Choose a Side
ByOver at Daily Kos, Darcy Burner poses this challenge:
Next week, there’s going to be a test in Congress. A real litmus test about whose side various Representatives and Senators are on. It’s a stunningly straightforward bill – only two pages long – that would simply remove the antitrust exemption for health insurers. It would keep insurers from being able to collude and price fix, requiring them to compete in the marketplace for business.
Unlike nearly everything else that’s been done in the last year, this bill is completely uncompromised – no deals have been cut to water down the bill in favor of health insurance companies. It is an unambiguously populist bill, and a clean cut against corporatism. It’s building off of work that key progressives in the House, including Reps. DeFazio, Slaughter, and DeGette, have been teeing up for years.
Assuming the Perriello-Markey bill makes it onto the floor, no one in Congress should be allowed to duck their vote for the insurance companies and against their constituents. Hagan, Shuler and the rest of NC’s delegation should know, as Darcy explains, Vote against this bill, and it means you’re in the pocket of the insurance companies.
As Digby said, “The campaign ads write themselves, don’t they?”
Choose a side. We’ve already chosen.
30 Comments
February 8th, 2010 at 8:05 am
Wouldn’t it be nice if every bill were as clean? No riders, no irrelevancies. It’s easy to see that complicated problems can often require more complicated solutions, but one can wish.
The upcoming vote on “don’t ask, don’t tell” should be good too – though it’s a bit further out. Obama waited until this election year to pin the GOP with that one. If they vote to continue the policy they satisfy their base and repel the majority of Americans, if they vote to end it they infuriate their base. Sweet.
February 8th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I wonder how the Tea Bag crowd feels about this.
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February 8th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
My phone calls and e-mails went out shortly after reading your post and doing a bit of research.
Thanks for posting the information and giving us a “head’s up!”
February 8th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Going back to narrative, this vote has to be seen in a larger context. This vote is about what system we believe in. Either we believe in capitalism, with its competitive system or we believe in corporatism, a form of collectivism little different than any other like socialism and communism. Glenn Beck would like you to believe that Progressive’s desire for health care reform is socialist. And this socialism is the same as National Socialism or Stalinism. (By the way, Glenn makes really big, irresponsible leaps of logic and facts to make his argument.) C’mon Glenn, are you ready to restore competition to our “free market” economy? Will it be Democrats who believe in competitive free enterprise more than Republicans?
February 8th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
I don’t care if Congress repeals the antitrust exemption for health insurance companies but I do question the attempt to demonize these companies. As you are probably aware, price fixing and other noncompetitive activities are already illegal under state laws so some politically ambitious state AG (ie. Andrew Cuomo or others) would have already filed suit if that were the case. Those in favor of the exemption point out that if it were repealed the likely effect would be to eliminate small and medium sized health insurers from the business since the sharing of risk pool data saves these companies tons of money. If they were forced to develop this data unilaterally, it probably would be cost prohibitive.
The real problem with the health insurance industry is there isn’t enough competition. For example, in NC Blue Cross and United control over 80% of the market, which offers less choices for patients and places hospitals and doctors in a very difficult bargaining position. Part of this can be explained by the barriers NC and other states insurance laws place on entry into the market.
But what I really don’t understand is why some folks like to demonize insurance companies. If we eliminate private health insurance companies profits, it would pay for two days of medical care in the USA. Health insurance companies greed and avarice cannot adequately explain the majority of the skyrocketing cost of healthcare.
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February 8th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Nathan,
I think the “demonization” comes in large part from story after story after story of people being dropped for pre-existing conditions, of health care bankruptcies, of denied treatments, and people who die in their homes rather than seek out health care because they’re afraid of the costs they’ll incur. There are stories with happy endings as well, but for some reason folks like health insurance companies that will… ensure your health care.
This was one of the central arguments for the public option. But privateers didn’t like competing with a government plan. I guess they figured they couldn’t do better, couldn’t compete.
BC/BS spent a lot of premium profit in an advertising campaign against the public option and health care reform in general. That’s the kind of stuff that leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths.
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February 8th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
We already have a public option, medicare and medicaid, and anyone who understands government budgets realizes these programs are going to bankrupt the country. So this is the argument against the public option. It is not a liberal or conservative viewpoint, its mathematics.
