Death Panels--Again

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Nearly every other industrialized country recognizes health care as a human right, whose costs and benefits are shared among all citizens. But in the United States, health care is treated as a commodity that is purchased, in one way or another, by those who can afford it. Conservatives embrace this notion as the perfect expression of the all-powerful market; though they make a great show of recoiling from the term, in practice they are endorsing rationing on the basis of wealth.

The public option for universal coverage was the one provision that addressed the cancer of the system: private insurance. When the whole system is designed so that private insurance companies can make as much money as possible, the incentives are always going to be wrong. Since they have a permanent incentive to lower costs by denying care and increase profits by charging more for premiums, they will always find a way around the regulations and reforms. And they have an army of lawyers and lobbyists to help them do so--and a whole department full of public relation operatives to sell their right to do so to the citizenry.

In a country that already spends more than 16 percent of each GDP dollar on health care (PDF), it's easy to see why so many people believe there's simply not enough of it to go around. The US spends 134 percent more than the median of the world's most developed nations, but we get less for our money—fewer physician visits and hospital days per capita, for example—than our counterparts in countries like Germany, Canada, and Australia. (We do, however, have more MRI machines and more cesarean sections!)

Where does the money go? By most estimates, administration and insurance profits alone eat upward from 30 percent of our total health care bill (and most of that is in the private sector—Medicare's overhead is around 2 percent). In other words, we don't have too little to go around—we overpay for what we get, and we don't allocate our spending where it does us the most good.

But in the absence of any serious challenge to the health-care-as-commodity system, we are doomed to a battlefield scenario where Americans must fight to secure their share of a "scarce" resource in a life-and-death struggle that pits the rich against the poor, the insured against the uninsured—and increasingly, the young against the old.

Rep. John Conyers fought for universal health care throughout the Bush II administration. But when it came time to legislate, his bill was passed over for the current behemoth crafted by lobbyists. On 10 March 2010, Rep. Alan Grayson introduced a bill (H.R. 4789) which would give the option to buy into Medicare to every citizen of the United States.

There are answers out there. The solution is available. Medicare for All!

Here It Comes

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DISCLAIMER: Once again, my gentle snowflakes, I don't have a dog in this hunt. I will be well ensconced into Medicare long before any of this magic comes down the pike. But....

I have stomped my feet, held my breath until I turned blue, screamed and hollered, made a genuine nuisance of myself, and written to every elected official for whom I could find an email address. For answers I got almost universally boiler-plate: "Thank you for your inquiry. Your interest/issue is very important to xxxxxxxxxxx [insert the elected person's name here]."

All to no avail.

For, this mess our ivory-towered congressional critters are about to offer up is not reform. What it is, is another HUGE bail out. And this time the bail out is for one of the most despicable sections of this country--the health insurance companies.

That mandate for every one of us to buy health insurance is just a real-l-l-ly big giveaway to the already incredibly profitable health insurers (read pay-back for all those campaign contributions). And we all know that those giving, caring health insurance companies will still find a way to kick people off, stop coverage, refuse to pay claims. All that new money and they will still act like the cruel, evil monsters that they have heretofore proven themselves to be.

I, also, realize that I frequently say, "You can't do more until you have done something." But, but, but..... this is hardly "something."

Medicare for All!

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Why No Public Option?

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Mandating coverage of all, without a public option, is nothing more than a HUGE GIFT to the insurance companies.

47 million (roughly) new customers. Think about it. 47 million new customers. That's 47 million new customers to abuse, deny payment to, allow to die while waiting. That's premiums from 47 million new customers--much of it subsidized by tax payers.

Without a public option, the health insurance companies will be handed such a windfall of profits as has been heretofore unseen in this country.

The availability of health care for we the people will be no greater than it is now. The health insurance companies have been very bad players since the Clinton administration tried to force an overhaul in the early 1990's. Premiums have exploded. Payments made by them for care has diminished or vanished.

A mandate without a public option is like sending the uninsured through the mountain pass with no weapons with which to fight off the bandits (the health insurance companies, in case you don't get it). No cavalry to ride to the rescue. No ninjas to appear to save them. The bandits will make out like, well, like bandits.

Pheugh. (Please insert the dirty word of your choice here.)

Medicare for All

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