Kucinich Opening Statement to Committee on America’s Affordable Health Choices Act

[slipslidingaway]

http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=137573

Washington, Jul 15 -

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement after the Education and Labor Committee began its markup process of HR 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act. The Education and Labor Committee is one of three House committees involved in examining the bill.


“Medicine in the U.S. is a profit driven market commodity distributed according to the ability to pay rather than a basic human right distributed as a public service according medical need. No wonder that the United States ranks 47th in life expectancy and 23rd in infant mortality. In this profit driven, private insurance based system there are over 1400 manage care organizations and 5000 health insurance plans. We have the most expensive health care system in the world – over 16% of our GDP. Two point four trillion dollars a year goes to health spending and 1 out of every 3 dollars go to the activities of the for-profit system- for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing, and the cost of paperwork. Yet 47 million people remain uninsured and another 50 million are underinsured. I submit that there is a direct relationship between the for-profit health care system and the uninsured and the underinsured.

“We can no longer look the other way as the uninsured and underinsured continue to grow their ranks. We cannot ignore the growing share of all bankruptcies that is attributable to medical bills – now over 60%. We can no longer live with a system that is, by most indications, among the lowest quality in the developed world. And we can’t afford the rising costs.


“Indeed, rising costs are the essence of the problem. Health care stakeholders are sinking more and more money into efforts designed to make someone else pay the bill. It is profitable to do so. Insurance companies, doctors, hospitals and patients are all fighting over who pays. But the insurance companies are winning while they focus on the stock market value, on their financial profits, on their investments in tobacco, on their strategies to restrict or deny service – which increases their profit.


“They have set up massive, redundant and highly profitable bureaucracies that deny care. When we buy their services, we don’t just pay for their infrastructure’ we also pay for a second infrastructure which results in doctors having to hire more staff to fight with insurance companies just to protect themselves.


“Consider that the growth in the number of professionals who actually deliver health care since the 1970s is under 300%. But the increase in the administrators- those who do not deliver care – is upwards of 2400%. The insurance companies have wedged themselves between the doctor and the patient. It is easy to see why our costs have spiraled out of control and the health insurance industry is consistently shown in polls to be one of the least trusted industries in America.


“There are many models of health care reform from which to choose around the world – the vast majority of which perform far better than ours. The one that has been the most tested here and abroad is single payer. Under a single payer system everyone in the U.S. would get a card that would allow access to any doctor at virtually any hospital. Doctors and hospitals would continue to be privately run, but the insurance payments would be in the public hands.


“By getting rid of the for-profit insurance companies, we can save $400 billion per year and provide coverage for all medically necessary services for everyone in the U.S. It would cost no more than we are currently paying for health care. This is the consistent conclusion in reports by the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office, and several independent analyst organizations like the Lewin Group.


“Cost is just one of the reasons that support for single payer is growing so quickly. HR 676, The United States National Health Care Act, now boasts 85 cosponsors. It has been endorsed by over 550 union organizations, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the League of Women Voters, Consumer’s Union and deans of prominent medical schools. 59% of doctors support it, as do 60% of Americans.


“The bill we are considering today, I regret to say, is not a single payer bill. It further entrenches the existing for-profit, insurance-based system by handing even more money over to the insurance industry. It will leave 17 million Americans uninsured. It is silent on the great state experimentation, at the state level, with single payer.


“Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago once wrote, “Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity and it is an obligation of society to ensure that every person has the opportunity to realize that right.” We can do better than protecting an insurance based, for-profit system that will continue to exclude millions of Americans.”

[chill_wind]

1. More Than Fifty House Progressives Privately Commit To Oppose Weak Health Care Bill

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6076998

KnR.

[slipslidingaway]

3. Thanks :) n/t

[slipslidingaway]

2. Private insurance companies push for 'individual mandate'

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/07/business/fi-healthcare7

"As momentum gains for reforms, insurers hope to turn it to their advantage by supporting a proposal that everyone buy coverage. It would be a boost for the industry, which has seen enrollment decline.


...But this time, it turns out, the health insurance industry has good reason to support at least some change: It needs it. Private health insurance faces a bleak future if the proposal they champion most vigorously -- a requirement that everyone buy medical coverage -- is not adopted.
...Insurers do not embrace all of the healthcare restructuring proposals. But they are fighting hard for a purchase requirement, sweetened with taxpayer-funded subsidies for customers who can't afford to buy it on their own, and enforced with fines.


