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SpartanDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 03:32 AM
Original message
Defeated, Health Insurers Cut Lobby Costs, Thank You Obamacare!
It turns out that Republicans might be right about health reform costing some jobs. The jobs of health insurance company lobbyists. Aww. From the second to third quarter of this year, the health insurance industry is cutting lobbying budgets.

WellPoint Inc. ( WLP ), the largest health insurer based on membership, spent $870,000 on lobbying in the third quarter, up 9% from the prior-year quarter. However, the cost was down by a substantial 34% from the second quarter of 2011.

The second-largest health insurer based on membership and largest in terms of total revenue, UnitedHealth Group Inc. ( UNH ), also recorded a significant 18% year-over-year hike to $650,000, while it witnessed a sizeable 24% decline from the prior quarter.

Meanwhile, CIGNA Corporation ( CI ), the fourth largest health insurer on the basis of membership, bucked the trend by reducing its lobbying cost by a considerable 34% from the year-ago quarter to $470,000, while the amount was 24% higher than $380,000 spent in the second quarter of 2011.

Humana Inc. ( HUM ), which is the fifth-largest on enrollment basis, recorded a 43% year-over-year and 11% sequential decline in lobbying expenses to $160,000.

Now what could be causing this decline? Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that despite their best efforts, ObamaCare continues to make people's lives better. Despite all their lobbying, the HHS just issued regulations that refused to count broker's fees as health care costs. Despite all their big money efforts, Barack Obama became their worst nightmare, passed health reform, and is now implementing it full speed. And oh, beginning this year, the insurance companies are going to have to start writing checks to their subscribers if the companies don't spend at least 85% of premium revenue in large group markets (80% in individual and small group markets) on you know, providing actual health care services.


http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2011/12/defeated-health-insurers-cut-lobby.html
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pinto Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 04:10 AM
Response to Original message
1. Step by step...
:hi:
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young but wise Donating Member (760 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 08:47 AM
Response to Reply #1
25. +1
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Hutzpa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:52 PM
Response to Reply #1
40. heh.. take your pick
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4lbs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 04:27 AM
Response to Original message
2. As a person in his forties with a pre-existing condition, I was finally able to get near full
coverage from a private insurer for a reasonable monthly premium.

It costs me $226 a month for 90% coverage, and prescription drugs cost only $20 for generic or $40 for name brand. Lifetime coverage up to $5 million in health costs.

Before this year, I was denied three times in as many years in getting private insurance. I had to go with my state's major medical risk program, and paid $400 a month for only 75% coverage and a lifetime limit of $3 million.

If I didn't have a pre-existing condition, my monthly premium for my age bracket would be $160.

Yes, that is a difference of $66 per month for someone with a pre-existing condition, but consider that before the healthcare plan, I would have been, and have been, 3 times, flatly denied.

Is it perfect? No, in a perfect world, the monthly premium would be significantly less, for at least 85% coverage, and no difference for people with pre-existing conditions. However, we don't live in a perfect world.

I consider now being able to get much better coverage, for a person with a pre-existing condition, for much less monthly cost, a significant change for the better.

As the years go by, it will improve, unless the American populace is stupid enough to put Republicans back in charge of all three branches again.
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BlueMTexpat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 04:41 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. Thanks for sharing your experience! nt
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:02 AM
Response to Reply #2
15. Thanks for your story.
I'm so glad that you're able to get by now as opposed to festering. Hopefully we don't squander it and get people elected to improve this system.
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Hoyt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 08:52 AM
Response to Reply #2
27. Great news for you and everyone else with lick of sense. Not perfect, but better than before.
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ellisonz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 04:32 AM
Response to Original message
3. It's only going to get better...
People who criticize this bill because we didn't get single-payer need to actually read what it does. We got a lot done with it and it's helping many people, including my family and I who have been denied and extorted for healthcare coverage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act

