US companies launch new group to lobby health care (market-based approach)

[rodeodance]

Source: reuters




US companies launch new group to lobby health care
07 May 2007 19:49:31 GMT
Source: Reuters


By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON, May 7 (Reuters) - Aetna Inc. <AET.N>, Safeway Inc. <SWY.N> and 35 other U.S. companies facing soaring health-care costs released a plan on Monday to lobby Congress for a market-based approach for providing universal health-care coverage.

They also said individuals must take more preventative steps to avoid expensive health crises down the road as Congress looks for ways to expand coverage to the 46 million uninsured Americans.

"We believe there's a real sense of urgency in solving this problem and we intend to be active participants in this debate," Safeway Chief Executive Officer Steve Burd told reporters. "We do not have a monopoly on good ideas."

The group said the system for providing coverage was broken and that next year the average Fortune 500 company will have a health-care bill that exceeds its net income. Health-care costs were 16.2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2005.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07347041.htm

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oh oh!

[Lance_Boyle]

1. Hey Steve, here's an idea:

Run your fucking grocery store, and kindly ask your government to remove the burden of your employees' health care from your company's shoulders by providing "medicare for all." Then take a molten lead enema and jump in a lake.

[NJCher]

2. ehhhh....

While I did get a good laugh out of your post, if business asks for it, it will probably get it. God knows they don't listen to citizens--people like you and me. You know--the ones paying the taxes?

Americans do need to take more responsibility for their own health, present company included. There are things I could and should do to be in better health and which I will do. I have, for example, signed up for a weightlifting course this summer so that I can firm up my muscles. I don't smoke and I'm cutting back on high-fat foods.



Cher

[denverbill]

3. That groups first problem is having Aetna as a member.

That means they reject outright the best solution - national health care.

Private insurers will never be able to compete on price with government care, because their overhead is higher and they must earn a profit.

Unfortunately, their approach will probably be the Mitt Romney approach of passing a law requiring everyone in the country to buy insurance from a private company, and giving the really poor vouchers to buy insurance.

That plan really screws those just above poverty line because they have to buy their own, and the upper middle class because their taxes will likely go up to pay the inflated insurance premiums.

[necso]

4. "Health-care costs were 16.2 percent

of U.S. gross domestic product in 2005." (ouch!)

"...46 million uninsured Americans."

The "market" has done such wonders for the American health-"care" system, so clearly we need a "market"-driven solution for all its ills.

Along those lines, let me suggest a slogan for solving the problems with health-"care": "If you can't afford to pay, just die -- but for the sake of propriety, please do so quietly."

And as a reminder to workers unhappy with corporate governance: "You can always be replaced by someone willing to live in a cardboard box."

...

Oh, and if there weren't government programs, many millions more Americans would be uninsured.

[Doctor_J]

5. We've had market-based health care for almost 20 years.

That's why it's the worst in the industrialized world.

[CBHagman]

6. Here are some links to other news stories about this.

The Reuters article was a trifle short on detail, and the reference to market-based solutions set off warning bells for me. However, there is apparently more to the story about the involvement of the Safeway CEO. There's also a lot of background in this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01Healthcare.t.html?ex=1178683200&en=c010b6db8dd380c5&ei=5070

[nolabels]

7. I feel so much pity for their little contemptuous corporate asses

For the last 40+ years it's been businesses against people and against the government the people should be in charge of. We must be getting close to point where the corporations are starting to eat their own. Corporations calling for more government welfare to bail them out again, who'd thunk it :shrug:

Probably no need to worry about though, the government that is now ensconced is set up to get little or nothing done about most anything

[Vinca]

8. A "market-based approach" for universal health care amounts to

serving up the uninsured to the insurance companies with an initial lowering of premiums. Key word here: initial.

[IronLionZion]

9. Now if we hadn't spent so much money on our military industrial complex

think about what we could have done by now.