A Warning To Heed

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_03/022740.php

A WARNING TO HEED.... Earlier this week, a highly regarded insurance broker painted a disconcerting picture -- a health insurance marketplace that features so much concentration and so many monopolies, insurers are "willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to improve their bottom line."

It was a warning Obama administration officials want policymakers to take seriously.

To bolster the case for a far-reaching overhaul of the health care system, the Obama administration is seizing on a new analysis by Goldman Sachs, the New York investment bank, recommending that investors buy shares in two big insurance companies, the UnitedHealth Group and Cigna, because insurance rates are up sharply and competition is down.

White House officials on Saturday said that the Goldman Sachs analysis would be a "centerpiece" of their closing argument in the push for major health care legislation. The president and Democratic Congressional leaders are hoping to win passage of the legislation before the Easter recess. Republicans remain fiercely opposed to the bill.

The Goldman Sachs analysis shows that while insurers can be aggressive in raising prices, they also walk away from clients because competition in the industry is so weak, the White House said. And officials will point to a finding that rate increases ran as high as 50 percent, with most in "the low- to mid-teens" -- far higher than overall inflation.

The analysis could be a powerful weapon for the White House because it offers evidence that an overhaul of the health care system is needed not only to help cover the millions of uninsured but to prevent soaring health care expenses from undermining the coverage that the majority of Americans already have through employers.

As a friend of mine noted the other day, "Those who oppose health care reform because they like their coverage have it backwards."

Expect to hear quite a bit more about this, especially when HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebilius appears on the Sunday shows this morning.

—Steve Benen

[Old Codger]

1. Interesting Article

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35726793/ns/business-your_retirement/

It was sometime after midnight on Dec. 8, 2007, when Dr. Eric Goren told me my husband might not live till morning. The kidney cancer that had metastasized almost six years earlier was growing in his lungs. He was in intensive care at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and had begun to spit blood.

Terence Bryan Foley, 67 years old, my husband of 20 years, father of our two teenagers, a Chinese historian who earned his Ph.D. in his sixties, a man who played more than 15 musical instruments and spoke six languages, a San Francisco cable car conductor and sports photographer, an expert on dairy cattle and swine nutrition, film noir and Dixieland jazz, was confused. He knew his name, but not the year. He wanted a Coke.

Should Terence begin to hemorrhage, the doctor asked, what should he do?

[Jennicut]

9. What is charged in the hospital is crazy. Is it because they are not reimbursed enough by medicare?

Another question from that article would be is it more important to extend the life of a few at the most expense or is it better to give basic coverage to all?

[rurallib]

2. hey, Obama, how about really backing a public option?

like you campaigned on

[Windy]

3. a dose of reality....he wouldn't be able to get it through the corporate owned senate!

Newsflash! All of you idiots whinging about the demise of the PO.... even with the new push to get it though, there is still not enough votes in the senate to pass it even with recociliation! Obama is not a dictator as much as you want him to be!

[annabanana]

5. There are more votes now than there were before.

http://whipcongress.com/

[rurallib]

6. how we going to know if we don't try?

Why don't they just crown Kansas the NCAA champ. Everybody knows no one can beat them!

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Hey. Works for me.

That crowning Kansas part. :)

[Cali_Democrat]

11. How do we know?

Because they've probably canvassed Democratic Senators in order to see how they would vote with regard to a public option and they don't have 50 votes.

[Cha]

4. Ye-ah! Good for the

Obama admin using this very real warning.

"As a friend of mine noted the other day, "Those who oppose health care reform because they like their coverage have it backwards."

[OneBlueSky]

7. there are two ways for profit-making corporations to increase their bottom line . . .

1) increasing income, and 2) decreasing expenses . . . in the healthcare industry, that means 1) maximizing the prices their customers pay, and 2) minimizing the amount they pay out in benefits to those same customers . . . and since the bottom line is ALL that counts to profit-making corporations, what do you think will happen to these two items if and when this insurance reform (for it's certainly not healthcare reform) package passes? . . .

just open Medicare to everyone, on a sliding scale . . . problem solved . . .

[gkhouston]

8. +1000. I'd much rather pay the same premium into Medicare and not worry

about losing/changing jobs or getting screwed by a private insurance company. I suspect others might feel the same way. Why not put Medicare as an option on the exchange and see who wants to buy it?