Are lobbyists silver lining in health care storm? Coming out ahead in the endgame?

[Karmadillo]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5igfa8hbGjdOo8cuFoH1aPuwmHBWwD99LP88G0

Are lobbyists silver lining in health care storm?
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR (AP) – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A strong force, perhaps as powerful in Congress as President Barack Obama, is keeping the drive for health care going even as lawmakers seem hopelessly at odds.

Lobbyists.

The drug industry, the American Medical Association, hospital groups and the insurance lobby are all saying Congress must make major changes this year. Television ads paid for by drug companies and insurers continued to emphasize the benefits of a health care overhaul — not the groups' objections to some of the proposals.

"My gut is telling me that something major can pass because all the people who could kill it are still at the table," said Ken Thorpe, chairman of health policy at Emory University in Atlanta. "Everybody has issues with bits and pieces of it, but all these groups want to get something done this year." As a senior official at the Health and Human Services department in the 1990s, Thorpe was deeply involved in the Clinton administration's failed effort.

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This time, the health care industry groups see a strategic opportunity. As lawmakers squabble, the groups are focused on how to come out ahead in the end game.

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It's not clear if Baucus will succeed, but his group is looking at creating nonprofit co-ops that would lack Medicare's power to dictate payment levels and tell providers to take it or leave it. Instead, the co-ops would have to negotiate payment rates with hospitals, doctors and drug makers — just like private insurance plans do.

more...

[FrenchieCat]

1. If AP and MSNBC says so, it must be just as they say!

Or perhaps their work defeating health care reform has only just began.

Did anyone say that the health care industry wasn't gonna make anymore profit anymore?
Unless we are getting rid of them altogether, I think that having more people insured
at more affordable prices may be a bonanza that they see.....considering that health care reform is a must, even for them (cause pretty soon, folks will just be walking around uninsured; instead of 50 million, there will be 100 million of us).

But I'm trying to wonder what do those writing the AP article posing the question want us to do?
I'd suggest they want us to rebel against health care reform...and then at the end, status quo can win, and we won't have shit. Don't think that AP all of the sudden is "interested" in providing Obama a winning hand or providing us with Health Care reform; not on your life.

[Better Believe It]

4. The insurance and health industry are winning. Don't you get it?

This article just points out their game plan which you seem to be unfamiliar with.

I give up .... almoost. It seems you just don't understand

[FrenchieCat]

5. I understand.....

You bellyache, while I understand that we ain't about to get all that we wish....
just a door that opens.

I think you don't understand....cause you are one in the all or nothing
crowd....
as well as the ultimate let-me-find-articles-that-disagree-with-whatever-the-President-is-doing-or-saying-and-post-them-at-DU poster.

So yeah...I understand. :eyes:

[mmonk]

2. This is why the CBO must score single payer to expose the fraud.

[timeforpeace]

3. The rush for this is so people don't find out this is a boon for insurance and drug industries.

[FrenchieCat]

6. Yep, the AP just "discovered this", as did MSNBC!

AP wasn't born yesterday. Whatever there is to know about the Drug and Insurance industry, they knew long before today.....long before this story was written.

But go ahead and think it is the rush that is compeling them to now suddently revealing the truth about the matter. The AP is finally doing "real" journalism! :woohoo:

[Karmadillo]

9. Is the story inaccurate?

nt

[Karmadillo]

7. Kick: it could guarantee a steady stream of customers subsidized by taxpayers

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5igfa8hbGjdOo8cuFoH1aPuwmHBWwD99LP88G0

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And if the government requires everybody to get coverage — just what the overhaul legislation calls for — it could guarantee a steady stream of customers subsidized by taxpayers not only for insurers, but for all medical providers

[ipaint]

8. The for profit industry knows that if they don't push

something they can completely control for maximum profit now, they will be relegated to service a small market of wealthy vanity care buyers fairly soon because the critical mass of under insured and uninsured will reach a large enough number to finally demand single payer.