Thank you Mr. President, for getting it done. :yourock:
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vaberella Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:41 AM
Response to Reply #3
7. As Biden said... it is a big fuckin' deal. The PO would have been the icing on top.
Because the PO if implemented would have given the sort of model for the entire single payer structure on a smaller scale. However, this is one half of the plan which would lead to new health care nationwide.
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:45 AM
Response to Reply #7
9. Heh, Biden knew what was coming. Pure statesman, lifelong politician. It was so obvious...
...that it would kill insurance as we know it.
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vaberella Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:54 AM
Response to Reply #9
12. It's sad that so many others didn't see it and to see so many dems wanting it to fail.
I'll never forget this born during that time.
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:46 AM
Response to Reply #7
10. Video:
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customerserviceguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 04:53 AM
Response to Original message
5. Why do I feel
like instead of buying lobbyists, they're just going to buy congresscritters instead? That money saved could easily find its way into the campaign coffers of Rethugs.
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vaberella Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:44 AM
Response to Reply #5
8. I don't understand what you mean. Where were you during the HCR debate?
Lieberman was their congressional lobbyist--- he made about 3 million a year from the insurance companies. A good portion of the Congressmen and some women like Landrieu and Lincoln (who are Dems) were enjoying a healthy income frol insurance companies. So they have bought "congressmen." The lobbyists are just decoration.
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:56 AM
Response to Reply #8
13. Note my post #11 does not consider people who are already shills for certain industries!
I do agree with you but I was assuming we're talking about congress people who weren't already shills when they got elected! :D
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:53 AM
Response to Reply #5
11. Lobbyists are *how* you buy congresscritters.
Lobbying is far more powerful than elective funding, and is where most corrupt funding goes.

Go here: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/

Then compare industries: http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/index.php

And actual donors: http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?order=A

Note how heavily slanted the Republicans are toward corporate interests. And people say there's no difference between Dems and Repubs. The difference is stark.
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vaberella Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:25 AM
Response to Reply #11
16. Note that during the time Obama came into office there was a drastic increase in lobby spending.
1 billion dollars spent more on lobbyists. It's ridiculous. That is true about the slant. Those guys are married. I just checked our lobbyist donors are also more slanted to groups and those interest groups we support like unions. While Repubs are with Industries... look at that paradox...industry supporters (repubs) vs. the workers of those industries (dems).
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:26 AM
Response to Reply #16
17. Yeah, and unions tend to outspend the industries, but they spend it in elections...
...as opposed to lobbying.
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vaberella Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:29 AM
Response to Reply #17
19. True...true. n/t
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jeff47 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-07-11 02:20 AM
Response to Reply #5
42. Won't quite work in this situation
The reason they're having to cut back on lobbying is they have to spend 80% of premiums on medical care. Paying lobbyists cuts into executive bonuses now. Buying congresscritters would also cut into executive bonuses.
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Skittles Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-07-11 02:43 AM
Response to Reply #5
43. cutting out the middlemen
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vaberella Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:36 AM
Response to Original message
6. DU told me that Obama was a corporatist & his bill helped the insurance company.
Guessed some were wrong. I wonder if Krugman put his 2 cents into this.
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ellisonz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 03:31 PM
Response to Reply #6
29. He's certainly not against it.
So that’s what we have: a workable if imperfect universal health care system, if we can keep it.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/17/health-care-basics/#more-16095
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Skittles Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-07-11 03:33 AM
Response to Reply #6
44. are you always this easily fooled?
do you REALLY thing those healthcare corporatist bastards have been DEFEATED?
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:59 AM
Response to Original message
14. Choice quote: "lobbying costs are now in direct competition with shareholder gain"
Win.
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vaberella Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:28 AM
Response to Reply #14
18. Greatness.
I never really supported the whole three-dimensional chess thing but I have to say more often than not Obama seems to be playing that game.
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:36 AM
Response to Reply #18
20. I think it's more down to that Reps don't read the bills they vote for!
:rofl:
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:39 AM
Response to Original message
21. This is crap--insurers have not been defeated at all
An Open Letter to Secretary Sebelius and President Obama regarding the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations on the Essential Benefits under the 2010 Health Reform Law

We protest the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) recommendation that cost rather than medical need be the basis for defining the “essential benefits” that insurance policies must cover when the federal health reform law takes effect in 2014. If adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services, this recommendation will sacrifice many lives and cause much suffering. We call on Secretary Sebelius and President Obama to reject them.