...The industry's real trouble begins in 2011, when 79 million baby boomers begin turning 65. Health insurers stand to lose a huge slice of their commercially insured enrollment (estimated at 162 million to 172 million people) over the next two decades to Medicare, the government-funded health insurance program for seniors..."


For insurers, getting "run over" would be the adoption of a so-called single-payer plan, where the government pays all medical bills. Such a plan would wreak havoc on the private insurance market, and is widely viewed as politically unfeasible this year. So the best way for the industry to preserve the private insurance market -- and derail the campaign for a single-payer system -- may be to go along with more palatable proposals on the table now, said Jeffrey Miles, a healthcare analyst and president of the Miles Organization, a Los Angeles insurance brokerage firm..."

[slipslidingaway]

5. November 2008 - Insurers make pitch for health coverage mandate

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/20/business/fi-insure20

"The health insurance industry said today it will support a national health care overhaul that requires them to accept all customers, regardless of pre-existing medical conditions -- but in return it wants lawmakers to mandate that everyone buy coverage.

Lawmakers have signaled their intent to craft health care legislation early next year, and the insurance industry's support would make passage easier. That legislation is expected to closely track the proposals of President-elect Barack Obama. However, Obama separated himself from his Democratic challengers by opposing an individual mandate for adults to buy health insurance.

More lawmakers may agree to a mandate if it means the insurance industry will back those efforts. They'll remember it was the industry's opposition 15 years ago that helped scuttle former President Clinton's health plan.

The board of directors for America's Health Insurance Plans agreed to the trade-off Monday night. The board endorsed the proposal after a series of hearings in various states.

"We hope this will be a contribution to help members of Congress fashion their proposal," said Karen Ignagni, president and chief executive officer of the trade group. "We're going to provide all the technical background that we have assembled, all the experience we've assembled at the state level, and we're going to work very hard with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. We want to make sure that whatever reforms are advanced, no one falls through the cracks."

[upi402]

4. President Kucinich

in a more perfect world.
:patriot:

[slipslidingaway]

6. I've heard him say that it would take 3-4 years to fully implement

a single-payer, not for profit HC system, which could go a long way to putting our nation back on track.

[emilyg]

26. How I wish I had paid

more attention to this man.

[slipslidingaway]

7. Single payer: bold, affordable, humane - Walter Tsou, M.D., M.P.H.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/june/single_payer_bold_.php

"The following is the testimony of Dr. Walter Tsou to the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions on June 10. The hearing was titled “Examining the single-payer health care option.”


"Attempting to reconcile the dual imperatives of universal coverage and cost control through alternative methods besides single payer is an exercise in futility. It is clear that cost controls mean that someone’s ox gets gored, either the taxpayers’, physicians’ and hospitals’, or the private health insurance industry’s. When some Congressional leaders declare that “single payer is off the table,” they are, in effect, saying that insurers will be protected, leaving the pain to patients, taxpayers and health care providers.

Let’s examine each of these categories:

For the taxpayers, it is difficult to understand why we must endure an additional $1.5 trillion or more over the next decade in expenses at a time when our nation already spends 50 percent more per capita on health care than any other country in the world.

For physicians and hospitals, simply cutting reimbursements is counterproductive, especially at a time when we need to increase reimbursements for primary care and mental health services.


...President Obama has stated that if he were to start over again he would favor a single-payer system, but argues that moving to single payer is too radical.

Well, I come from Philadelphia where revolutionary ideas are celebrated not dismissed. Our most famous radical document begins with the words, “We the People,” not “We the Insurers.” “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union . . . to promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” This nation captured the world’s imagination with bold ideas that put the people first. It is time for our own generation’s revolution."

[slipslidingaway]

8. Thanks for the recs :) not so much for the unrecs :( n/t

[flvegan]

10. Don't sweat the unrecs.

Any time the name "Kucinich" is uttered around here, a small but idiotic group collectively shits themselves because usually Dennis ultimately is right, and he makes their spineless, complicit congressmembers out for what they are: bought and paid for.

And that doesn't even address the trolls.

[slipslidingaway]

12. Thanks, glad to see others stepped in with some recs, now if

Washington would only stop listening to the insurance companies.

:)

[SnoopDog]

9. kick for the only true democratic patriot in the House...

