Healthcare

Single Payer vs. Public Option
By Russell Mokhiber | SinglePayerAction.org | Common Dreams | H/T dikyzr

Nick Skala was in a bit of shock.

In early June, he was invited to speak before the Progressive Caucus of the House of Representatives about single payer health care.

There are about 71 members of the House who belong to the Progressive Caucus — about a third of the Democratic Caucus.

Skala is a true believer in single payer — having spent four years with Physicians for a National Health Program.

So, yes of course, he would love to speak before the Progressive Caucus to explain why single payer was the only way to control costs and cover everyone.

And that Obama’s public option was bound to fail.

He sent his presentation ahead of time to Bill Goold, the executive director of the Progressive Caucus, and Darcy Burner, executive director of the American Progressive Caucus Foundation.

Both were not pleased with Skala. Read more.

I've recently criticized the Campaign for America's Future for shutting out arguments for single-payer healthcare. They just sent out an Email that includes articles advocating single-payer, including one by me. While their main focus is still on the "public option" it's possible that they have begun to grasp that the best tool they have is a movement for single-payer. Or maybe they've even figured out that only single-payer will work. In any case, they deserve credit for ending the blockade.

By Dr. Margaret Flowers, Dr. Carol Paris, Dr. Pat Salomon-Rodriguez, and Dr. Judy Dasovich
 
As the American Medical Association (AMA) begins its annual convention in Chicago, we want to take this opportunity to make it clear to the American public, to the media, and to the President and members of Congress, that the AMA does not represent us.  It is a common misconception that this organization speaks on behalf of most American physicians but that is a misconception with very serious consequences at such a critical time in the healthcare reform debate.  So long as the public, the media and our elected officials lump all physicians together as "the AMA", then we are guilty by association of a failure of our hippocratic oath to "first, do no harm". 

By Dave Lindorff

If you want to fix the disaster that is called the American healthcare system, the first thing to do is to clearly point out what its major failings are, and there are two of these.

The first is cost. America is one of the or possibly the most expensive places in the world to get sick or injured. The corollary of that is that it is one of the best places to make a killing if you are in the medical business, whether as a doctor, a hospital company, a pharmaceutical firm or a nursing home owner.

Why So Scared of a Public Plan?
By Joe Conason | Truthdig

"...the same arguments that have distorted the debate over health care will emerge again—especially the claim that private insurance is somehow more efficient than a public program would be, or that we cannot “afford” a public plan.

The opposite is true, as surprising as that may seem. During the decade that ended in 2006, to cite just one set of relevant statistics, the level of health spending per head (for similar benefits) grew 4.6 percent annually under Medicare, while spending under private health insurance rose by 7.3 percent. For many years, in fact, Medicare has performed better at controlling costs than private insurance companies.

One reason is simple and obvious: Eliminating profits for shareholders and management cuts out a major cost factor.

Another is less obvious: Private insurers consistently spend more on overhead and administration than Medicare. To anyone who shares the broad prejudice against government, the difference will be startling, although these numbers are very well known to health experts. The average overhead cost of Medicare is roughly 2 or 3 percent, far below the administrative costs of private insurers, which range between 27 and 40 percent.

These basic facts have broad implications for the nation’s capacity to ensure quality health coverage for all of its citizens." Read more.

The Healthcare War is Now Official
By Robert Reich | Robert Reich's Blog

Yesterday the American Medical Association came out against a public option for health care. And yesterday the President reaffirmed his support for it. The next weeks will show what Obama is made of -- whether he's willing and able to take on the most formidable lobbying coalition he has faced so far on an issue that will define his presidency.

And make no mistake: A public option large enough to have bargaining leverage to drive down drug prices and private-insurance premiums is the defining issue of universal health care. It's the only way to make health care affordable. It's the only way to prevent Medicare and Medicaid from eating up future federal budgets. An ersatz public option -- whether Kent Conrad's non-profit cooperatives, Olympia Snowe's "trigger," or regulated state-run plans -- won't do squat. Read more.

Obama Identifies $313 Billion for Health Care Through Medicaid and Medicare Savings
Jake Tapper, From Sunlen Miller and Sarah Tobianski | ABCNews Political Punch

“I know some question whether we can afford to act this year,” President Obama said in the address, “But the unmistakable truth is that it would be irresponsible to not act. We can’t keep shifting a growing burden to future generations. With each passing year, health care costs consume a larger share of our nation’s spending and contribute to yawning deficits that we cannot control. So let me be clear: Health care reform is not part of the problem when it comes to our fiscal future, it is a fundamental part of the solution.”

