[Peace-discuss] What hath got rot?

[John W.]

Amen, and amen, and amen.  There's no rational rejoinder to this.  None.



On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 2:47 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>wrote:



> [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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