[slipslidingaway]

13. Thank you :) n/t

[JimWis]

11. K&R. There are several different health bill proposals going on

now in congress. All of them fall short. All of them cost to much and I think put more money in the hands of private insurance. All are complicated. I think they all need to go back to the drawing board, or adopt HR 676, which saves money and covers every single American citizen. Maybe after all this trying to come up with something decent, fighting over all of it, trying to think of a hundred different ways to keep it affordable, etc., they might wake up and realize this. But I doubt it. And again I ask - why don't they score HR 676.

[slipslidingaway]

14. If they score HR 676 they know the costs will be much lower...

what if people learned the truth!

Single Payer System Cost?

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_system_cost.php


No bill is better than a bad bill.

[JimWis]

16. Hey, thanks for the link.

[slipslidingaway]

18. See what happens when they scored it in the past :) and you're welcome nt

[slipslidingaway]

15. U.S. Health Spending Breaks From the Pack

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/july/us_health_spending.php

See link for chart

By Catherine Rampell
Economix Blog
New York Times
July 8, 2009

"Despite the fact that the United States is the only industrialized nation that does not ensure that all its citizens have health care coverage, the United States spends a (much) higher percentage of its gross domestic product on health care than its peers. It also spends (much) more per person on health care than its peers.

But that hasn’t always been the case.


The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently released updated historical statistics on health care, showing that health expenditures have risen drastically across the industrialized world.

As demonstrated by the mass of squiggles in the chart above, the United States has generally been at the high end of health care spending. But once upon a time, it was more or less on par with its peers, and at various points even spent less of its G.D.P. on health care than some other countries (namely, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and Germany).

There were also a few years when it wasn’t the biggest spender per capita on health care, in purchasing power parity terms..."

[defendandprotect]

17. kick

[slipslidingaway]

24. :) n/t

[earth mom]

19. "The bill we are considering today, I regret to say is not a single payer bill"

"It further entrenches the existing for-profit, insurance-based system by handing even more money over to the insurance industry. It will leave 17 million Americans uninsured. It is silent on the great state experimentation, at the state level, with single payer."

There it is in black and white folks.

Looks like we're being sold a line of bullshit once again.

Go Dennis!!! :yourock:

[slipslidingaway]

25. Schumer said. "It makes sense that private health insurers, who are going to gain 40 million custome

in a reformed system, should pay their fair share."

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews/idUSN1532459020090715

"...Insurers are among the last segment of the healthcare industry that have not pledged to help fund the estimated $1 trillion reform that aims to rein in soaring costs and provide medical coverage to millions of the uninsured.

Drugmakers have committed $80 billion and the hospital sector has offered $155 billion, both over a decade.

"We need the insurance companies to step up to the plate," Schumer said. "It makes sense that private health insurers, who are going to gain 40 million customers in a reformed system, should pay their fair share."


Looks like it - thanks!

:)

[Amos Moses]

20. K&R

:applause:

[slipslidingaway]

27. Welcome to DU :) and thanks n/t

[hootinholler]

21. HR676 NOW!

Give em truth Dennis, they'll think it's hell.

-Hoot

[slipslidingaway]

28. Thank you :) n/t

[slipslidingaway]

22. 2009 Milliman Medical Index - medical cost for a typical American family of four is $16,771.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/may/2009_milliman_medica.php

"The fifth annual Milliman Medical Index (MMI) measures average annual medical spending for a typical American family of four covered by an employer-sponsored preferred provider organization (PPO) program. The total 2009 medical cost for a typical American family of four is $16,771.

The Milliman Medical Index (MMI) provides us with a very important measure of health care spending in the United States. For 2009, average annual medical spending for a typical American family of four covered by an employer-sponsored preferred provider organization (PPO) program is $16,771. That number should be front and center in our national dialogue on reform. It is important that we understand what it means...

...It is also important to understand that that the combined employer and employee contributions ($9,947 + $4,004 = $13,951) do not represent the premiums paid. Although the average family is defined as a family with an employer-sponsored PPO, the PPO reflects only the fact that the health care system provided discounts for the care provided. The employer and employee contributions represent the actual payments made for health care (minus the out-of-pocket spending). The MMI specifically excludes the non-medical administrative component of health plan premiums.

Read that again. The MMI ($16,771) represents the actual payments to the health care delivery system and excludes the funds retained by the insurance industry for administrative costs and profits.

