[Peace-discuss] Fw: Bill Moyers - Rx and the Single Payer

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Subject: Bill Moyers - Rx and the Single Payer


> Rx and the Single Payer
>
> By Bill Moyers
>
> Campaign for America's Future
> May 22, 2009
>
> http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009052122/rx-and-single-payer
>
> In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack
> Obama told a local AFL-CIO meeting, "I am a proponent
> of a single-payer universal health care program."
>
> Single payer. Universal. That's health coverage, like
> Medicare, but for everyone who wants it. Single payer
> eliminates insurance companies as pricey middlemen. The
> government pays care providers directly. It's a system
> that polls consistently have shown the American people
> favoring by as much as two-to-one.
>
> There was only one thing standing in the way, Obama
> said six years ago: "All of you know we might not get
> there immediately because first we have to take back
> the White House, we have to take back the Senate and we
> have to take back the House."
>
> Fast forward six years. President Obama has everything
> he said was needed - Democrats in control of the
> executive branch and both chambers of Congress. So
> what's happened to single payer?
>
> A woman at his town hall meeting in New Mexico last
> week asked him exactly that. "If I were starting a
> system from scratch, then I think that the idea of
> moving towards a single-payer system could very well
> make sense," the President replied. "That's the kind of
> system that you have in most industrialized countries
> around the world.
>
> "The only problem is that we're not starting from
> scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-
> based health care. And although there are a lot of
> people who are not satisfied with their health care,
> the truth is, is that the vast majority of people
> currently get health care from their employers and
> you've got this system that's already in place. We
> don't want a huge disruption as we go into health care
> reform where suddenly we're trying to completely
> reinvent one-sixth of the economy."
>
> So the banks were too big to fail and now, apparently,
> health care is too big to fix, at least the way a
> majority of people indicate they would like it to be
> fixed, with a single payer option. President Obama
> favors a public health plan competing with the medical
> cartel that he hopes will create a real market that
> would bring down costs. But single payer has vanished
> from his radar.
>
> Nor is single payer getting much coverage in the
> mainstream media. Barely a mention was given to the
> hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health care
> professionals who came to Washington last week to
> protest the absence of official debate over single
> payer.
>
> Is it the proverbial tree falling in the forest, making
> a noise that journalists can't or won't hear? Could the
> indifference of the press be because both the President
> of the United States and Congress have been avoiding
> single payer like, well, like the plague? As we see so
> often, government officials set the agenda by what they
> do and don't talk about.
>
> Instead, President Obama is looking for consensus,
> seeking peace among all the parties involved. Except
> for single payer advocates. At that big White House
> powwow in Washington last week, the President asked
> representatives of the health care business to reason
> together with him. "What's brought us all together
> today is a recognition that we can't continue down the
> same dangerous road we've been traveling for so many
> years," he said, " that costs are out of control; and
> that reform is not a luxury that can be postponed, but
> a necessity that cannot wait."
>
> They came, listened, made nice for the photo op. and
> while they failed to participate in a hearty chorus of
> "Kumbaya," they did promise to cut health care costs
> voluntarily over the next ten years. The press ate it
> up - and Mr. Obama was a happy man.
>
> Meanwhile, some of us looking on - those of us who've
> been around a long time - were scratching our heads.
> Hadn't we heard this before?
>
> Way, way back in the 1970's Americans were riled up
> over the rising costs of health care. As a presidential
> candidate, Jimmy Carter started talking about the
> government clamping down. When he got to the White
> House, drug makers, insurance companies, hospitals and
> doctors - the very people who only a decade earlier had
> done everything they could to strangle Medicare in the
> cradle - seemed uncharacteristically humble and
> cooperative. "You don't have to make us cut costs,"
> they promised. "We'll do it voluntarily."
>
> So Uncle Sam backed down, and you guessed it. Pretty
> soon medical costs were soaring higher than ever.
>
> By the early `90s, the public was once again hurting in
> the pocketbook. Feeling our pain, Bill and Hillary
> Clinton tried again, coming up with a plan only
> slightly more complicated than the schematics for an
> F-18 fighter jet.
