealth Fund. That equals nearly a quarter of the median family income today.
While some employers will continue to contribute the lion’s share of those premiums, there will be less money for employees in the form of raises or bonuses.
“It’s also cramping our economic growth,” said Frank McArdle, a consultant with Hewitt Associates, which advises large employers and reported on the need for change for the Business Roundtable, an association of C.E.O.’s at major companies. Spending so much on health care is “really a waste of people’s money,” Mr. McArdle said.
The higher premiums will also persuade more businesses, especially smaller ones, to decide not to offer insurance. More people who buy coverage on their own or are asked to pay a large share of premiums will find the price too high. It doesn’t take too many 39-percent increases, like the recent one proposed in California that has garnered so much attention, to put insurance out of reach.
“We have an affordability problem that is moving up through the middle class now,” said Paul B. Ginsburg, the president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonprofit Washington research group.
While estimates vary, the number of people without insurance is expected to increase by more than a million a year, said Ron Pollack, the executive director of Families USA, a Washington consumer advocacy group that favors the Democrats’ approach. The Urban Institute, for example, predicts that the number of uninsured individuals will increase from about 49 million today to between 57 million and 66 million by 2019. The Democrats’ plan is expected to cover as many as 30 million individuals who now are uninsured.
There will be a cost in lives, too. Mr. Pollack’s organization estimates that as many as 275,000 people will die prematurely over the next 10 years because they do not have insurance. Even people with insurance will find their coverage providing much less protection from financial catastrophe than it does now. Individuals will pay significantly more in deductibles and co-payments, for example. “More and more families will experience huge debts and bankruptcies,” Mr. Pollack said.
Federal and state governments will also feel the squeeze. Medicare, the federal program for the elderly, is already the subject of much hand-wringing as its spending balloons. Medicaid, a joint program of the federal government and the states, is already struggling as states try to balance budgets hit hard by the economic downturn. Many states may be forced to cut benefits sharply as well as reduce financing for community health centers and state hospitals that serve the poor.
“I think we’ll just see the decline of public services,” said John Holahan, the director of the Health Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
Exactly how politicians, or anyone else, will react to the increasing pressures on the system is anyone’s guess. If the system actually collapses, could there be a movement to adopt a government-run system, something like Medicare for all, where the whole health care system would be much more heavily regulated?
Or maybe employers would take up the effort to figure out a better way of providing coverage.
The states may also step up their role. Some may try to follow the lead of Massachusetts, which overhauled its own insurance market for individuals and small businesses, while others may try a series of regulatory fixes. A state senator in New Hampshire, for example, recently introduced legislation that regulates hospital prices in a fashion similar to an approach favored in Maryland.
What seems unlikely, say policy analysts, is that Congress would try to pass anything nearly as ambitious as the bills that went through the House and Senate last year.
“If we fail this time, you’re not going to get this Congress to take this up on a big scale,” said Len Nichols, a health policy analyst at George Mason University who says he thinks the Democrats should go ahead and pass legislation.
But few policy analysts think Congress can afford to do absolutely nothing. Lawmakers are instead likely to try a series of smaller fixes, said Stuart Butler, a health policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a research group that favors market solutions over a larger government role.
After President Bill Clinton failed to get Congress to pass his health care bill in 1994, Republicans, who then had substantial victories in the House and Senate, worked with him to pass legislation like the health care privacy bill, a children’s health insurance program and the Balanced Budget Act, which contained significant changes to the Medicare program. Under President George W. Bush, the Republicans went on to pass a drug benefit under Medicare. “In the space of less than 10 years, you have several major bills,” Mr. Butler said.
If nothing passes now, Mr. Butler says he thinks Congress will tackle narrower areas, like insurance regulation, to make it easier for people with pre-existing medical conditions to find coverage, or maybe it will try another expansion of Medicaid or the children’s program.
But President Obama clearly prefers passage of a broader bill. In wrapping up Thursday’s session with lawmakers, he and other Democrats warned that an incremental approach was likely to provide too little relief to the people already feeling the effects of a broken system. “It turns out that baby steps don’t get you to the place that people need to go,” he said.
And even some people without a partisan point to make argue that the series of bills passed in the last 15 years have not made enough of a dent in slowing down medical costs. “We’ve had a lot of incremental reforms already,” said Mr. McArdle, the Hewitt consultant.
And many argue that putting off the inevitable has an additional cost. The Commonwealth Fund estimates that the nation would be spending hundreds of billions of dollars less than it does today if any of the health care legislation proposed by previous administrations had been enacted, assuming that they reduced costs by about 1.5 percentage points. If President Nixon’s plan had passed, the United States might be spending a trillion dollars a year less than it does now, and President Clinton’s plan would have reduced spending by some $500 billion a year.
“It makes a huge difference over a long period of time,” said Ms. Davis of the Commonwealth Fund.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
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quote:To my mind you just made a very compelling argument for a public option Seek, which last month you were saying would destroy the insurance business.
I'm not against a public funded health care program, Big. A public option, if you will. What I'm against, previously and still, is forcing the insurance companies to abide by rules that will drive them out of business. If we, as a people, want a public option, do it. But don't expect 'for profits' to have to run by 'not for profit' standards.
It's the mandatory rules of the current exchange plan that I object to.
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