Many in the policy community believe that health care costs that exceed 10 percent of family income create a financial hardship for that family. Based on the MMI, the average family with an employer-sponsored PPO would have to have an income of $167,710, though adding the administrative costs of private plans plus any additional out-of-pocket spending that might be required would drive that income threshold further upward..."


http://www.milliman.com/expertise/healthcare/products-tools/mmi/pdfs/milliman-medical-index-2009.pdf

page 6

"...The Milliman Medical Index (MMI) provides us with a very important measure of health care spending in the United States. For 2009, average annual medical spending for a typical American family of four covered by an employer-sponsored preferred provider organization (PPO) program is $16,771. That number should be front and center in our national dialogue on reform. It is important that we understand what it means..."

[glinda]

36. Last year for two of us on one income (fixed), our insurance and drug costs were

about $17,000. That family is getting a bargain by our standards. :sarcasm:

[slipslidingaway]

37. Ouch - Miami had the highest at 20K + n/t

[slipslidingaway]

23. Senate HELP amendment on "data exclusivity"

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/july/senate_help_amendmen.php

Executive Session on the Affordable Health Choices Act
U.S. Senate HELP Committee
July 13, 2009

"Consideration of the Enzi/Hatch/Hagan amendment on establishing a data exclusivity period of 12 years for biotech innovation

Sen. Orin Hatch: I don’t know a biotech company that isn’t for this bill, for this 12 year data exclusivity.

...Sen. Tom Harkin: Keep in mind what we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about patents. Everybody gets a 20 year patent… What we’re talking about here is data, data exclusivity… How do you get that data? You get it through FDA supervised trials… Where do they do those clinical trials? Academic health centers. Who supports academic health centers? Our taxpayers… When should that data be released so that another company out there, some other entrepreneurs, can look at the data and say… I’ll bet if we changed this and did this, we might come up with a new formulation that might actually help something else. They’re still going to have to go through their clinical trials… At least they’ll be able to look at the data. If you don’t do that that means that the company can sit on that data for 12 years. Then they let the data out. Clinical trials will take another 7 years or more, so you’re going to have at least a whole 20 year run in there… before anyone can ever surface with anything even comparable to what that drug or that biologic is.


...Sen. Sherrod Brown: You know what we’ve not talked about, Mr. Chairman? We’re not talking about how much these biologics are costing patients. Let me give you some numbers. (examples)… 48 thousand dollars… 20 thousand dollars …100 thousand dollars. You know what the average wage in my state is? 46 thousand dollars… If we do this giveaway to the drug industry, this giveaway to the biologic companies, it means profits are up for them, it means executive salaries are up for them, it means we can all feel good, but let’s think about the patients, let’s think of the patient with breast cancer who has got to spend 1000 dollars a week… the patient with colon cancer who’s got to spend 2000 dollars a week… What kind of progress is that, Mr. Chairman?

****

The data exclusivity amendment passed by a vote of 16 to 7, with several Democrats voting in support.


Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD

"...Last evening’s session devoted to the data exclusivity amendment was the longest amount of time they spent on any issue in the reform legislation. I stopped my other work to watch it. This morning, I’m not only jaded, but I’m also depressed. I’ll tell you why.

Earlier in the day yesterday, I sent out the following quote from Bill Moyers: “Nothing will change — nothing — until the money lenders are tossed out of the temple, the ATM’s are wrested from the marble halls, and we tear down the sign they’ve placed on government — the one that reads, ‘For Sale.’”

I didn’t sleep last night. Instead of counting sheep, I kept watching, in my nightmare, each of those Senators who voted yes picking up their bundle from the ATM machine in the marble halls on their way out as they passed the “For Sale” sign at the door.

But this isn’t about my nightmare. It’s about the 307 million of us who are the merchandise in Congress’s rummage sale. That’s why I’m depressed."

[Rex]

29. DK will ALWAY have my vote.

And THAT is why.

[slipslidingaway]

30. And mine as well. n/t

[chill_wind]

31. Grateful Ohioan.

:hi:

[slipslidingaway]

38. And thanks for posting this thread in the video link....

:hi:

[abumbyanyothername]

32. Why wasn't I supporting this guy in the primaries?

Man o man o man.

Rock on Dennis.

Kick and rec!

[TheWatcher]

34. You and millions of other Americans should be asking that question.

What could have been.......

[slipslidingaway]

39. The "powers that be" do a great job of marginalizing people

who stray too far from the center - but the center just keeps moving to protect corporate profits.

[TheWatcher]

33. "But Kucinich is just SO much like Ron Paul! they are peas in a pod!"