I understand there are many horror stories with pre existing conditions and many other cases were people have gotten the shaft but that still doesn’t change the basic fact that the problems with our healthcare system are not materially the result of the private health insurance industry. I would fault my gop friends with their arguments against “rationing” care (we ration everything, if we didn’t I would eat at Outback every night) but it also seems like my dem friends don’t fully get it that we cannot afford the level of tax increases to fund unlimited healthcare for all.
I do understand the politics, polls show people hate health insurance companies (I don’t like them, I have to write them a check every month) so we change the terminology from “health care reform” to “health insurance reform” and we introduce bills like this one to stir passions instead of encouraging rational dialogue.
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February 8th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
How is it that Medicaid/Medicare are the programs that are going to bankrupt the country? I am guessing we spend far more on the defense budget, yet you choose to single out these programs (one that aren’t dedicated to blowing people up) as the programs that are going to “bankrupt the country?” That is pretty selective math.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Nathan, how refreshing to see you visit here. Thank you. You can’t simply poo-poo the pre-existing condition issue away like that. Yes, it IS the insurance industry’s fault. Well, and Republicans
And you can’t call our current government support system a “public option”. It would be a public option if everyone could join, but they can’t. Over 40,000 people die in this country every year because of their inability to seek medical care. We are near the bottom of the list in the civilized world in the quality of care for our general population. These aren’t numbers, these are people.
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February 8th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
That’s because Medicaid and Medicare are growing at over twice the rate of inflation. The DOD budget is not going to grow at that rate for decades on end. By 2030 interest on the federal debt & entitilements (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) will account for over 100% of the entire federal budget. Social Security is relatively easy to solve, the other stuff is very tough.
M&M are growing because health care cost are growing so rapidly along with our demographics (we’re getting older) which increases our utilization for health care services and we are living much older. The fastest growing demographic is the 100 year old plus population, just ask Willard Scott!
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February 8th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
I don’t know if I would call a country that spends more than the rest of the world combined on military spending, yet can’t offer a basic human right (yes, I consider health care such) to all its citizens civilized. But that’s just me, I’ve got notions.
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February 8th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Shad,
You notion-haver.
All y’all,
Good conversation to have. I’d say something intelligent, but I’ve got to save up my smarts for tying my shoes in the morning. Carry on.
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February 8th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
I’ll try to say one smart thing, and then it’s into my barium chamber.
You can spot the philosophical divide at one glance. Would you rather pay Blue Cross/Blue Shield for your health insurance, or would rather pay taxes for a public option? What if the taxes are cheaper than the premiums?
Some find giving their money to private companies more palatable than giving less of their money to government to do the same thing. Having been to other countries and experienced their health care systems, I’m not at all uncomfortable with the idea of a public option and private companies living side by side in competitive harmony.
Knowing that tens of millions are uninsured because they can’t afford health care also figures into my thinking, but that’s another point to make and I’m all out of smarts.
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February 8th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
The saddest part g? You wear loafers.
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February 8th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
The lives are important. So are the economics. Which you value more says something about who (or what) you are. Which do corporations — not just insurance companies — value more?
The question is who is to be in charge? One man, one vote is meaningless when, as Rep. Marcy Kaptur said of congress, “The people here really aren’t in charge,” meaning Wall Street is. There’s a lot of lost democracy to be retaken. Every little bit helps.
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February 8th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
1. Insurance companies exist to make profit. I don’t know that people demonize insurance companies as much as they intensely dislike being un-insured or having their insurance jerked away from them when they become ill.
2. Medicare and Medicaid are not public “options.” If Medicare was an “option” I would opt in right now. I would have preferred that Medicare be opened to all who wish to join. The premiums would come from the policy holder’s pocket but should be much less than the cost of “for profit” insurance companies.
Medicaid is income tested and is out of the question for most people who have a job, perhaps a home, and some meager savings but no group health and no ability to pay the really high premiums for private insurance.
3. I do believe that Medicare could be pared down some and still provide excellent benefits. Medicare picks up expenses for goods and services that are conveniences rather than needs (maybe deals with the companies providing these goods). At the risk of being totally bloody minded, it might be sensible to decrease the amount of hugely expensive diagnostic tests done on 90+ year old patients whose clinical condition allows no treatment. I’m not doing a good job of explaining this but if one is 93 years old, has cancer and heart disease along with near respiratory collapse, the $10-12,000.00 of Radiology studies accomplish nothing. This patient cannot tolerate surgery and is in that awful situation where if one problem is treated, another problem is exacerbated by the treatment. I am not talking about “death panels” but I am talking about common sense and good medical practice.
