Will it be real reform? NC hands shape reform

[mmonk]

N.C. hands shape reform

WASHINGTON -- North Carolina's two senators have become heavily involved in the effort to reform health care in the United States.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, has put out one of a half-dozen alternative visions for what a new national health-care system might look like.

And U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, has drawn inside-the-Beltway attention for blocking quick action last month on a so-called "public option" insurance plan that would be run by the government.

-snip-

Burr and Hagan both sit on the Senate health committee that now is writing the reform package, a massive piece of legislation that some estimate could cost up to $600 billion over 10 years. President Barack Obama has made it one of his top domestic priorities and wants a bill passed this year.

-snip-

http://www.newsobserver.com/nation_world/story/1604352.html

My reply sent to the newspaper:

I read the Barbara Barrett article titled “NC hands shape reform” in the Sunday, July 12th, News & Observer and thought the claim of “shaping” reform as not a correct term. It would be more accurate to use the word “kill” as to reform or to call it “preserving” the current middle man profit system. It appears to have little to do with cost containment but rather is an ideological approach at protecting the interests of the for profit health insurance system. The mere fact that Senator Max Baucus began the committee looking into reform without allowing physicians and supporters of a single payer system a seat at the table confirms this approach. The other confirmation is the efforts of our Senators to deny or sabotage a public option. A citizen can also track the flow of insurance lobbyist money into Senatorial coffers and examine their positions on the issue.

The citizen that pays the full $1,100 or more a month family premium costs will still be paying in one way or another for the marketing, administrative costs, stockholder profits, and lawyers of health insurers even if they don’t see a doctor during the year while our Senators pay little for their Federal Employees Health Benefits Program nor have to worry about denial of coverage or losing coverage. Our health insurers will still determine the costs and rules involved in keeping their middle man profits. Until the people have a lobby, there is probably little citizens, small businesses, and taxpayers can do but to deal with high and escalating costs.

_________________________

And an interesting set of videos from Bill Moyers Journal with an interview with Wendell Potter, formerly of Cigna coming clean about the health insurance industry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmEwhakknkk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMSk4nfnce8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAKtW1W6Y74&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxT8xHlIZt4&feature=related

Watch the videos if you have not seen them.

Keep up the good fight.