The IOM proposal would base the required coverage on the benefits typical of plans currently offered by small businesses – enshrining these skimpy plans as the new standard. These bare-bones policies come with a long list of uncovered services and saddle enrollees with unaffordable co-payments and deductibles.

Already, millions of underinsured Americans forgo essential care: adults with heart attacks delay seeking emergency care1; children forgo needed primary and specialty care2; patients fail to fill prescriptions for lifesaving medications3; and serious illness often leads to financial catastrophe4.

The inadequate coverage the IOM recommends would shift costs from corporate and government payers onto families already burdened by illness. Yet this strategy will not lower costs. Delaying care often creates even higher costs. Steadily rising co-payments and deductibles over the past two decades have failed to stem skyrocketing medical inflation. And nations that assure comprehensive coverage – with out-of-pocket costs a fraction of those in the United States – have experienced both slower cost growth and greater health gains than our country.


Our patients urgently need what people in these other nations already enjoy: universal and comprehensive coverage in a nonprofit system that prioritizes human need over corporate profit.

The IOM committee was riddled with conflicts of interest, many members having amassed personal wealth through their involvement with health insurers and other for-profit health care firms. Its recommendations were lauded by insurance industry leaders who have sought to undermine real health reform at every turn. As the Lancet noted on its Dec. 5, 2009, cover: “Corporate influence renders the U.S. government incapable of making policy on the basis of evidence and the public interest.”5

Sadly, the committee’s damaging recommendations suggest that this corporate bug has also infected the IOM.

1. Smolderen KG, Spertus JA, Nallamothu BK et al. Health Care Insurance, Financial Concerns in Accessing Care, and Delays to Hospital Presentation in Acute Myocardial Infarction. JAMA 2010;303:1392-1400.

2. Kogan MD, Newacheck PW, Blumberg SJ et al. Underinsurance among Children in the United States. N Engl J Med 2010;363:841-51.

3. Doty MM, Edwards JE, Holmgren AL. Seeing Red: Americans Driven into Debt by Medical Bills. The Commonwealth Fund, August 2005.

4. Himmelstein DU, Thorne D, Warren E, Woolhandler S. Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study. Am J Med 2009;122:741-6.

5. Cover. The Lancet: Volume 374, Number 9705, 5 December 2009.
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 08:16 AM
Response to Reply #21
23. The OP is about how their lobbying has been defeated.
The OP is not about how the insurers themselves have been defeated.
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Number23 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:50 PM
Response to Reply #23
34. Ay, yi yi...


Sorry you have to explain things that are RIGHT IN THE DAMN ARTICLE to those so determined to minimize every thing done by this administration...
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:52 PM
Response to Reply #23
35. If they get what they want, their lobbying has been successful n/t
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:15 PM
Response to Reply #35
37. See post #26. The insurance industry can't afford to lobby. HHS denied 'expenses' exception in MLR.
So when they hire a lobbyist it goes directly into calculating their MLR. The reduction in costs is directly resulted in it no longer being a viable investment. Ergo, insurance lobby has been defeated.

