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Fox News, Insurance Industry Say There’s No Health Care Crisis. Yeah, Right! |
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Maybe we’ve been ignoring the good news for these past several months as we’ve covered the debate on health care reform.
For example—there really isn’t a health care crisis and everybody is just gosh-darn happy with their insurance providers. Did we mention that the health insurance industry is doing such an above-board, honest job that it doesn’t need any new rules or regulations?
Somehow, we missed those stories, but when you consider the sources—Rush Limbaugh, the insurance group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.), perhaps the loudest voice in the U.S. Senate screaming to scuttle health care reform—we didn’t miss much in the way of truthful news after all.
Click here, here and here for more on the dubious claims by Limbaugh, AHIP and Kyl.
In the interest of balance and fairness, here a few health care reform news nuggets of the truthful variety.
• Right-wing pundits are lying their ***** off about health care reform, says Joshua Holland, and he has the video to prove it. Holland notes that on several Fox News shows and other reactionary opinion shows, conservative blabbers are claming health care reform legislation will make private insurance illegal—in fact, one even claims reform advocates “will kill the private insurance companies.”
Did we all miss that meeting? Click here for more from Holland and the ludicrous lies from Fox, et al.
• Author David Sirota writes that it’s actually the super-rich who are looking for a kill shot. In a recent column, he details how the ultra-rich are trying to kill health reform. He writes that the wealthiest 1 percent—whose share of America’s total income is the highest it’s been since 1929 and their tax rates are the lowest they’ve faced in two decades—have deployed
an army to destroy an initiative that would tax the super-rich to help pay for health care.
Read Sirota’s entire column here.
• Turning to some cold hard facts, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reports today that while laid-off workers may keep their employer-sponsored health insurance—at their own expense—for 18 months after losing a job, the cost of such coverage can eat up almost all of an unemployed worker’s jobless benefits.
The average monthly unemployment benefit is $1,432 and the monthly cost of a family health insurance plan is $1,057, “not including the deductibles or co-pays for prescriptions or doctor and hospital visits,” notes EPI.
For low-income families, it is quite possible their health care costs actually exceed their unemployment benefits.
EPI calls for additional federal support beyond that contained in the economic recovery package passed earlier this year.
• A Hat Tip to Digby at Hullabaloo for pointing out a recent Rand Corp. study that links soaring health care costs to the job loss and lower output in many U.S. industries, especially those that provide health coverage for workers.
“This study provides some of the first evidence that the rapid rise in health care costs has negative consequences for several U.S. industries,” said Neeraj Sood, the study’s lead author and a senior economist at RAND. Industries where more workers receive employer-sponsored health insurance are hit the hardest by rising health care costs.”
The Rand study, writes Digby:
gives weight to President Barack Obama’s dire warnings about the impact of rising costs if Congress does not enact health care reform.
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I am afraid The Industry is once again hijacking public policy for profits. Forcing people to buy a commercial product (health insurance) and using taxpayer money to subsidize those who can’t afford it, is NOT reform. Furthermore, by design, the public plan option will struggle because the sickest most expensive patients will gravitate to it. Not only that, it won’t be available until 2013. Years later, when it fails, The Industry will point to it as proof the Single Payer won’t work. It will be the wrong lesson. In the meantime, our health care non-system will continue to break our fragile bank. I don’t know about you, but this is bad for my blood pressure.
Oregon PNHP is going to do something about this. Visit MadAsHellDoctors.com to find out more.
Paul Hochfeld, M.D.
Yes, there is a need for healthcare reform, but this bill is not the answer. It is not really taking care of the problems with health care, only token efforts from pharmaceutical companies, malpractice lawyers and HMOs. It needs a lot more work to clean up the mess in health care without being another burden to small businesses and a headache for the rest of us.
If you go out for a steak dinner and you get a steak you can’t even cut with a steak knife, you send it back. If you buy an electronic gadget and it doesn’t work, you send it back. I say “Send it back until you get it right! And why should the bill be over 1000 pages long? Make it simple, easy to understand and not just another windfall for special interests”. I am not falling for the “dire catastrophe if it’s not signed immediately” ploy again or as my parents used to put it “Act in haste, repent in leisure”. We can’t afford that….
there is no crisis just give us the same health care they get
Congress doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel- take a look at the rest of the world.
It seems strange, following the debate around health care reform in the US from Australia that universal health insurance models from places like Australia, and closer to the US, Canada, are not being used to quash some of the claptrap from the right. As a union organiser and ex-nurse, I am immensely proud of the facts that, whilst there are shortcomings inherent in our model (which the US could be in prime position to avoid), our Medicare system is truly universal and ensures that all citizens are treated for urgent/emergent conditions without a thought, at the bedside, for how the treatment will be paid for, preventative measures are consistent and innovative and ‘elective’ treatments are partially paid for or subject to shortish waiting lists.
If the US can match this (and do more for dentistry) then it will stand to achieve world-best health care for all Americans.
I agree Mirilil,why can our lawmakers not take a look at healthcare plans around the world,see what is working and what is not,use what is and fix what isn’t?Why does everything in this debate have to be yes or no, and just what is the plan,no one seems to know?
Being a Utah health insurance underwriter for http://www.BenefitsManager.net and http://www.DentalInsuranceUtah.net I have the opportunity to consult within many state insurance committee meetings. Some interesting changes took place in Utah with the passage of House Bill 188 that other states should pay attention to and perhaps the federal legislation. The bill created a state insurance pool requiring private health insurance carriers to come together and underwrite risk. Through governmental guidelines (which I have traditionally opposed in the past) they created a arena of underwriting rules that essentially guarantees the participating insurance carriers a ?no loss? or ?no gain? over each other. What this essentially means is that they pool the underwriting medical risk and spread it evenly among each carrier. All the sudden, we see guaranteed issued policies. We see rates drop by as much as 13% In Utah, our average monthly family rate is $867 for a $500 deductible plan. Some of the family rates within the ?Utah Insurance Exchange Portal? are approaching $700.00 now. To see more of HB 188 and see how Utah wrangled change without increasing taxes or rationing go to: http://www.prweb.com/releases/utah_health_insurance/health_care_reform/prweb2614544.htm
The private insurance sector can be corralled into cooperation where they can meet their goals. You have to understand that health insurance carriers are only looking for a 4-5% administration fee. That is it and they are more efficient as compared to a governmental portal that will cost more money. Take a look at Utah folks!
Who the hell watches Faux “News”?? More wasted air time and propaganda to bring down the true change we were promised.