The health care bill is a huge improvement over the status quo

[ProSense]

First, some are throwing around the claim that this is an insurance reform, not health care reform? What is that supposed to mean? The point is to reform the health care system. Switching to single payer isn't health care either. The system is not the care. Insurance pays for access to health care. Insurers have been denying access to health care and will be banned from doing so when reform is passed. Their profits will be limited and the government will have greater control over rate increases. As for health care, that is provided by doctors.

Anyway, here are some of the reasons the current reform effort is a huge improvement over the status quo:

More Health Insurance Choices

• Multi-state option. Health insurance carriers will offer plans under the supervision of the Office of Personnel Management, the same entity that oversees health plans for Members of Congress. At least one plan must be non-profit, and the plans will be available nationwide. This will promote competition and choice.
  
  
• Free choice vouchers. Workers who qualify for an affordability exemption to the individual responsibility policy but do not qualify for tax credits can take their employer contribution and join an exchange plan.

PDF

The president’s bill would grant the federal health and human services secretary new authority to review, and to block, premium increases by private insurers, potentially superseding state insurance regulators. The bill would create a new Health Insurance Rate Authority, comprised of health industry experts that would issue an annual report setting the parameters for reasonable rate increases based on conditions in the market.

link

You’ll buy your individual plan from a health insurance exchange where all plans will have to meet minimum standards for coverage and spend about 80 to 85 percent of premiums on health care on their customers, instead of on overhead, profits, and executive perks.

link

This year

Within the first year of signing health care reform, thousands of uninsured Americans with preexisting conditions would suddenly be able to purchase health insurance for the very first time in their lives.

This year, insurance companies will be banned forever from denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions.

This year, they will be banned from dropping your coverage when you get sick. And they will no longer able to arbitrarily and massively hike your premiums. Those practices will end.

If this reform becomes law, all the new insurance plans will be required to offer free preventive care to customers starting this year. Free checkups so we can catch preventable diseases.

Starting this year, there will be no more lifetime restricive annual limits on the amount of care you can receive from your insurance companies…

It would change fast: Insurance companies would finally be held accountable to the American people

And this is in progress:

Repealing the Antitrust Exemption for Health Insurance Companies

<...>

The President's support was made official in a statement of administration policy (SAP) sent to Congress as the House considers that legislation in the coming days. Here's the SAP (pdf):

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY
H.R. 4626 — Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act
(Rep. Perriello, D-Virginia, and 65 cosponsors)

The Administration strongly supports House passage of H.R. 4626. The repeal of the antitrust exemption in the McCarran-Ferguson Act as it applies to the health insurance industry would give American families and businesses, big and small, more control over their own health care choices by promoting greater insurance competition. The repeal also will outlaw existing, anti-competitive health insurance practices like price fixing, bid rigging, and market allocation that drive up costs for all Americans. Health insurance reform should be built on a strong commitment to competition in all health care markets, including health insurance. This bill will benefit the American health care consumer by ensuring that competition has a prominent role in reforming health insurance markets throughout the Nation.

And this is still possible: 37 Senators supporting a public option via reconciliation

The current health care reform bill is the beginning, not the end of significant progress.

[ibegurpard]

1. This is where you're wrong:

you're creating a SYSTEM with this...regulations can be flouted or changed but the system remains.
you are CODIFYING for-profit private insurance as the arbiters of healthcare...that's not a basis for changing anything. That's cementing the status quo. Dress it up all you like but it's true.

[ProSense]

4. "you're creating a SYSTEM with this"

Where does it say in the OP that this isn't a system? The fact is the OP explicitly states that this is a system, and the current effort is going to transform it.

[ibegurpard]

10. no, you are codifying the current system

how can you possibly say that this is going to transform anything?
as I said, regulations are flouted and changed... the basic SYSTEM is what is WRONG. This does nothing to fix it and protects it from any real reform.

[ProSense]

12. "regulations are flouted and changed... "

Regulations also work. Do you deny that there is a need for regulation?

[ibegurpard]

15. how unsurprising that you twist what I said

into a claim that I'm against regulation.
I'm against propping up a corrupt and unsustianable SYSTEM with mere regulation when we could CHANGE THE SYSTEM.
This bill means that the system is cemented...we have the status quo forever.

[ProSense]

18. "I'm against propping up a corrupt and unsustianable SYSTEM "

More hyperbole.

[Oregone]

22. So its not corrupt, or its not unsustainable?

[ProSense]

23. Or there is the other logic

that isn't flawed: It's not being propped up.

