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Insurers Fight Health Care Reform with Dirty Tricks, But Public Supports Obama Plan |
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More proof out this week that the insurance industry’s sweet words for health care reform are dripping with hypocrisy. America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which has been pushing a sham health care reform campaign masquerading as a grassroots initiative, now seems to be using dirty tricks and outright falsehoods in an attempt to keep some of their most profitable programs.
Jason Rosenbaum writes on Health Care For America Now! how Ken Johnson of the (New Bedford, Mass.) Eagle-Tribune noticed that AHIP was sending letters to newspapers in Massachusetts under the names of real seniors—who are unaware their names are being used—demanding that their representatives in Congress protect the Medicare Advantage health care program.
Medicare Advantage is George W. Bush’s privatization experiment, which put millions of dollars in the hands of private insurance companies. President Obama has proposed to stop subsidizing private insurers through Medicare Advantage.
Rosenbaum quotes Johnson’s description of AHIP’s skullduggery:
“I did not write a letter to the editor. It’s not from me,” said Gloria Gosselin, 75, of Lawrence. Gosselin’s name was on one of three strikingly similar letters touting the Medicare Advantage program that were sent to The (New Bedford) Eagle-Tribune.
A tip-off to the true origin of the letters, Johnson writes, came when The Eagle-Tribune received a call from a man who turned out to be an intern at the Boston office of the Dewey Square Group, a national political marketing and consulting firm.
The man, who identified himself as Noah, wanted to know if Gloria Gosselin’s letter had been published. Asked what interest he had in the letter, Noah replied that he was Gosselin’s grandson. Gosselin does not have a grandson named Noah working in Boston.
Click here to read Rosenbaum’s blog.
Unlike the health insurance industry, a large majority of Americans supports President Obama’s plan to finance national health care reform by eliminating tax breaks for the rich, according to a poll by Lake Research Partners.
The poll shows a clear majority of Americans (63 percent) favor a health care funding proposal to raise taxes on those who earn more than $250,000 per year by decreasing their tax deductions. An even larger majority of those polled (80 percent) oppose funding health care reform by treating employer health care benefits as income.
Obama’s budget sets aside more than $630 billion over the next 10 years as a reserve fund to help finance reforms to the nation’s health care system. To help pay for it, Obama will allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent to expire in 2010 and will eliminate other tax breaks for those making more than $250,000 a year.
Support for this approach to funding health care reform has majority backing in every region of the country and among independent voters (52 percent) and Democrats (85 percent), according to Lake’s poll.
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HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to everyone residing in the U. S.
HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable medical equipment, palliative care, and long term care.
HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.
In the current Congress, HR 676 has 74 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.
HR 676 has been endorsed by 505 union organizations in 49 states including 125 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NY, NV & MA).
Obama’s plan includes the insurance industry. He is on record as supporting single payer, and needs to be reminded of that.
Contact his office:
You can encourage President Obama to support HR 676, single payer health care, here:
Email: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Write: The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Call: 202-456-1111
Fax: 202-456-2461
A single payer system is one factor in making America competitive again. It would relieve the health-care burden from domestic companies and level the playing field with the rest of the industrialized (and much of the industrializing) world that have “socialized” medicine.
and this is the same industry that would still be a part of Obama’s health care “reform” plan…hmm.
Please drop that word “socialized” as it scares most Americans. Universal single payer health care access not for profit insurance that does not help most people is the only way to go. No longer can we tie health care to jobs. It just does not work any longer. HR 676 needs to be pushed by all the unions and their members.
True Democrat hit the nail on the
66% of the residents of our county support a national, single-payer health program. So do 59% of our family physicians.
Sixty-six percent! That’s an overwhelming number!
So what gives? Why isn’t Congress doing the work of the people?
Follow the money. Both sides of the aisle are culpable and duplicitous. It isn’t surprising that Republicans are in the pockets of the medical-industry complex, but why are some Democrats?
Sen. Evan (anti-EFCA) Bayh (D – IN) has a wife by the name of Susan. Susan is a lawyer, and is also a director at Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., which was awarded a $24.7 million federal grant thanks to Evan Bayh and his Indiana colleagues in Congress. The $24.7 million? Oh, that came from taxpayers. Wellpoint is no stranger to the legal system. It has settled numerous lawsuits that were brought against the company by both patients and government.
Then there is Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT). The medical-industry complex likes him so much they gave him $1 million over a five year span. Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D – ND) is another favorite son of the “sick-care” cartel.
