Progressives Were Right: Obama's Health Plan Not Solving Crisis

[Karmadillo]

Duh.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/07-3

Published on Thursday, July 7, 2011 by Salon.com
Progressives Were Right: Obama's Health Plan Not Solving Crisis
New Data Show Why Simply Having Insurance Isn't Enough
by David Sirota

While the contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination is already revolving around conservative-themed attacks on "Obamacare," back when the healthcare bill was being legislated, the most important debate was within the Democratic Party, which held large majorities in both houses of Congress. On one side were the drug companies, the insurance companies and President Obama -- the latter who had not only disowned his prior support of single-payer healthcare but had also worked with his corporate allies to actively undermine a modest public insurance option. On the other side were progressives who opposed any bill which further cemented the private insurance industry as the primary mediator between doctors and patients.Two new studies - one from Massachusetts, one from Arizona - validate the original progressive criticism of the Obama health care bill. Specifically, the studies look at the inherent danger of strengthening insurance company power, and how doing that - as the Obama bill explicitly did - will not solve the underlying problems of medical debt and bankruptcy. As the studies show, those underlying problems then lead to skimping on preventative care and under-insured status. (iStockphoto/KLH49)

Ultimately, Obama and his corporate-backed allies organized enough conservative Democrats in Congress to win, effectively turning healthcare "reform" into a blank-check TARP-style bailout for the health industry. But, of course, to even whisper that last truism is to now run the risk of being labeled a blasphemer in a conversation that can only tolerate misleading red-versus-blue analyses. In today's national political debate, there are Republicans who insist "Obamacare" is a Canadian-style "takeover" of America's healthcare system, and there are Democrats who insist that the health bill is a major Medicare-like achievement -- any other argument, no matter how valid, has been vaporized by election-season pressure to fall in ideological line.

Unfortunately for the political class, however, reality doesn't take orders from partisans -- it persists irrespective of talking points, press releases and Twitter mobs. And on healthcare, the original progressive criticism is now being validated in a new study from Arizona. Going beneath the superficial rhetoric about health insurance and to the reality of actual health care and health costs, the study published by the American Journal of Public Health found:

Health insurance is not protecting Arizonans from having problems paying medical bills, and having bill problems is keeping families from getting needed medical care and prescription medicines, a new study has found... After taking age, income and health status into account, simply being insured does not lower the odds of accruing debt related to medical care or medications. In addition, says University of Arizona College of Pharmacy research scientist Patricia M. Herman, ND, PhD, who directed the study, medical debt is a separate and better predictor of whether people will delay or forgo needed medical care than their insurance status.

more...

[Demeter]

1. Thank you, Karmadillo and Sirota

(Karmadillo, is that a reference to roadkill? You shouldn't be so hard on yourself!)

[somone]

2. Yep. The non-Orwellian name for the bill is

The Health Insurance Industry Revenue Enhancement and Profit Protection Act

[amborin]

3. k and r, and it involves cuts to medicare:

"Many senior citizens worry about the effect that the health care reform bill may have on them. After all, they generally use the health care system more than do younger people. And those living on fixed incomes may have little leeway in their budgets to help if their health costs rise.

Skip to next paragraph
Related stories
Health care reform bill 101: what the bill means to you
Health care reform bill 101: Who will pay for reform?
Health care reform bill 101: How long will reform take?
.Would the healthcare reform legislation that President Obama plans to sign into law on Tuesday affect seniors in any direct way?

The short answer is “yes.”

Healthcare 101: What the bill means to you

The longer answer is that some seniors may lose Medicare benefits they now enjoy. Many others will gain from an enhancement of Medicare’s prescription-drug program.

Here are some specifics on these changes:

Medicare cuts
Under the healthcare reform bill, government payments to Medicare Advantage – plans that are run by private insurers such as Humana and are an alternative to traditional Medicare – will be cut by $132 billion over 10 years. (Those plans currently get somewhat more per person from the government than traditional Medicare does.)

Medicare Advantage plans often offer extra benefits that seniors in traditional Medicare don’t get. It is possible that these extras will be dropped as Medicare Advantage plans feel a budget squeeze.

In most areas of the United States, this reduction will be phased in over three years, beginning in 2011, although in some places it will take longer.

The bill does not contain cuts to traditional Medicare benefits. However, Medicare payments for home healthcare would be reduced by $40 billion between now and 2019. And certain payments to hospitals would be cut by $22 billion over that same period.

Medicare enhancements
The bill would bolster the existing Medicare prescription-drug benefit by addressing part of its “doughnut hole” problem.

Right now, after a senior has spent $2,700 on drugs in a year, coverage stops until that same person has spent $6,154 on drugs, when it starts up again.

Hence the “doughnut hole” nickname.

Beginning in 2010, people who fall into this hole will get $250 from the government to help. Thereafter, according to the bill, the US will gradually increase the percentage of drug costs it pays within this gap. By 2020, the US will pay 75 percent of senior drug costs between $2,700 and $6,154.

Medicare will also begin to pick up the tab for annual wellness visits.

Medicare payment advisory board
Healthcare reform legislation also establishes what it terms an Independent Payment Advisory Board, made up of 15 members, that would submit legislative proposals to reduce per capita Medicare spending if that spending grows too fast.

“Too fast” is defined as exceeding the growth rate of Consumer Price Index measures for a five-year period that ends in 2013.

If that happens, beginning in 2014, this board will submit proposals to Congress and the president for consideration.

Some critics have charged that this board will be the leading edge of Medicare reductions. Legislative wording in the healthcare reform bill prohibits the board from submitting any idea that would ration care, raise taxes, or change benefits."





besides the above, it introduces new "efficiency" standards to rate hospitals; their total amt medicare spending will go against their quality rating in this new metric

[MisterP]

4. reminds me of what Mark Ciavarella, Jr., and Michael Conahan did--forcibly rendering Americans

into the arms of private corporations without cause or precedent (though the newest regurgitation point is that "choosing not to buy insurance affects everyone, so it's constitutional. Also, a Democrat said it was, and some GOPers say it isn't so it must be constitutional. Just like Libya")
except Ciavaraella and Conahan didn't try to do it to the dozens of millions of uninsured or the scores of millions of underinsured

[pampango]

5. Practically the entire Progressive Caucus (iirc 78-7) voted for it in the end, so

it must have been better than defeating the final bill. And practically every republican voted against it.

Every member of the CPC would, undoubtedly, have wanted a much stronger bill, as would I, but they apparently decided that the actual bill was preferable to another defeat of an attempt at national health care reform and a return to the status quo.