Health Care Industry in Talks to Shape Policy

[kpete]

Source: New York Times

Health Care Industry in Talks to Shape Policy

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: February 19, 2009

WASHINGTON — Since last fall, many of the leading figures in the nation’s long-running health care debate have been meeting secretly in a Senate hearing room. Now, with the blessing of the Senate’s leading proponent of universal health insurance, Edward M. Kennedy, they appear to be inching toward a consensus that could reshape the debate.

Many of the parties, from big insurance companies to lobbyists for consumers, doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, are embracing the idea that comprehensive health care legislation should include a requirement that every American carry insurance.

While not all industry groups are in complete agreement, there is enough of a consensus, according to people who have attended the meetings, that they have begun to tackle the next steps: how to enforce the requirement for everyone to have health insurance; how to make insurance affordable to the uninsured; and whether to require employers to help buy coverage for their employees.

The talks, which are taking place behind closed doors, are unusual. Lobbyists for a wide range of interest groups — some of which were involved in defeating national health legislation in 1993-4 — are meeting with the staff of Mr. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, in a search for common ground.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/us/politics/20health.html

[FreakinDJ]

1. We pay 3X what other countries pay for Universal Healthcare

The money is already in the system

NO ONE AND I MEAN NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO PAY 1 EXTRA DIME FOR THIS WHOLE GOD DAMMED COUNTRY TO HAVE HEALTH CARE

[mbperrin]

27. Thank you! Correct!

Single payer universal is the way to go. As you've noted, all the funds are already available and more. Never ceases to amaze me how anyone thinks that inserting a profit making entity between providers and patients could either improve care or save money.

When Vinny the Enforcer becomes your partner in the restaurant, the food don't get better, cheaper, nor do the customers get happier.

But Vinny just rakes it in. HE's happy.

Time to kill Vinny.

Time to kill the insurance companies, HMOs, and all their variant offspring.

[FreakinDJ]

31. Time to kill the insurance companies, HMOs

Thats all that NEEDS to BE DONE

Legislate limits of 2% profit margin and 2% Admin cost

PROBLEM SOLVED

Now if only Ted Kennedy would read this

[fascisthunter]

28. THANK YOU!

[Cleita]

2. Well there goes any meaningful health care.

I love Senator Kennedy, but not his stance on universal health care. As a billionaire, whose never had to live hand to mouth like the majority of working class Americans, he's too far removed from the reality to see how harmful placing a profit on health care is. Massachusetts's plan is already failing because the for profit health care industry is placing a huge burden on the state. Too bad he didn't look to the Harvard Medical School doctors at the Physicians For a National Health Plan who have crafted a single payer plan that will work. Those doctors are right under his nose in Massachusetts too.

[antigop]

7. I lost all respect for Ted when he & Baucus were chief negotiators for the Pension "Protection" Act

That is a POS bill. The Dems caved and sold us out.

[tsuki]

3. Now you know why Edwards had to be destroyed. Whatever the

agreement, it will be to ultimately fuck the public. Big Insurance and Big Pharma are in charge.

Edwards said that you don't negotiate, you take them on and win.

[Gormy Cuss]

4. Requiring everyone to buy insurance is a piss-poor way to achieve universal healthcare.

Let's find a better model.

[nodehopper]

20. not necessarily

if it's properly regulated it's fine. I live in the Netherlands at the moment, and that's the system here--privatized mandated health insurance. Of course it is SUPER-regulated, which means it's standardized, affordable, and totally reasonable, and the gov't picks up the tab for anyone below a certain income. But yeah, somehow I don't see the same level of regulation happening in the US.

[Gormy Cuss]

24. Exactly--it's unlikely to work here for just that reason

especially since the insurance lobby is so powerful in the U.S.

[Donnachaidh]

25. no one should expect REAL regulation in the States

We have too many legislators willing to turn a blind eye to bad things the insurance companies want to do. Especially if the insurance companies give generously to campaigns, give jobs to the relatives of the legislators, etc.

[drdtroit]

5. Great, this solves absofuckinlutely nothing!

More money for insurance companies, just want we need.
Making insurance which never pays a claim affordable to our already financially crippled society.
Get the hell out of the M.E. and use that money! DAMN

[merwin]

22. Actually, the all-in approach saves money, if regulated.

Spread the risk around everyone, and the cost to provide the insurance goes down. It is the only way a universal/single payer health care system can be effective. Sick people are more likely to need health insurance than perpetually well people. And it doesn't take a very serious condition to drain your savings and then some, so health insurance is a requirement for us people who have conditions.

It also needs to be taxpayer funded and regulated, with the rich paying at least the same percentage of their taxes as the middle class (no fucking caps like with social security).

[drdtroit]

23. The insurance companies are the pariah.

We need government sponsored universal health care.
Forcing people to buy a product that is defective solves NOTHING.

[varelse]

6. Disgusting :(

"Many of the parties, from big insurance companies to lobbyists for consumers, doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, are embracing the idea that comprehensive health care legislation should include a requirement that every American carry insurance."

We're going to be forced to provide guaranteed income for insurance corporations, in exchange for what, exactly? They don't provide health care, so why pay them at all?

[dreamnightwind]

19. in exchange for not rejecting high risk people

The "deal", as I read it, was that big med and pharma insisted upon mandatory universal, meaning we all are REQUIRED to buy into it, or they would refuse to accept Obama's wish that all patients, regardless of pre-existing conditions, be accepted for coverage. So, in the minds of Obama, Clinton, Kennedy, Daschle, etc., the mandatory enrollment part is justified by getting everyone covered, especially vulnerable and sick people.

