The Senate's health care fiasco

[IndianaGreen]

The Senate's health care fiasco

Lee Sustar explains why we'll be better off if proposed health care "reform" legislation that may come to a vote in the Senate is defeated.

December 18, 2009

FROM BAD to worse to--utterly wretched.

That's the course of so-called health-care "reform" in the Senate. The final version of the legislation is so filled with giveaways to big insurance companies that even leading liberal Democrats are threatening to join Republicans in opposing it.

While the right wing is still shrieking about a government takeover of health care, what's really shaping up is a complete industry stranglehold over government policy.

The public option--a proposal for a minimal government-run health plan available to the uninsured--was road kill early on. Now Sen. Joe Lieberman has singlehandedly blocked a Senate effort to extend Medicare to people aged 55 rather than the current 65--even though he made just such a proposal a few months earlier.

Yes, the Senate plan would extend coverage to the uninsured--by forcing them to buy policies, whether they can afford them or not. Millions of people will have to buy high-premium, low-quality insurance through private health insurance exchanges, or be forced to pay a penalty. Those plans won't cover abortions, if a handful of right-wing Democrats and Republican conservatives have their way.

And remember President Barack Obama's vow to prevent insurance companies from discriminating against individuals with preexisting conditions? That's in the proposed bill--but if you've got such a condition, you could pay up to 50 percent more for your coverage. Ditto for older people, who could pay premiums up to three times higher than younger people.

If you're lucky enough to have a high-quality employer-sponsored insurance plan, you can keep it if you want, as Obama often says. But you'll pay for it, big-time. The Senate has taken Obama's plan to tax "Cadillac" health insurance plans--typically those won by union members over decades--even further, so now more modest "Chevy" plans will be taxed, too.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/12/18/senate-health-care-fiasco

[Laelth]

1. Agreed. We'd be better off doing nothing. Here's another reason why:

California will probably pass single payer on its own in 2011. All they need is a Democratic Governor. The legislature has already passed the bill. Schwarzenegger vetoed it. Once California has single-payer, most (if not all) states will follow suit.

It's likely that if we pass a new law now, the new law will preempt single-payer, i.e. the Federal law will preempt state law and prevent states from enacting a single-payer system.

THIS is what the health insurance companies fear. THIS is what brought them to the bargaining table. THIS is why they are not fighting Obama's tepid reforms, and THIS is why it is extremely important that we do not pass any health insurance reform bill this year.

Let's not settle for a bail-out of the health insurance industry. Let's insist on the eradication of it. In all likelihood, California will lead the way in 2011 ... if we can just give them time.

Canada got its single-payer system one province at a time, and it looks like that's the only way it can happen in the United States.

I don't think the Federal Government is capable of reforming the system right now. If this bill is the best the Federal Government can do, then the Federal Government should do nothing. Let the states try, as I suggested in my post above.

:dem:

-Laelth