(I would qualify it as 'largely' defeated, but I interpret the headline that way when the actual article is read.)
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-07-11 08:00 AM
Response to Reply #37
45. MLR is an utter failure at controlling health care costs. It has been tried in 15 states
--and has failed every time. Those useless parasites still have plenty of other ways to cook the books that state regulators will never have the funds or personnel to track.
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-07-11 08:49 AM
Response to Reply #45
48. That's a talking point used by Tom Coburn and it's simply not true. Conn. for example *reduced*...
...premiums: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Features/Insuring-Your-Health/Michelle-Andrews-on-premium-cuts-and-rebates.aspx

It takes time to create a healthier society.

The regulators can deal with it, if you get the right regulators in office.
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-08-11 04:43 AM
Response to Reply #48
52. Connecticut directly regulates hospital costs
Like public utilities, hospitals have to apply for rate increases. References at the bottom

Advocates of passing some form of the health care “reform” measures on the table as of January 2010 are claiming that a fresh new regulatory regime will control costs to the point where imposing mandates on everyone to buy overpriced underinsurance would be justified. This claim rests mainly on four features—

• An end to refusing policies and price discrimination for people with pre-existing conditions
• An end to recissions of existing policies when people get expensively sick
• Immediate sunshine on price gouging to discourage excessive price increases by insurance companies through review and disclosure of insurance rate increases
• Requiring premium refunds if insurance companies exceed a specified medical loss ratio (MLR)

Unfortunately, none of these proposals, however helpful in and of themselves, will have any effect whatsoever on controlling health care costs.

Ending pre-existing condition discrimination

For one thing, the Senate bill Ensign Amendment1, effectively eliminates this policy by allowing insurance companies to offer discounts for people meeting certain “wellness” goals. Even if that amendment fails to make it into the final bill, there is nothing in the legislation to restrict insurance companies from using this as a justification to jack their premiums sky-high for everybody. For another, all versions of reform retain the policy of charging older people two to five times more, and age certainly has to qualify as a pre-existing condition. Also, there is no mention of what recourse you have should you be turned down for having a bad credit record.

Ending recissions

That would be nice, and I really wish that the legislation as written actually said that. What it does say is that recissions will be eliminated except in the case of fraud. Can somebody please explain why the insurance companies will not be able to drive a whole fleet of very large trucks through that loophole? And there is no mention of what happens when you get dropped because you are unable to afford the premium one month.

A huge problem with the Senate bill is that it leaves regulation to the states, which for all practical purposes is not regulation at all. California has a law against recissions already, but they are not enforcing it at the moment because they can’t afford to.

The sunshine provision

It’s astonishing that anyone could call this regulation and still keep a straight face. What it amounts to is a list of very naughty boys and girls. And they’d better watch out, because if they don’t straighten up and fly right, they’re going to wind up on that very same list again next year.

Medical loss ratio requirements

Unfortunately, 15 states either have these requirements now or have had them in the past2, and they have not had even the slightest effect on escalating health care costs. Of course it’s helpful for some people to get premium rebates, but despite that, the cost of premiums keeps on skyrocketing, 45,000 a year keep dying for lack of the money to pay for health care, and 300,000+ keep going bankrupt due to medical bills (the majority of whom had insurance that was mostly better than the strictly catastrophic underinsurance that will be mandated under “reform”).

Locking the barn door after the horse gets away is not regulation in any sense of the word, as demonstrated by the following real life example.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Sarkisian:

We were sorry to hear that your daughter Nataline died because CIGNA denied your claim for her liver transplant. However, you will be glad to know that we have analyzed CIGNA’s medical loss ratio and that all of their customers are entitled to premium refunds. Isn’t that wonderful?

Yours truly,
Dr. Pangloss


Another possibility—allowing lawsuits against insurance companies for claims denial

None of the current proposals have any restrictions whatsoever against denials of particular claims, and it is this practice that is a major cause of so many deaths and bankruptcies. People are not allowed to sue companies for denying claims. Representative Jim McDermott (WA-07) is drafting an amendment which would allow such lawsuits. I think it’s a very good idea, but it suffers from the same problem as attempting regulation by mandating specific medical loss ratios—the remedy comes too late to do any good. Mr. and Mrs. Sarkisian would undoubtedly appreciate the money if they sued CIGNA and won, but they would surely prefer that their daughter had gotten the treatment she needed in the first place.