Calling Medicare and Medicaid “one of the greatest threats to our federal deficit,” President Obama used his weekly address to announce savings in Medicare and Medicaid that the administration said will generate more than $313 billion over 10 years for funding health care reform.

The savings, coupled with a $635 billion “down payment” already outlined in the fiscal year 2010 budget would add up to roughly $950 billion toward paying for health care reform.

The $313 billion savings is in large part made up of savings from three big areas: $110 billion from incorporating productivity adjustments and Medicare payments, $106 billion from reducing disproportionate hospital payments and $75 billion from better pricing of Medicare drugs.

“These savings will come from common sense changes,” Obama said in the address, “For example, if more Americans are insured, we can cut payments that help hospitals treat patients without health insurance. If the drug makers pay their fair share, we can cut government spending on prescription drugs. And if doctors have incentives to provide the best care instead of more care, we can help Americans avoid the unnecessary hospital stays, treatments and tests that drive up costs.” Read more.

Watch Obama's Weekly Address, Read the factsheet

On Friday, June 12, from 6 PM to 7 PM, the popular “Anthony McCarthy Show,” on WEAA, 88.9 FM, in Baltimore, MD, debated the issue of Healthcare. Mr. McCarthy’s guests were Kevin Zeese, author, social justice activist and Executive Director of PropserityAgenda.US and Kevin Frick, Health Economist and Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. For background on the radio program, “The Anthony McCarthy Show,” go to weaa.org The numbers of healthcare activists supporting HR 676 and S 703, now pending before the U.S. Congress, continues to grow. For more information on health care, click here. “The Anthony McCarthy Show” is broadcast on WEAA, a public radio station, on 88.9 FM, from the facilities of the Morgan State University, in Baltimore, MD.

Debunking Canadian health care myths
By Rhonda Hackett | Denver Post

As a Canadian living in the United States for the past 17 years, I am frequently asked by Americans and Canadians alike to declare one health care system as the better one.

Often I'll avoid answering, regardless of the questioner's nationality. To choose one or the other system usually translates into a heated discussion of each one's merits, pitfalls, and an intense recitation of commonly cited statistical comparisons of the two systems.

Because if the only way we compared the two systems was with statistics, there is a clear victor. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to dispute the fact that Canada spends less money on health care to get better outcomes.

Yet, the debate rages on. Indeed, it has reached a fever pitch since President Barack Obama took office, with Americans either dreading or hoping for the dawn of a single-payer health care system. Opponents of such a system cite Canada as the best example of what not to do, while proponents laud that very same Canadian system as the answer to all of America's health care problems. Frankly, both sides often get things wrong when trotting out Canada to further their respective arguments.

As America comes to grips with the reality that changes are desperately needed within its health care infrastructure, it might prove useful to first debunk some myths about the Canadian system.

Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.

In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada's taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

###

More myths Rhonda Hackett addresses:

• Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.
• Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.
• Myth: Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it.
• Myth: There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care.
• Myth: Canada is a socialized health care system in which the government runs hospitals and where doctors work for the government.
• Myth: There aren't enough doctors in Canada.

Read more.

By David Swanson, t r u t h o u t | Report

    Health care reform plans are being drafted and passed around on both sides of Capitol Hill, but the plan with the greatest number of Congress members behind it was first introduced as a bill six years ago. With two new co-sponsors having just signed on, Congressman John Conyers's single-payer health care plan, HR 676, now has 80 Congress members supporting it.

READ THE REST AT TRUTHOUT.

Hundreds Rally In Harrisburg For Affordable Health Care
By Dwayne Parker | WFMZ - Click here to view demonstration video.

Hundreds of Pennsylvanians say they refuse to wait for a nationwide solution to the problem of finding affordable health care. Thursday morning, they took their fight to Harrisburg.

It's called the Family and Business Healthcare Security Act. It's a single-payer option to healthcare. But this option is not without its critics. These protesters are demanding that PA take the lead in single- payer Healthcare. The rally, lead by Health Care for All PA, made their voices heard in the Capital Rotunda in Harrisburg. Pedro Rodriguez is the statewide organizer. Read more.

