Healthcare Bill Seeks to Preempt State Laws

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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden6apr06,1,4779499.column?coll=la-utilities-business&ctrack=1&cset=true



"States' rights" is one of those political shibboleths that conservatives love to trot out to block federal initiatives they don't care for. But they're happy to lock it away when it proves inconvenient to something they love. Like, say, the health insurance lobby.

That's when we get something like the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act of 2005, sponsored by Wyoming Republican Sen. Michael B. Enzi and waved through committee on a party-line vote last month. I don't know about you, but every time I see a bill carrying a "what's-not-to-like" title like this one, I check for my wallet and I count the silverware. Then I read the thing.


Sure enough, Enzi's bill would "modernize" the health insurance marketplace right into the Stone Age.

The measure's goal is ostensibly to allow small businesses to jointly purchase health insurance for employees. A laudable goal, certainly. In our national system of employer-provided health insurance, the small enterprise is notoriously a weak link.

But Enzi's bill uses small businesses and their workers as human shields to mask an all-out assault on state regulation of health insurance across the country. He proposes to preempt state regulators on a wide range of issues, replacing their standards with federal rules that in some respects have already proven to be dismal failures, and in other respects will be easily manipulated by the insurance industry. The preemptions will apply not only to small-employer plans, but to individual health insurance and large-group plans, too — in other words, pretty much everybody...............

[Dr.Phool]

1. Gotta protect the insurance industry at any cost.

Asshat Bill Nelson (Dino-FL) says the same thing.

Check out www.healthcare-now.org

In the mean time, this press release went out today.

CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE JOHN RUSSELL BLASTS ROMNEY HEALTHCARE PROPOSAL.


After careful study, I have concluded that the mandatory health insurance program, submitted by Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, is a half step in the wrong direction. It does nothing to help physicians, healthcare providers or consumers, but instead, in typical Republican fashion, protects the profits of the insurance industry.

This proposal, requiring all citizens to purchase health insurance, much like automobile insurance, does nothing to control wasteful overhead costs, and still allows insurance companies to control the quality of healthcare that consumers receive. Lost in the logic is the fact that many middle class families are already stretched to the breaking point financially. Also unaddressed in the proposal is the problem of someone who cannot afford to purchase insurance, but shows up at the emergency room. Do you refuse treatment? Do you arrest them?

I stand solidly behind a bill in Congress right now, H.R. 676, sponsored by John Conyers of Michigan, which will provide universal, single – payer medical care for all citizens, regardless of age, income, or employment status. The bill would forbid deductibles and co-pays, and would be financed by a 3.3% payroll tax. Unlike “socialized medicine”, healthcare would be publicly funded and privately administered, using your choice of doctors, and covering everything other than elective procedures such as cosmetic surgery.

The bill would also restore Medicare reimbursement rates to healthcare providers that have been cut by Congress for several years.

As a healthcare professional, I see first-hand, every day, what a disaster our current policy is. The only solution is a single – payer plan that removes the profit driven system, controlled by the insurance industry.

John Russell

For more information, please feel free to call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

www.johnrussellforcongress.com

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2. thanks for the article, I'm writing the editor at sfgate, to date

they haven't covered this story as the latimes has done.

[MockSwede]

3. Bingo

Gonna feed the sheeple to the wolves in insurance. Gotta call your representatives on this one. If this gets through you have NO ERISA, etc.