In addition, legal remedies generally increase health care costs. This is already true of medical malpractice lawsuits (even though the cost increases as a cause of our high per capita medical costs are vastly overrated by the tort reform crowd). In no other developed country do people constantly make use of the legal system to get the money needed to pay for the ongoing medical bills necessitated by poor medical outcomes. Note that this motivation to sue is exactly the same regardless of whether or not such outcomes were caused by actual malpractice. The reason for this is that those extra costs are automatically paid by societies which guarantee health care as a right, and therefore there is no need for anyone to initiate a tort lawsuit in order get the money to pay them.

(One of the reasons that we lead the developed world in medical error rates3 is that private employer-based insurers are constantly forcing people to change providers with their endlessly mutating preferred provider lists. Nothing in the proposed legislation deals with this issue.)

Real regulation

Because the largest risk pools will always be the cheapest, health insurance will always trend toward being a monopoly. Wherever natural monopolies exist, society absolutely must regulate them so that citizens do not get ripped off for huge sums of money. We learned this more than a hundred years ago with respect to electrical power grids. At that time, many publicly owned utilities were established and the remainder were put under strict regulation by public utility commissions. When historical amnesia finally set in during the last years of the 20th century, deregulation insured that Enron and Reliant were able to rob energy consumers on the west coast of billions of dollars during a fake “energy crisis”. The corporate-controlled media rarely pointed out that cities with municipally owned utilities didn’t have any brownouts during the “crisis”. All American health insurance companies are Enron. Just as Enron withheld energy from the market to drive up prices and profits, so do insurance companies deny care in order to increase profits.

There is no such thing as health care reform without strict regulation of health care costs. It can be done by outright government ownership of the health care delivery system (Britain, Scandinavia), government monopoly of health insurance (Canada, Taiwan), or strict government regulation of private insurance (the Netherlands, France, Japan). The third method can certainly work as well as the first two in practice—too bad that nothing in current “reform” proposals comes remotely close to that.

Real regulation of mandated private insurance in the Netherlands results in policies that cost 100 euros/month/adult ($95-$145 depending on exchange rates), with no deductibles, no co-pays and no age rating. In addition, many countries regulating private health insurance also directly control provider prices. In 1996, my husband got an emergency root canal in the Netherlands for 100 guilders, or $25 American. In Japan, an overnight hospital stay costs the equivalent of $20. And yes indeed, the number of zeros in those prices are perfectly correct, though they could probably stand to be raised and in fact may have been by now.

Mussolini once said, “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” Without a public option open to anyone and without real regulation, that definition applies to the mandatory purchase of overpriced underinsurance. It’s certainly true that, given the hugely complex nature of the legislation, it does include a number of useful provisions, mostly related to expansion and improvement of Medicare and Medicaid. In my opinion, these useful proposals are analogous to an expensive balsamic vinegar dressing being poured all over a poison ivy salad. Why can’t we just keep the dressing in its bottle and buy it separately?

1 http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/514042/the_ensign_healthcare_loophole
2 http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/medical-loss-ratio.pdf
3 http://www.truthout.org/111908HA
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Hoyt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 09:08 AM
Response to Reply #21
28. Truthfully, I'm glad the government is defining "essential benefits."

Clearly, we'd be better off with a single payer and no health care bills when we seek care -- but that ain't gonna happen right now, no matter how much sense it makes. If HCR includes enough subsidies for the poor to get coverage they couldn't get before, we'll all be better off.

