07.22.09
Today’s health insurance refrom news
Today’s must reads:
Just to mention something that is obvious, but hopefully not overlooked, i.e., if this country cannot pass a bill which insures that every citizen has access to medical care, which every developed country has managed to do (and got done many many years ago), there is something very fundamentally and structurally wrong with this country.
Agreed.
Insurance corporations and their lobbyists lie, a lot, Health Insurance Industry Spins Data in Fight Against Public Plan.
The industry that helped scuttle health reform 15 years ago with its “Harry and Louise” ads is back, voicing support for a central element of the Obama administration’s plans: making sure everyone is covered.
That does not mean the industry is backing the administration. Indeed, the leader of the insurance lobby has sent lawmakers a message: Be careful what you change, because “77 percent of Americans are satisfied with their existing health insurance coverage.”
Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), invoked the statistic to argue against the creation of a government-run insurance option. But the polls are not that simple, and her assertion reveals how the industry’s effort to defend its turf has led it to cherry-pick the facts.
The poll Ignagni was citing actually undercuts her position: By 72 to 20 percent, Americans favor the creation of a public plan, the June survey by the New York Times and CBS News found. People also said that they thought government would do a better job than private insurers of holding down health-care costs and providing coverage.
In addition, data from a Kaiser Family Foundation poll last year, compiled at the request of The Washington Post, suggest that the people who like their health plans the most are the people who use them the least.
Those who described their health as “excellent” — people who presumably had relatively little experience pursuing medical care or submitting claims — were almost twice as likely as those in good, fair or poor health to rate their private health insurance as excellent.
The level of satisfaction expressed with private insurance was essentially the same as that with Medicare, the government program for the elderly and disabled.
The industry’s stance against a public health plan revives shades of 1994, when it was instrumental in blocking President Bill Clinton’s health-care proposals.
“A government-run plan would turn back the clock on efforts to improve the quality and safety of patient care,” AHIP has argued. Such a plan “will ultimately limit choices and access,” the big insurer WellPoint contends.
But systemic problems have persisted for 15 years, and it is not clear how much private insurers have done, or can do, to solve them.
“Insurers promise choice, they promise innovation, they promise a lot of things, but I think they’ve delivered very little,” said Alan Sager, professor of health policy and management at Boston University. “I think net they give us very bad value for the 10 to 20 percent share of the health dollar they skim off the top.”
Instead of choice, they offer “the illusion of choice,” he said.
Health-care costs have continued to rise faster than personal incomes and economic growth. Even the industry agrees that much of the spending is wasted, exposing patients to unnecessary risk.
Insurers argue that a government plan could dominate the market, reducing consumers’ options. But in the private market, options are limited by employers who restrict employees’ choice of insurers and by insurers who restrict their choice of doctors.
This has become the same fight we had last year during the presidential campaign. Change vs. the status quo.
Most Americans know that our health insurance system in this country is a disaster for many, and actual insurance against disaster for very few. President Obama and many Democrats want to change that. Some Democrats, almost every member of the GOP, and the insurance corporations that profit from denying coverage to people who’ve been paying their premiums for years, don’t want to change the current system. See this post, The profit motive: In health care and politics.
One reason lawmakers can’t finalize a bill before the August recess is that there is no way to do what their patrons demand — ensure robust industry profits — while controlling costs and expanding to access to health care. An additional few weeks or few months of reflection will not change that basic fact, although it will buy time in which advocates of reform can find common ground, expand their ranks, and spread misinformation to sway public support.
Those who oppose campaign finance reform on free speech grounds don’t seem to appreciate that the concentrated interests of the few always outweigh the diffuse interests of the many. Unfortunately for all of us who would like to see meaningful reform enacted, it looks as though the powerful minority is poised to demonstrate that lesson for us once again.
That’s what this fight is about – expanding coverage for all Americans. Health insurance shouldn’t be based on insuring shareholder value in a corporation. It should be about insuring the health of Americans.
It’s time we insure every American to make sure that Americans don’t get wiped out financially just because a member of their family gets sick.