Obama Complains about No Competition, But His HCR Plan Does Not Solve this:

[amborin]

Obama Points to the Lack of Insurance Competition, a Problem His Plan No Longer Solves
by Jon Walker

The Obama administration, in its push to get the House to vote for the Senate's health care reform bill unchanged, is pointing to the serious issue of lack of competition in the health insurance market as a powerful reason for reform. Obama's health care proposal, however, no longer does much to actually solve the problem. From the White House Blog:

On Wednesday, a leading insurance broker laid out in clear terms what many Americans could already guess: the insurers' monopoly is so strong that they can continue to jack up rates as much as they like - even if it means losing customers - and their profits will continue to soar under the status quo.

Speaking about the lack of competition - a key target of reform - broker Steve Lewis told investors on a conference call organized by Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs:

"Not only is price competition down from year ago (when we had characterized last year's price competition as being down from the prior year), but trend or (healthcare) inflation is also up and appears to be rising. The incumbent carriers seem more willing than ever to walk away from existing business resulting in some carrier changes..."

The few elements of this health care reform push that could have helped deal with the issue of "insurers' monopoly" have been removed, and Obama is making no effort to add them back. In fact, his administration is actively trying to suppress attempts by others to reintegrate such measures into the legislation.

Repealing the anti-trust exemption was in the House bill-but it is not in the Senate bill or Obama's health care proposal. Also in the House bill, but missing from Obama's proposal, is a national exchange and a national public health insurance option. All three proposals could have helped with the issue of the monopoly power of insurers

snip

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/08-9

[branders seine]

1. Well, there's your problem!

You compared his rhetoric to his actions.

[quiet.american]

2. This is a seriously flawed plea for single payer.

For one thing, the "leading insurance broker laid out in clear terms what many Americans could already guess" does so according to keeping the status quo.

To take this article seriously, it would be nice to see, if not a line-by-line analysis of why the many Senate reforms won't work, something more substantial than "The few elements of this health care reform push that could have helped deal with the issue of "insurers' monopoly" have been removed, and Obama is making no effort to add them back." Exactly what elements? We're supposed to take the author's word for it?

[subterranean]

3. The author does list three elements in the very next paragraph:

-Repeal of the antitrust exemption
-A national (as opposed to state-based) insurance exchange
-Public insurance option

[quiet.american]

4. And it's still flawed, because there never was a public option in the Senate bill.

I'm not a big fan of Sam Stein's. There's always something missing in his pieces.

[GeorgeGist]

5. As the obaman said ...

doing it right would be too disruptive.