I think the IOM report makes sense for where we are right now. http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2011/Essential-Health-Benefits-Balancing-Coverage-and-Cost/essentialhealthbenefitsreportbrief.pdf
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 06:49 PM
Response to Reply #28
33. No we won't. Not if the insurance is so shitty that people can't afford to use it n/t
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Hoyt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:30 PM
Response to Reply #33
39. That's why I'm for government defining "essential benefits" and not insurers.
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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-07-11 08:06 AM
Response to Reply #39
46. How nice. Too bad that the government has already caved in to the insurers
An Open Letter to Secretary Sebelius and President Obama regarding the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations on the Essential Benefits under the 2010 Health Reform Law

We protest the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) recommendation that cost rather than medical need be the basis for defining the “essential benefits” that insurance policies must cover when the federal health reform law takes effect in 2014. If adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services, this recommendation will sacrifice many lives and cause much suffering. We call on Secretary Sebelius and President Obama to reject them.

The IOM proposal would base the required coverage on the benefits typical of plans currently offered by small businesses – enshrining these skimpy plans as the new standard. These bare-bones policies come with a long list of uncovered services and saddle enrollees with unaffordable co-payments and deductibles.

Already, millions of underinsured Americans forgo essential care: adults with heart attacks delay seeking emergency care1; children forgo needed primary and specialty care2; patients fail to fill prescriptions for lifesaving medications3; and serious illness often leads to financial catastrophe4.

The inadequate coverage the IOM recommends would shift costs from corporate and government payers onto families already burdened by illness. Yet this strategy will not lower costs. Delaying care often creates even higher costs. Steadily rising co-payments and deductibles over the past two decades have failed to stem skyrocketing medical inflation. And nations that assure comprehensive coverage – with out-of-pocket costs a fraction of those in the United States – have experienced both slower cost growth and greater health gains than our country.

Our patients urgently need what people in these other nations already enjoy: universal and comprehensive coverage in a nonprofit system that prioritizes human need over corporate profit.

The IOM committee was riddled with conflicts of interest, many members having amassed personal wealth through their involvement with health insurers and other for-profit health care firms. Its recommendations were lauded by insurance industry leaders who have sought to undermine real health reform at every turn. As the Lancet noted on its Dec. 5, 2009, cover: “Corporate influence renders the U.S. government incapable of making policy on the basis of evidence and the public interest.”5

Sadly, the committee’s damaging recommendations suggest that this corporate bug has also infected the IOM.

1. Smolderen KG, Spertus JA, Nallamothu BK et al. Health Care Insurance, Financial Concerns in Accessing Care, and Delays to Hospital Presentation in Acute Myocardial Infarction. JAMA 2010;303:1392-1400.

2. Kogan MD, Newacheck PW, Blumberg SJ et al. Underinsurance among Children in the United States. N Engl J Med 2010;363:841-51.

3. Doty MM, Edwards JE, Holmgren AL. Seeing Red: Americans Driven into Debt by Medical Bills. The Commonwealth Fund, August 2005.

4. Himmelstein DU, Thorne D, Warren E, Woolhandler S. Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study. Am J Med 2009;122:741-6.

5. Cover. The Lancet: Volume 374, Number 9705, 5 December 2009.

Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org) is an organization of more than 18,000 doctors who support single-payer national health insurance. To speak with a physician/spokesperson in your area, visit www.pnhp.org/stateactions or call (312) 782-6006.


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Vinca Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 08:10 AM
Response to Original message
22. Maybe they've decided to lay low and play nice because
they've been assured their buddies on the Supreme Court are going to toss it.
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canoeist52 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 08:39 AM
Response to Original message
24. ...or could it be that lobbying has done it's job and just isn't needed now?
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 08:49 AM
Response to Reply #24
26. Would be a credible line of thought if market researchers weren't making the same observation.
They lost.
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musiclawyer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 04:02 PM
Response to Original message
30. POTUS needs to embrace this
Bigtime. He screwed up by not messaging at all and letting the 1% sycophants control the narrative. Now he needs needs to tell people the good things coming from the ACA and even better stuff on the way--just demolish the "repeal" meme.
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vaberella Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 05:47 PM
Response to Reply #30
31. Two things.
1. He shouldn't embrace this and not yet. Let's think logically here. One of the biggest problems we had is getting this legislation through. We did; let's let it do it's job. Obama had to make the entire health debate about the PO to even get this in there without anyone even noticing. He needs to keep quite and let this play out. People who read it and understand will know where he stands.