Congress on a Path to Transfer Hundreds of Billions in Tax Dollars to the Insurance Industry While Calling it Health Care Reform
Single payer witnesses show the common sense path, but Congress listening to industry donors
By Kevin Zeese | Property Agenda US

And, it will take the people speaking out and getting active to make real health care reform possible. If you don’t want to see another massive transfer of wealth to the insurance industry while Americans continue to lack health care, you need to take action. Tell your representatives that you want a national health plan funded by a single payer system. The insurers are working hard, the American people have to work harder. The time is now. You can take action by clicking here.

Yesterday, as Senator Tom Harkin (D-IO) left the health care hearing room he leaned over to me and said:

“I used to sell insurance. The basic rule is the larger the pool the less expensive the health care. Today we have 1,300 separate pools – separate health care plans – and that is why health care is so expensive; 700 pools would be more efficient and less expensive and one pool would be the least expensive. That’s why single payer is the answer.”

Nothing like common sense.

But, common sense was not on display in the Senate yesterday. Instead, the senate is seeking a path to the goal of universal coverage by protecting the least efficient model – the for-profit insurance industry that through waste, fraud, abuse and bureaucracy eats up 31% the cost of health care.

Chris Dodd (D-CT) who chaired the hearing, standing in for the ailing Ted Kennedy, has received $2.1 million from insurance industry throughout his career, another $547,000 from the pharmaceutical industry, and $467,000 from health care professionals. Dodd opened the hearing stating the stark facts:

Stand With Dr. Dean

Give America a choice. We support healthcare reform that allows individual Americans to choose either a universally available public healthcare option like Medicare or for-profit private insurance. A public option is the only way to guarantee healthcare for all Americans and its inclusion is non- negotiable.

Any legislation without the choice of a public option is only insurance reform and not the healthcare reform America needs. Read more, sign petition.

Find transcripts and videos here.

And read this report.

Four good witnesses out of five.

Videos below ...

Health Care is a Right, Not a Privilege
By Senator Bernie Sanders | Op-Ed News

Let's be clear. Our health care system is disintegrating. Today, 46 million people have no health insurance and even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. At a time when 60 million people, including many with insurance, do not have access to a medical home, more than 18,000 Americans die every year from preventable illnesses because they do not get to the doctor when they should. This is six times the number who died at the tragedy of 9/11 – but this occurs every year.

In the midst of this horrendous lack of coverage, the U.S. spends far more per capita on health care than any other nation – and health care costs continue to soar. At $2.4 trillion dollars, and 18 percent of our GDP, the skyrocketing cost of health care in this country is unsustainable both from a personal and macro-economic perspective.

At the individual level, the average American spends about $7,900 per year on health care. Despite that huge outlay, a recent study found that medical problems contributed to 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007. From a business perspective, General Motors spends more on health care per automobile than on steel while small business owners are forced to divert hard-earned profits into health coverage for their employees – rather than new business investments. And, because of rising costs, many businesses are cutting back drastically on their level of health care coverage or are doing away with it entirely.

Further, despite the fact that we spend almost twice as much per person on health care as any other country, our health care outcomes lag behind many other nations. We get poor value for what we spend. According to the World Health Organization the United States ranks 37th in terms of health system performance and we are far behind many other countries in terms of such important indices as infant mortality, life expectancy and preventable deaths. Read more.

119 Million Americans Must Be Wrong
By Robert Parry | Consortium News

As the health insurance industry and its defenders in Congress lay out their case against permitting a public option in a reform bill, perhaps their most curious argument is that some 119 million Americans are ready to dump their private plans and jump to something more like Medicare – and that’s why the choice can’t be permitted.

In other words, the industry and its backers are acknowledging that more than one-third of the American people are so dissatisfied with their private health insurance that they trust the U.S. government to give them a fairer shake on health care. The industry says its allies in Congress must prevent that.

The peculiar argument that 119 million Americans must be denied the public option that they prefer has been made most notably by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which is one of two panels that has jurisdiction over the health insurance bill.

“As many as 119 million Americans would shift from private coverage to the government plan,” Grassley wrote in a column for Politico.com. That migration, Grassley said, would “put America on the path toward a completely government-run health care system....Eventually, the government plan would overtake the entire market.”