>
> This time the health industry acted more like Tony
> Soprano than Mother Teresa. It bludgeoned the Clinton
> reforms with one of the most expensive and deceitful
> public relations and advertising campaigns ever
> conceived - paid for, of course, from the industry's
> swollen profits.
>
> As the drug and insurance companies, hospitals and
> doctors dumped the mangled carcass of reform into the
> Potomac, securely encased in concrete, once again they
> said don't worry; they would cut costs voluntarily.
>
> If you believed that, we've got a toll-free bridge to
> the Mayo Clinic we'd like to sell you.
>
> So anyone with any memory left could be excused for
> raising their eyebrows at the health care industry's
> latest promises. As if on cue, hardly had their pledge
> of volunteerism rung out across the land than Jay
> Gellert, chief executive of Health Net Inc. and chair
> of the lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans,
> assured his pals not to worry abut the voluntary
> reductions. "We believe that we can do it without
> undermining the viability of companies," he said, "and
> in effect enhancing the payment to physicians and
> hospitals." In other words, their so-called voluntary
> "reforms" will in no way interfere with maximizing
> profits.
>
> Also last week, John Lechleiter, the chief executive of
> drug giant Eli Lilly, blasted universal health care in
> a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: "I do not
> believe that policymakers have yet arrived at a full
> and complete diagnosis of what's wrong and what's right
> with U.S. health care," he declared. "And I am very
> concerned that some of the proposed policies-the
> treatments, to continue my metaphor-will have
> unintended side-effects that make our situation worse."
>
> So why bother with the charm offensive on Pennsylvania
> Avenue? Could it be, as some critics suggest, a Trojan
> horse, getting the health industry a place at the table
> so they can leap up at the right moment and again knife
> to death any real reform?
>
> Wheelers and dealers from the health sector aren't
> waiting for that moment. According to the non-partisan
> Center for Responsive Politics, they've spent more than
> $134 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009
> alone. And some already are shelling out big bucks for
> a publicity blitz and ads attacking any health care
> reform that threatens to reduce the profits from
> sickness and disease.
>
> The Washington Post's health care reform blog reported
> Tuesday that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina
> has hired an outside PR firm to put together a video
> campaign assaulting Obama's public plan. And this month
> alone, the group Conservatives for Patients' Rights is
> spending more than a million dollars for attack ads.
> They've hired a public relations firm called CRC -
> Creative Response Concepts. You remember them - the
> same high-minded folks who brought you the Swift Boat
> Veterans for Truth, the gang who savaged John Kerry's
> service record in Vietnam.
>
> The ads feature the chairman of Conservatives for
> Patients' Rights, Rick Scott. Who's he? As a former
> deputy inspector general from the Department of Health
> and Human Services told The New York Times, "He hopes
> people don't Google his name."
>
> Scott's not a doctor; he just acts like one on TV. He's
> an entrepreneur who took two hospitals in Texas and
> built them into the largest health care chain in the
> world, Columbia/HCA. In 1997, he was fired by the board
> of directors after Columbia/HCA was caught in a scheme
> that ripped off the Feds and state governments for
> hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus Medicare and
> Medicaid payments, the largest such fraud in history.
> The company had to cough up $1.7 billion dollars to get
> out of the mess.
>
> Rick Scott got off, you should excuse the expression,
> scot-free. Better than, in fact. According to published
> reports, he waltzed away with a $10 million severance
> deal and $300 million worth of stock. So much for
> voluntarily lowering overhead.
>
> With medical costs rising six percent per year, that's
> who's offering himself as a spokesman for the health
> care industry. Speaking up for single payer is Geri
> Jenkins, a president of the California Nurses
> Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee -
> a registered nurse with literal hands-on experience.
>
> "We're there around the clock," she told our colleague
> Jessica Wang. "So we feel a real sense of obligation to
> advocate for the best interests of our patients and the
> public. Now, you can talk about policy but when you're
> staring at a human face it's a whole different story."
>
> =====
>
> [Michael Winship co-wrote this article. Bill Moyers is
> managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of
> the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal,
> which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or
> comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
>
> Research provided by editorial producer Rebecca
> Wharton.]
>
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