[ibegurpard]

25. How is mandating the purchase of private for-profit insurance

not propping up the current system?

[ProSense]

29. Mandates have nothing to do with the propping up insurance companies..

A mandate is simply a mechanism for getting people to enter the system. Reform, as you said, creates a system, one that dramatically alters how the current system operates. The mandate takes effect in that system, not the current one.

[ibegurpard]

34. you're not changing the system

the merits of the bill is another argument.

[ProSense]

36. "the merits of the bill is another argument."

Of course it is.

[ibegurpard]

38. okay, whatever that was supposed to mean...

you're not reforming anything.
You're propping up the current system.

[Oregone]

26. So that assumes that it would continue to exist in a healthy state without the bill?

That contradicts any acknowledgment that its unsustainable.

[Kalun D]

45. "It's not being propped up."

Yeah, some sh*t will stand in a pile on it's own.

[Donnachaidh]

44. not hyperbole at all -- the truth hurts

Corrupt system. That pretty much describes the insurance industry.

[Cha]

2. Of course it is and we're

on the verge of getting it done..thanks for these links, PS.

[Go2Peace]

8. Most of the better components are Regulatory reform, as the OP outlined

And those reforms are roundly supported. The other components are roundly UNSUPPORTED and the reason that Democrats are even having to fight within their own Party. Why aren't they passing the components that the majority want them to pass without the components that are not wanted if that is what people WANT?

Why?

In my opinion that would be far superior than making a compromise that further supports a failed system and pushes out more fundamental reform 15 years into the future.

[Go2Peace]

3. It has some good regulations. I would prefer splitting the bill and passing the regulatory functions

and doing so immediately.

Why does everyone say we have to accept this severely corporate bill when there is a perfectly viable third option that would get far more support if it were simply offered?

Pass the regulatory components seperately. Revoke the monopoly right, put in place the regulatory aspects of the bill. Then continue the fight for the social program component in a second bill.

[slipslidingaway]

6. Yes it does not have to be this bill or nothing, but it sounds good to some people. n/t

[slipslidingaway]

5. If a person is starving and they are offered a few crumbs it is an

improvement, but that does not mean they will be able to eat next year.

[ProSense]

7. This is not crumbs, but I certainly expect

those willing to deny starving people food to mischaracterize these measures as "crumbs."

All or nothing kills.

[slipslidingaway]

17. You said it, those who say it has to be THIS bill or nothing are standing

in the way of universal health care.

[ibegurpard]

19. Exactly.

This is it. Reform dies with this bill because it cements our current system in place.

[slipslidingaway]

35. Yup, I just watched the interview with Kucinich tonight...

it is embarrssing to be a Dem and watch them cave and push through this corporate friendly bill when they could have done so much better.

:(

We have nobody to blame but ourselves.

[Kalun D]

43. Crumbs for the working people

$BILLIONS FOR THE FU*KING SCUM SUCKING SH*THEADS RUNNING THE INSURANCE AND HEALTH CARE COMPANIES.

[Kalun D]

50. ""All or nothing kills. ""

"All or nothing kills."

this is like something a corporate republican would say, or a DLC corp-a-dem

there's only black or white, there is no gray.

And this bill is nothing for the working people, in fact it's worse than nothing. So the choice for the working people is nothing or worse than nothing. And the system is so corrupt they won't allow any gray.

[Go2Peace]

9. Exactly, this is a "short term" "fix, without considersation of the longer term

issues it will create.

Again, there is nothing stopping our Party from moving the regulatory reform into a seperate bill.

[slipslidingaway]

13. Yes and the diversion is it has to be this or nothing! Something that

the Medicare for All advocates are constantly being told, I think they have it turned around.

:)

[Oregone]

11. "More Health Insurance Choices"

Ah, thats a good thing? You think smaller pools and 'competition' enhance insurance or something?

[ProSense]

14. "You think smaller pools and 'competition' enhance insurance or something?"

Do you think those are the only things in the bill that will be driving competition?

[Oregone]

16. So you really think market "competition" is the key?

Seems like you would be spending 90% of your time trying to get the anti-trust exemption driven home if so (which passed the House BTW)...


If competition is the key, its odd how some governments have but a single insurer allowed to operate, but still provide more efficient, affordable and egalitarian access to care than the US could dream of.

[ProSense]

21. Seriously,

this is the U.S. The place doesn't turn into some other country when people aren't looking.

Single payer isn't moving its way through Congress. (Remember them?)