4. Defense Budget – Isn’t defense the alpha and omega responsibility of the federal govt? The only problem I have is that money is wasted there also. We should always get what we pay for and it should be both plentiful and the very best.
WHY would it be harmful to remove the anti-trust exemption from health insurance companies?
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February 8th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
Anyone got a bill number on this?
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February 8th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
No bill exists so far… http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery >enter names link will no show my results.
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February 8th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
try this one… thomas.loc.gov
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February 9th, 2010 at 12:31 am
Now here’s a bill everyone can support.
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February 9th, 2010 at 12:33 am
tag did not work, http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h4498ih.txt.pdf
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February 9th, 2010 at 12:37 am
“Would you rather pay Blue Cross/Blue Shield for your health insurance, or would rather pay taxes for a public option? What if the taxes are cheaper than the premiums?
Thanks, Gordon for pointing out an often-overlooked aspect of this health care debate:
I currently pay a large lump of my money each month to a private insurance company. Under this arrangement:
a) My rates continually go up. Prescription costs have almost doubled in two years.
b) The insurance company attempts to avoid paying for things already agreed upon in the plan through a variety of maneuvers.
c) My doctor office files claim using false billing codes to be paid at a higher rate–the proper code wouldn’t reimburse as much.
d) My claims/medical information passes though multiple offices (my office, at least two levels of corporate offices, the doctor’s office, the local pharmacy and their national office). Thus multiple individuals have access to my private medical information (Yes, I know it’s coded but anyone with can look up the codes online).
e) I’m required to submit more and more personal information (as much allowed by law).
f) If employment ends, I have no insurance (since I couldn’t afford COBRA).
I have no say under this system, since this is a private company. Employers also have limited say/options to offer.
Under a public option, I would at least have some say through the electoral process. It’s also likely that I’d pay less under a public option.
Other counties are making this sort of system work.
Not sure I’d go as far as to describe it as a “right†but it is immoral/unmerciful not to offer some basic care to all.
Where’s the logic in continuing with the current systems?
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February 9th, 2010 at 3:14 am
Howard Dean made the point very clearly in his presidential run–we need to have a conversation about end of life care costs. A huge part of the ramp up is there.
And if we’d pay for the military with a carbon tax and pay for healthcare with a sugar tax, we’d use less oil, need less military, be healthier and spend less on health care.
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February 9th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Upthread, Nathan Ramsey writes:
“We already have a public option, medicare and medicaid…”
By definition these are not options if you are not eligible.
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February 9th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Crprt bn cntrs cn b trstd t cr bt prntl, pstntl, nd pdtrc cr csts nd ths t spprt cntrcptn, whl lgsltrs hv n ncntv t cr.
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February 9th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Alan found a new IP address. Those things are multiplying like rabbits!
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February 9th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Alan, are you being ironic? I canna even tell.
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February 9th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
In all other “advanced” countries, selling primary-care medical insurance (i.e. the live-or-die kind, not the nosejob kind) for profit is illegal.
Illegal. Go to jail illegal. To sell primary health insurance for profit. Because inevitably the company will have to decide between lives and profits.
This simple fact was censored across the board in the Wall Street media, not only Fuxx News but the “liberal media” too. New York Times, CBS, Gannett, etc. Censored by corporate media.
(Cons will object that “It’s only censorship if the gummint does it” but when the government is controlled by corporations, the corporations are the government, and so it is that instead of Pravda we have WallStreetMedia Inc.)
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February 9th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Tom, I think that qualifies as Fascism.
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February 9th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
I still think we should amend the 14th Amendment to read “natural persons,” close the book on the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company fiction and get corporations out of — what was it our most famous Republican president said? — “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
If corporations are people:
Where’s the birth certificate?
What sex are they?
What’s their blood type?
What’s their grandmother’s maiden name on their father’s side?
Our conservative friends set a lot of store by common sense. What does their common sense tell them about treating corporations as persons protected under the 14th Amendment?
Our conservative friends also loathe the idea of special rights for certain classes of persons. If corporations get to hide their income in the Caymans, why can’t I? If corporations get to deduct their labor costs when calculating net income, why can’t I? (Call it a wash – if you get a paycheck, you have no income.) If they commit a felony, they don’t go to jail. What sayeth the scions of personal responsibility?
On the other hand, if corporations are nonsexed persons, I think it’s only right that we prohibit them from marrying (like BOA and Merrill Lynch) and enjoying the benefits of naturally sexed couples, don’t you? I already feel threatened.
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