[Peace-discuss] What hath got rot?

[C. G. Estabrook]

[This is from the statement by Physicians for a National Health Program 
(http://pnhp.org) on the Dear Leader's triumph.  --CGE]


As much as we would like to join the celebration of the House's passage of the 
health bill last night, in good conscience we cannot. We take no comfort in 
seeing aspirin dispensed for the treatment of cancer.

Instead of eliminating the root of the problem - the profit-driven, private 
health insurance industry - this costly new legislation will enrich and further 
entrench these firms. The bill would require millions of Americans to buy 
private insurers' defective products, and turn over to them vast amounts of 
public money.

The hype surrounding the new health bill is belied by the facts:

     * About 23 million people will remain uninsured nine years out. That figure 
translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually and an 
incalculable toll of suffering.

     * Millions of middle-income people will be pressured to buy commercial 
health insurance policies costing up to 9.5 percent of their income but covering 
an average of only 70 percent of their medical expenses, potentially leaving 
them vulnerable to financial ruin if they become seriously ill. Many will find 
such policies too expensive to afford or, if they do buy them, too expensive to 
use because of the high co-pays and deductibles.

     * Insurance firms will be handed at least $447 billion in taxpayer money to 
subsidize the purchase of their shoddy products. This money will enhance their 
financial and political power, and with it their ability to block future reform.

     * The bill will drain about $40 billion from Medicare payments to safety-net
hospitals, threatening the care of the tens of millions who will remain uninsured.

     * People with employer-based coverage will be locked into their plan's 
limited network of providers, face ever-rising costs and erosion of their health 
benefits. Many, even most, will eventually face steep taxes on their benefits as 
the cost of insurance grows.

     * Health care costs will continue to skyrocket, as the experience with the 
Massachusetts plan (after which this bill is patterned) amply demonstrates.

     * The much-vaunted insurance regulations - e.g. ending denials on the basis 
of pre-existing conditions - are riddled with loopholes, thanks to the central 
role that insurers played in crafting the legislation. Older people can be 
charged up to three times more than their younger counterparts, and large 
companies with a predominantly female workforce can be charged higher 
gender-based rates at least until 2017...


It didn't have to be like this. Whatever salutary measures are contained in this 
bill, e.g. additional funding for community health centers, could have been 
enacted on a stand-alone basis.

Similarly, the expansion of Medicaid - a woefully underfunded program that 
provides substandard care for the poor - could have been done separately, along 
with an increase in federal appropriations to upgrade its quality.

But instead the Congress and the Obama administration have saddled Americans 
with an expensive package of onerous individual mandates, new taxes on workers' 
health plans, countless sweetheart deals with the insurers and Big Pharma, and a 
perpetuation of the fragmented, dysfunctional, and unsustainable system that is 
taking such a heavy toll on our health and economy today...


A genuine remedy is in plain sight. Sooner rather than later, our nation will 
have to adopt a single-payer national health insurance program, an improved 
Medicare for all. Only a single-payer plan can assure truly universal, 
comprehensive and affordable care to all.

By replacing the private insurers with a streamlined system of public financing, 
our nation could save $400 billion annually in unnecessary, wasteful 
administrative costs. That's enough to cover all the uninsured and to upgrade 
everyone else's coverage without having to increase overall U.S. health spending 
by one penny.

Moreover, only a single-payer system offers effective tools for cost control 
like bulk purchasing, negotiated fees, global hospital budgeting and capital 
planning.

Polls show nearly two-thirds of the public supports such an approach, and a 
recent survey shows 59 percent of U.S. physicians support government action to 
establish national health insurance. All that is required to achieve it is the 
political will.

The major provisions of the present bill do not go into effect until 2014. 
Although we will be counseled to "wait and see" how this reform plays out, we 
cannot wait, nor can our patients. The stakes are too high...



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