2. Obama didn't fail in messaging. I watched him pushing his plan left and right and clearly laid out all points. People chose to ignore him. The messaging fail on his back up. Did you see ANY of our congressmen and women really selling the health care reform message properly? No, because of none of them bloody read the bill. We need Congress strong on the points and that's what they're here for. Obama did a good job.

As for the repeal meme...many on DU were pushing that bullshit. This board was split in half. Some of us took the time to analyse and talk about it. Others preferred to be lead by the nose by what others said about it.
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joshcryer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:17 PM
Response to Reply #30
38. POTUS doesn't control messaging, MSM does, and MSM thrives on drama and conflict and bullshit.
His admin has been talking about this for months. Indeed, the $1.5 billion ObamaCares saved seniors to date isn't even making a blurb in the media, and certainly isn't garnering the dozens of threads it deserves here.
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Tarheel_Dem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 05:52 PM
Response to Original message
32. Maybe the lobbyists can go back to school & learn a trade?
:shrug:
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Think82 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 07:09 PM
Response to Original message
36. And Don't miss this Op-Ed in LA TIMES
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mikekohr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-06-11 09:01 PM
Response to Original message
41. Hugh kick
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pmorlan1 Donating Member (763 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-07-11 08:39 AM
Response to Original message
47. No need to have so many lobbyists...
The insurance companies already got what they wanted so naturally they can reduce their lobbying force.
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TheKentuckian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-07-11 09:33 AM
Response to Original message
49. No competition, no cost controls, a captive customer base that cannot even abstain from commerce,
the same overwhelmed and captured states in charge of regulation, no budgeting for enforcement, anti-trust exemption left firmly in place, no national pool which helps keep the pricing flim-flam going, most people will never have access to the exchanges meaning little market pressure on the system as a whole, the employer based system enshrined but with little obligation since the penalty for dropping coverage is a nothing ass $750, and a key to the treasury for whatever they can't squeeze from the people directly means MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

And no I wasn't demanding, expecting, or really even daring to hope for single payer nor was I Public Option or bust.
This plan was long ago built from the bottom up to preserve and and secure the insurance cartel as a for profit exclusive gatekeeper not as a means of subduing it.
The plan makes the insurance cartel a too big too fail entity, that is the polar opposite of victory from a systemic point of view and sets an unbounded precedent that the government can demand participation in for profit commerce and worse that the government can dictate we buy from the company store, and that folks is fascism.

The MLR is also likely to be counter-productive because it sets up the cartel to work to push up systemic costs to increase profits and since the rest of the system has no MLR and also desires ever more profits, cost will increase not go down. Plus, the MLR is set where the industry says they are any way so unless they are cooking the books and need to be indicted, it is plausibly and probably meaningless.
This is the cartel's model they are not designed to take the entire flow of the river, they simply divert a percentage into their pockets and play gatekeeper.
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totodeinhere Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-07-11 10:01 AM
Response to Original message
50. All I know is that my health care costs continue to go up. The deductible on my prescription drug
plan will go up another $100 on January 1st. Until I can see real relief in my situation I will not embrace this so-called HCR. I think that a lot of people at DU just want to say it's good because it's good politics to say so whether it really is or not. If the Republicans were in power right now with this same plan many who are defending it now would be against it.
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Sheepshank Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-07-11 11:03 AM
Response to Original message
51. I did not know this....
Despite all their lobbying, the HHS just issued regulations that refused to count broker's fees as health care costs.


This is totally cool and appropriate :)
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