Grassley’s logic is that so many Americans would prefer a government-run plan that the private health insurance industry would collapse or become a shadow of its current self. That, in turn, would lead even more Americans entering the government plan, making private insurance even less viable.

Rarely has an argument more dramatically highlighted the philosophical question of whether in a democracy, the government should represent the people’s interests or an industry’s. Read more.

Gutting the Health Care Plan: The Scorpion and the Congress
by Paul Rogat Loeb | Common Dreams

Will serious health reform meet the fate of the scorpion and the turtle? In that fable, the scorpion pleads with the turtle to carry him across a river. The turtle resists, fearing the scorpion's sting, but the scorpion reassures him that he'd do nothing so foolish, since both would drown if he did. Finally the turtle agrees. Halfway across, the scorpion betrays his promise with a lethal sting. As the turtle begins to drown, he asks why he took both their lives. "It's just who I am," the scorpion replies.

I fear we're about to get stung again. When people look back at the failure of the Clinton-era health care initiative, they point, accurately, to an opaque process that produced a baroque Rube Goldberg mess that satisfied no one. That happened even before the insurance industry went on the attack with their Harry and Louise ads. But another missing element parallels our current challenge-appeasement of the insurance companies as the plan's centerpiece, and the inevitability that these same interests will betray us again.

The Clintons assumed the insurance companies were too powerful to confront, so the plan had to go along with them. But once they assumed any bill had to get the companies' approval, no plan could work, because it had to build in ways for the companies to maintain their profit margins and the immensely wasteful overhead they spend on advertising, processing claims, and turning down as many sick people as they can. Their approach also creates corollary wastes, like the third of the expenses of the average medical office that go toward dealing with insurance company paperwork.

Our health care crisis is so dire that the simple single-payer approach, as in Canada, should be at least seriously debated. Read more.

By Nick Mottern

If the Organizing for America (OFA) health care meeting in Fishkill NY on Saturday June 6, 2009 is typical of other such events, President Obama and his OFA are on a campaign to discourage people from advocating for single-payer health insurance in the interest of promoting the Obama insurance plan.

Geoff Berman, of OFA, told the gathering of about 35 people flatly at the beginning of the meeting that single-payer health care will not be approved by the Congress. Later, he went on to say that President Obama has made the judgment that if “he (Mr. Obama) puts all of his eggs” in the basket of single-payer health insurance his effort to “reform” health care will fail “because of the immense lobbying on the members of Congress” by the health insurance industry.

Single-payer health insurance is a proposed program wherein the government would provide health insurance for all in a form of expanded Medicare coverage.

Effort will reduce costs, protect current coverage and preserve choice to ensure affordable, quality care for all
From: Energy and Commerce Committee

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, leaders of the Committees with jurisdiction over health policy briefed members of the House Democratic Caucus on the current framework and timing of health reform efforts in the House of Representatives. The discussion, led by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA), focused on the key principles of reducing health care costs, protecting current coverage and preserving choice for patients to ensure affordable, quality care for all.

The three Chairmen released the following joint statement on their efforts to develop health reform legislation:

Less than a month after 13 single payer advocates were arrested protesting the exclusion of single payer, it is at the table in both Houses, making progress while the multi-payer pro-insurance reform is faltering.

By Kevin Zeese

When we started our campaign one month ago to put single payer national health insurance on the table, we were ignored.

When we stood up and demanded that single payer be part of the debate, we were arrested.

Today, single payer is breaking through, while the multi-payer pro-health insurance reform is faltering.

Here’s the news, single payer national health insurance will be at the table in the Senate with a witness participating in a hearing this Thursday. And, on Wednesday a hearing is being held on single payer in the House of Representatives.

How Much Money Has The Health Care Industry Contributed to Rep. Charles Range (D-NY)?

Click "Read more" to see contributions from the Health Care Industry to Rep. Rangel.

THE FACTS ABOUT THE HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY
By paradocs2 | Daily Kos

Most people are unaware how similar the major health insurers are to our failed Wall Street firms.They are corporate cash cows and have virtually no fiduciary responsibility and few activities for protecting or improving health or the health care system.They will devote their vast resources to prevent any meaningful health reform. They have controlled Congress and the mainstream media. The only cure is vigorous popular support for a single payer, Medicare for All reform.