Ok, now for a few Republicans. Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennesse was a founder of the Hospital Corporation of America while he was still in Congress. That endeavor makes millions for him. Current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – KY), and Rep. Eric Cantor (R- VA) the big mouth point man for “just say no” House Republicans, both receive regular, generous injections of lucre from the medical industry.
President Obama’s health reform proposal is, unfortunately, a half-measure. There is no doubt in my mind that he’d be advocating for single-payer if it were not for the Congress that he and the rest of us see. (Consider this: If President Johnson had the same Congress that President Obama now has, there would be no such thing as Medicare.)
Cajoling, whinning, begging, writing letters, etc., will not move our right-leaning Congress. (Let me hasten to add, however, that about 80 enlightened House Democrats are co-sponsoring HR 676. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I – VT) has introduced a similar bill – S. 703 - in the Senate.)
It will take direct action, like picketing Congressional offices, to get the bought-and-paid-for groupies to do what is right.
Let me close by exhorting everyone to love, honor and respect our government, while at the same time realizing we the people are the government! Those we elect are our employees. America has forgotten that. It is time for us to take back control of our Congress from the monied interests. It is time to demand that Congress start representing us!
HR 676 is the solution to our nation’s health care crisis. Make sure that your members of Congress know that we are demanding HR 676. And if they ignore us let’s make sure they know they will suffer ballot box revenge!
Soar 11-3 (which I am VP) supports the HR676 plan and that is not part of Obama’s plan appearently. HR676 folks have been excluded from most of the conference is my understanding. That major corporations would try to obstruct real progress in this area is not surprising. What is surprising is that the politicans have allowed these folks to pick the pockets of all Americans with impunity. Hell, some of the Insurance companies are guilty of murder by claim denial and yet there are none of these folks in jail, protected by the gutless politicans whom seem not to care about the public
Allowing folks like this to help shape the future of American Medical care is akin to asking folks serving time or on death row to draft criminal law, not a good idea. Insurance companies make the decisions about healthcare, not doctors nor patients and they intend to keep it that way.
Close second to the Insurance thieves are the drug company pirates, darlings of Wall Street whom profit excessively by overcharging for vital materials. Malefactors such as these folks need jail time, not conference time.
Most working Americans have more to fear from Drug companies and Insurance companies than they do from al Qaeda. Whom says we do not negoatiate with terrorists or thieves?
There is now a bill in the Senate:
Sen. Bernie Sanders introduces single payer bill
Single-payer health reform bill introduced in Senate
PNHP
Press release
March 26, 2009
Challenging head-on the powerful private insurance and pharmaceutical industries, Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a single-payer health reform bill, the American Health Security Act of 2009, in the U.S. Senate Wednesday.
The single-payer approach embodied in Sanders’ new bill stands in sharp contrast to the reform models being offered by the White House and by key lawmakers like Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Their plans would preserve a central role for the private insurance industry, sacrificing both universal coverage and cost containment during the worst economic crisis since the Depression.
In contrast, Sanders’ new legislation would cover all of the 46 million Americans who currently lack coverage and improve benefits for all Americans by eliminating co-pays and deductibles and restoring free choice of physician. The most fiscally conservative option for reform, single payer slashes private insurance overhead and bureaucracy in medical settings, saving over $400 billion annually that can be redirected into clinical care.
Highlights of the bill include the following:
Patients go to any doctor or hospital of their choice.
The program is paid for by combining current sources of government health spending into a single fund with modest new taxes amounting to less than what people now pay for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.
Comprehensive benefits, including coverage for dental, mental health, and prescription drugs.
While federally funded, the program is to be administered by the states.
By eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private, investor-owned insurance industry, along with the burdensome paperwork imposed on physicians, hospitals and other providers, the plan saves at least $400 billion annually - enough money to provide comprehensive, quality care to all.
Community health centers are fully funded, giving the 60 million Americans now living in rural and underserved areas access to care.
To address the critical shortage of primary care physicians and dentists, the bill provides resources for the National Health Service Corps to train an additional 24,000 health professionals.
Sanders, who serves on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, is a longtime advocate of fundamental health care reform. His new bill draws heavily upon the single-payer legislation introduced by the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) in 1993, S. 491, and closely parallels similar legislation pending before the House, H.R. 1200, introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).
Obama’s plan includes the insurance industry. He is on record as supporting single payer, and needs to be reminded of that.
Contact his office:
You can encourage President Obama to support HR 676, single payer health care, here:
Email: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Write: The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Call: 202-456-1111
Fax: 202-456-2461