:sarcasm: x100000

[slipslidingaway]

40. Of course, who would dare listen to anything they say! n/t

[TheWatcher]

49. The country would be far better if off more people WOULD listen to Dennis.

But hey, Chess, Pony, Unicorn, puppy, sexy beach pictures, March madness Brackets, Crumbs form the table we should be happy with, six months, I Believe, I Support, I'm Confident, Debbie Downer, etc, etc, etc.

It's like living in a Zombie Holocaust without the Brain Eating.

[maryf]

35. Health care for people, not for profit...

60 people die everyday due to lack of health care coverage...due to the fact that they aren't profit makers, k&r

[Individualist]

41. "It further entrenches the existing for-profit, insurance-based system..."

Exactly. Keep exposing the corporatists, Dennis!

[berni_mccoy]

42. Yes, But he VOTED for it.

[slipslidingaway]

43. There has been no final vote on the bill n/t

[berni_mccoy]

44. Yes, there has, to bring it out of the Education and Labor Committee

And Kucinich voted for it. If he was opposed to it, he would have voted against it coming out of committee.

George Miller, another progressive, also voted for it.

In fact ALL the Democrats voted for it on that committee.

[Cerridwen]

46. Isn't that a Senate committee? n/t

[slipslidingaway]

48. He has been working on the bill in the Progressive Caucus...

and did not block it from moving forward, but he still points out that in his opinion, it is not the best bill and we should consider HR 676.

I agree.

[LWolf]

45. He is correct, of course. Again.

If our president, and the "leaders" who put HR 3200 together would recognize that there is a better plan already on the table, would stand and fight for that better plan, we'd be on our way to a healthier nation, both physically and economically.

[slipslidingaway]

47. Here is what Waxman said when asked why he abandoned single-payer

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6078401&mesg_id=6081045

Told the person at Waxman's office that I was disappointed he backed off of HR 676 and instead followed the lead in supporting the for profit insurance companies.

Single Payer Action Confronts Henry Waxman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7bTC9lKcv4

'I'm now working on the plan outlined by President Obama...we're building on the employer based system..."

:(

[LWolf]

54. "We can't do what's best for America now that Obama's president."

That's what I hear, and that is BULLSHIT.

[slipslidingaway]

60. I agree that it is bullshit ! While Conyers has disappointed me

on more than one occassion, on this issue he is at least continuing to advocate for SP.

http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=919

"John Conyers (D-Michigan) was not happy last night with his colleagues Charles Rangel (D-New York) and Henry Waxman (D-California). Conyers is sponsor of the single payer bill (HR 676) in the House.

The bill has 79 co-sponsors.

Rangel and Waxman were co-sponsors last year. But they are not co-sponsors this year. Rangel, Waxman and George Miller (D-California) each chair committees that will be hearing health care reform proposals.

Only Miller is cooperating with Conyers – remaining a co-sponsor of HR 676 and holding hearings.

...“And here I am in the most Democratically controlled legislature in my life. And they are saying – it’s kind of too late because we have to get this thing through by the end of July. And we don’t have time.”

[KoKo]

59. K&R!

[slipslidingaway]

61. Thanks :) n/t

[slipslidingaway]

50. kick for the evening crowd - policy is set from the top...

see the Waxman interview above.

He would prefer to now follow the plan to build on our existing employer based system, which by the way left 47 million uninsured, 50 million underinsured and has caused tens of thousands of deaths every year.

Maybe it is not such a great foundation???

[Ohio Joe]

51. Congressman Kucinich is a wise man

Many like to mock him, even amongst his own party but... I wish we had many more just like him.

[Vidar]

52. K&R

[kevsters]

53. Must See Clip Of A Republican Being Honest!!!

Right wing hack, Ron Christie, is more concerned with the cost of health care reform, and less concerned with people dying.

Here is the clip. You have got to see this.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2194

[slipslidingaway]

57. People can discuss prevention with their doctors once they have

coverage.

:)

Thanks for the clip, although I do agree there is a less costly way and it will cover everyone, it is just not on the table.

Doubtful he would agree with not for profit HC.

[varelse]

55. K&R

:kick:

[dccrossman]

56. KnR

:kick:

[slipslidingaway]

58. Thanks for the knr's, I added many other links in this thread that

people might want to look at as well.

:)

[ControlledDemolition]

62. Kucinich seems to be the real deal. n/t