I totally disagree with them, I HATE the big health insurance companies, they truly are parasites that should be eliminated. Just explaining the Faustian bargain that was made.

[Juche]

26. This is what pisses me off

If I were paying health insurance premiums in exchange for decent healthcare then ok. But the reality is after you hand over your money they spend it on administration so they can weasel out of paying your bills. Its disgusting.

If we had competition between healthcare providers, a very strong patients bill of rights, regulations and subsides it wouldn't be so bad, just as long as people could choose a public system instead of a private system if they wanted.

[msongs]

8. is this the only "industry" where your death is a preferred outcome cuz it saves them $$$? nt

[Psephos]

35. One could argue that the US govt wouldn't mind if you died just before collecting SS n/t

[liberalhistorian]

9. Fuck the "health care" industry whose blatant and

inexcusable malpractice just killed my nearly lifelong best friend and whose funeral I will be attending tomorrow. And fuck anyone who is demanding "medical malpractice reform" as a part of "health care reform" or who pushes and/or swallows the conservative and corporatist hype that most malpractice suits are "frivolous", "junk" (thanks, Mrs. Bush), or any variation thereof.

[drdtroit]

10. They did the same to my mother,

but they waited until until they made sure they had stolen ever fucking penny from her.
No way I'll be growing old in the U.S. I'll be heading to a country that doesn't force it's citizens to buy into a third world health care (is that not an oxymoron in our society) system.
Peace out!

[Bette Noir]

18. I'm sorry for your loss.

People don't realize that, to the insurance companies, sick people are money sinks. They make a profit on healthy people, but, as soon as someone gets sick, the insurance comapanies want them to die as soon as possible, so they won't have to pay for care.

I'm a nurse, and I have had an insurance company representative tell me, straight out, "(insert name here) better be dead by Monday, because we're not paying for any more care."

Different story, but my own best friend died nine years ago, due to intentional neglect by one of the most highly-respected HMOs in the country. Profit has no business in the delivery of health care.

[nodehopper]

21. your story is exactly why

I think anyone who works in middle or upper management in HMOs in the US are worthless evil human beings that I want nothing to do with. If I found out someone I know took a job like that I would disown them.

[liberalhistorian]

30. Oh, it wasn't insurance-related, although

I have no doubt at all as to the truth of what you're saying about them and they're scum, especially HMO's. I meant that blatant, inexcusable hospital negligence/error killed her. We buried her this morning. She should have been alive to contribute and love and be loved for another forty years, at least.

[area51]

11. K&R on this life and death issue.

Not GingrichCare; Newt Gingrich wanted a law to force everyone to buy health insurance. Insurance is the problem; from what I understand of MA forced insurance, insurance cos. raised the rates outrageously high, and I'll bet they still have lifetime caps on treatment. In first-world countries which use insurance cos., at least the government is smart enough to force them to be non-profit and to regulate them so they don't kill policyholders by denying them care. That's something this government will never do.

And then there's still the problem; even if we begin single-payer healthcare, which Obama is against, we'll still need more doctors, nurses and other health professionals. Why not do what other people have suggested; stop our two wars of choice, close most of the military bases, and offer soldiers free training in the healthcare professions. I'll be a lot of them take the govt. up on that offer, we'll get more healthcare personnel (which is needed even if we are forever stuck with our completely broken healthcare system), and people won't die due to lack of healthcare.

[leftstreet]

12. K&R for the high puke factor

Disgusting.

:puke:

[babylonsister]

13. Pound sand, you naysayers. This is how we might get this done.

I don't know how it will get done, but it will be accomplished. I'm an optimist.

[eridani]

17. I don't want the fucking over of sick people by insurance companies to "get done"

This initiative needs to fail, right now.

[quidam56]

14. Wanna see what is deemed, defended and supported in East Tennessee as "THE ACCEPTABLE STANDARDS

OF HEALTH CARE" where Profit care comes ahead of Paient care and as long as the politicians and profit machines are stuffing their pockets on our back and bank account we are in trouble http://www.wisecountyissues.com Our communities are infested with disease thanks to greed. If you are in East Tennessee, get a second opinion other than what is being sold by the snake oil merchants in Kingsport...

[quidam56]

15. Wanna see what is deemed, defended and supported in East Tennessee as "THE ACCEPTABLE STANDARDS

OF HEALTH CARE" where Profit care comes ahead of Paient care and as long as the politicians and profit machines are stuffing their pockets on our back and bank account we are in trouble http://www.wisecountyissues.com Our communities are infested with disease thanks to greed. If you are in East Tennessee, get a second opinion other than what is being sold by the snake oil merchants in Kingsport...

[eridani]

16. Goddamit!! More 1994 Clinton bullshit!!

Just let the big boys fuck the sick people again, but good! I HATE these fucking parasites!

[dysfunctional press]

29. we need someone to run on a platform of single-payer universal healthcare NOW! in 2012...

obama ain't gonna change a goddamn thing for the better- he's just more of the corporati same.

[barbtries]

32. single payer

is the only way. i am not keen on the idea of being forced to pay to insurance companies who will never give a flying fuck about my well-being and will only ever care about their profits.

[Hawkowl]

33. FUCK INSURANCE

Goddamn insurance companies are no different the mafia controlled "protection" rackets. They take your money and spend it on lawyers to figure out ways to not pay for what you contracted for. The health insurance companies are a cancer on our society and need to be eliminated.

Single.

Payer.

Health Care.

Stupid fucking government.

[GeorgeGist]

34. Insurance means profit ...

and that's bad news for the consumer.