Now, given where health care is in this country, this is a huge step forward, and no doubt more steps will follow.

[Oregone]

24. Ah, you mean the US, home of socialized banking insurance, Social Insurance, Medicare and ...

the fucking VA system (which is full blown socialized medicine)!

Yes, I forgot...a country far too backwards to consider socialized medical insurance for all (not just old people).

Look, its a step somewhere, Ill give you that. But just don't sit there and pretend that institutionalizing a private, for profit, multi-tier, non egalitarian system is a step toward true universal health care

[ProSense]

27. Yes, the U.S. Are you pissed you had to leave?

Why not be happy where you are?

[Oregone]

31. Had to leave?

Don't speak too much of things you don't understand.

Canada ranks amongst the top in intergenerational mobility (the American Dream) and they own top spots on the UN Human Development Index. They have a sane and functioning government, despite Harper, and make amazing contributions to the world in terms of peace keeping. Not only am I happier about how my tax money is used here, but Ive secured a bright future with a lot of opportunity for my children by moving (especially as a self-employed businessman). Im quite content with my decision and am enjoying my universal healthcare, and my wife is enjoying her one year of paid maternity leave too.

BTW, funny how you have to attempt to twist a policy debate into a personal jab when you are up against a wall.

[ProSense]

32. And yet you're on a discussion board ranting bitterly about the U.S.

Why?

[Oregone]

33. Ah, you missed my facetious tone a few posts back

That wasn't a rant at all about the US. It isn't some "backwards" backwoods country. All those institutions I named were socialistic. To pretend the US has to switch to some other country to enact sane policy is fallacious.

[Kalun D]

47. Why?

Because our health care is a piece of sh*t compared to the entire rest of the developed world?

and this bill just makes it worse?

[jeanpalmer]

20. Would the new Insurance Rate Authority

have stopped the recent 39% premium increase by Anthem Blue Cross?

[PHIMG]

28. if you have a preexisting condition or if the subsidies make insurance affordable for you, then....

If you have a preexisting condition or if the subsidies make insurance affordable for you, then....yes this bill will help you personally.

so what this bill does is create a system of medical apartheid. you are gold if you have government insurance available to you: if you are POOR (with Medicaid) or OLD (with Medicare). You are the healthcare lucky duckies. If you are not old or poor then you are subject to the private mandate....the law forces you to pad the bottom lines of the private insurers...you are forced to buy insurance coverage from private insurers....who sell a defective product....they who sell the illusion of health care coverage.... but then do everything they can to deny healthcare to the people who pay them premiums. this industry is more immoral than the tobacco industry...it sells a product and then profits by not providing it.

private health insurance must go!

[Cleita]

30. Let's hope at the last minute they fix this.

Otherwise, I will be so happy to crow, "I told you so", when it comes crashing down. Of course, I assume by then you will be long gone back to your job with THEM.

[depakid]

37. Better wait and see what comes before the president's desk before drawing any conclusions

[Kalun D]

39. One Word

BULLSHIT

[ProSense]

40. Another word:

DENIAL

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jeanpalmer]

42. Will there be any provision

prohibiting insurance industry employees from serving on the Insurance Rate Authority, or from taking jobs in the insurance industry after their service?

[Donnachaidh]

46. they haven't figured out how to game that part of it yet.

At the moment that is.

However, the insurance industry is quite adept at looking at regulations and figuring ways *around* it, to their advantage. I'm sure they are hard at work in a back office, along with people who are setting up these *authorities*, figuring a way of making them *look* legit, while they figure a way of tipping the authority in their favor.

[jeanpalmer]

48. My guess it will be staffed

and work like the SEC does with respect to the financial industry -- a huge revolving door, which will make real rate control impossible. What's to stop someone on the Authority approving a 39% rate increase, and then taking a high paying job with Anthem Blue Cross for example? Kinda like Billy Tauzin negotiating a job with Big Pharma while he was still a Congressman.

[Donnachaidh]

53. I agree with you wholeheartedly -- this whole fiasco is nothing more than job building for

future lobbyists who can game the regulations to squeeze the most out of unsuspecting citizens.

[jeanpalmer]

49. Why is there a need to control rates

through an Insurance Rate Authority? Isn't the exchange supposed to keep rates under control through competition?

[jeanpalmer]

51. Under this reform

how many people will experience an increase in their healthcare costs (cost of insurance included), and how many will experience a decrease?

Under this HCR, how many people trying to save money for a down payment on a house will have to pay that money to an insurance company for health insurance they don't want or need?

[ProSense]

52. Here