This is a discussion about the huge and looming crisis in our nation’s health care system and the need for a radical paradigm changing reform. Because the issues discussed below necessarily involve a politically difficult restructuring of a large and well establish sector of our economy, the breadth and details of this reform have so far has been largely excluded from public policy discussions and debate. AHIP – American Health Insurance Plans - representing the private, for profit, health insurance companies and their partners had their annual national convention in San Diego, California this week. They are the association of all the major health insurers in the United States and their lobbying clout is unsurpassed. Major public political leaders of both parties, men like Jeb Bush, Dr. Howard Dean, and Tom Daschle attended.

As a practicing family physician who has been seeing patients since Medicare was started I can tell you what really ails our national health system. Making the correct diagnosis is important. Read more.

By David Swanson

In a far better than usual, and very encouraging, conference, held by the Campaign for America's Future last week, the low point was the complete white-out of single-payer healthcare.  Rather than apologizing, which even Max Baucus has done sort of, CAF decided to put forth a bunch of insultingly false reasons why single-payer is a terrible idea.  These are not reasons why it was shut out of the panels and plenaries and press conferences.  In fact, if it was such a terrible idea, it ought to have been openly discussed so that we could all be thus enlightened.

Here's Bernie Horn:

Single-payer is the cheapest and simplest approach. So why aren’t Obama and the Democrats pushing it?

CBC backs public Medicare-like program
By Mike Soraghan, The Hill

The Congressional Black Caucus says that a public plan similar to Medicare must be included in the healthcare overhaul, a sharply different position than some of their more conservative fellow Democrats.

The 41-member group also said in a letter to President Obama that such legislation also should address historic disparities in healthcare. The letter notes that CBC members' constituents are disproportionately under-insured or uninsured.

"We ... respectfully, but firmly urge you to ensure that efforts to reform the nation's health care system integrate aggressive solutions to the nation's current plight with health disparities," said the letter, obtained by The Hill.

How Pharma and Insurance Intend to Kill the Public Option, And What Obama and the Rest of Us Must Do
By Robert Reich | Robert Reich's Blog

I'ved poked around Washington today, talking with friends on the Hill who confirm the worst: Big Pharma and Big Insurance are gaining ground in their campaign to kill the public option in the emerging health care bill.

You know why, of course. They don't want a public option that would compete with private insurers and use its bargaining power to negotiate better rates with drug companies. They argue that would be unfair. Unfair? Unfair to give more people better health care at lower cost? To Pharma and Insurance, "unfair" is anything that undermines their profits.

So they're pulling out all the stops -- pushing Democrats and a handful of so-called "moderate" Republicans who say they're in favor of a public option to support legislation that would include it in name only. One of their proposals is to break up the public option into small pieces under multiple regional third-party administrators that would have little or no bargaining leverage. A second is to give the public option to the states where Big Pharma and Big Insurance can easily buy off legislators and officials, as they've been doing for years. A third is bind the public plan to the same rules private insurers have already wangled, thereby making it impossible for the public plan to put competitive pressure on the insurers. Read more.

The House Oversight Committee issued a report documenting $95 Billion in past and potential health care waste and windfall profits, as well as 15,000 unnecessary deaths that single payer health care and state regulatory improvements could have eliminated.

Use this information when you contact CSPAN at (202) 737-3220 to ask them to cover the upcoming House hearing “Examining the Single Payer Health Care Option” on June 10th.

• Waste from Medicare Part D Switch to Private Insurers: $75 billion. Unlike traditional Medicare, which is run directly by the government, the new Medicare Part D prescription drug program depends on private insurers to provide drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries. A report released by the Committee in October 2007 found that the use of private insurers to deliver Medicare drug coverage is driving up costs and producing only limited savings on drug prices. The report found that taxpayers and Medicare Part D beneficiaries could have saved almost $15 billion in 2007 — and could save more than $75 billion over the next five years — by reducing administrative expenses and drug prices.14
  

By Corrente

Study: Life, Health Insurers Investing Billions in Tobacco Companies | Fox News

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that major U.S., Canadian and British life and health insurance are investing billions of dollars in tobacco company stock, Agence France-Presse reported.

"Despite calls upon the insurance industry to get out of the tobacco business by physicians and others, insurers continue to put their profits above people's health," said Wesley Boyd, the study’s lead author and a faculty member of Harvard Medical School. “It’s clear their top priority is making money, not safe-guarding people’s well-being.” Read more.

You Bet Your Health - Play the Game: You Lose!