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Here Are the Real Facts on the Proposed Health Care Reform
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Last night at a Portsmouth, N.H., town hall meeting on the health care reform proposal now making its way through Congress, President Obama said there is room for disagreement, but that disagreement should center on what is actually in the legislation, not “wild misrepresentations.”
Telling the crowd it was time to ”set the record straight,” Obama went point by point:
- Under the proposed health care reform, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
- If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.
- The majority of Americans will still get their health care from private insurers under the plan. One key goal of reform: Make sure private insurers are treating you fairly.
- This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. Having a public option as part of that would keep the insurance companies honest.
- Insurance companies will be prohibited from denying coverage because of a person’s medical history. Period.
- Insurance companies will not be able to drop your coverage if you get sick.
- Another myth that we’ve been hearing about is this notion that somehow we’re going to be cutting your Medicare benefits. We are not.
Obama also pointed out that reform will help bring down the soaring health care costs that are eating working families’ paychecks with fast-rising premiums, growing co-payments and staggering out-of-pocket expenses as insurance companies reduce or drop coverage altogether.
No one holds these companies accountable for these practices…that will change when we pass health care reform.
A provision in the House bill allows Medicare to reimburse people for consultations about end-of-life care, setting up living wills, the availability of hospice care and other difficult decisions families face. But that has been deliberately spun by reform opponents as government “death panels.”
The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for “death panels” that will basically pull the plug on Grandma. I am not in favor of that.
So I just want to clear the air here. the intention of the members of Congress was to give people more information so that they could handle issues of end-of-life care when they’re ready, on their own terms. It wasn’t forcing anybody to do anything.
The bottom line, said Obama:
If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform.
Click here for more health care facts.
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12 Comments
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Some health care reform. As long as the insurance companies and health care “industry” is in control of health care it will be run to fill corporate coffers and reward stock holders and anyone saying otherwise is ignorant or in on the take. Health care is controlled by the governments of dozens of industrialized countries of the world providing adeqate, inexpensive and universal care to all it’s residents and even visitors. If this government is not trusted by the people to do such then it does not mean we need to give the health care to private industry IT MEANS WE NEED A DIFFERENT GOVERNMENT!
This is a great non-technical summary of the things that some people are worried about happening when health care reform is implemented. What grieves me is that anyone who is worried about these issues does so only because the anti-health-care noise machine puts out so much material, aimed at the audience that should be reading this blog instead of listening to them, which is intended only to whip the gullible into a hysterical frenzy such that they rally to the banner of those working against their best interests.
I’m a liberal blogger and I’m going to rip off your bullet points to drive home the point to my readers that the things they need to be concerned with are not the fake, “crazy talk” issues they hear in the corporate-controlled news media, but real issues that really impact their daily lives. They are so distracted by fake stuff that they can’t think straight.
Here’s just one example and then I’ll shut up. When I harangue working class anti-health-care dupes about the 18,000 people who needlessly died last year because they didn’t have access to health services, they say, “I don’t believe that’s true! Fox News didn’t have anything about that! What about the socialized medicine death boards that might enuthanize Sarah Palin’s baby with Down’s Syndrome?” I put my head in my hands and weep.
President Obama’s voice of reason is a welcome respite from the mob mentality of late. We need health care reform so desperately in this country, but those who make the obscenely big bucks from the system as it currently operates will stop at nothing to block any advances we potential patients might make.
As far as end of life issues, everyone should have an advance directive in place. This is your assurance that your wishes will be honored if you become incapacitated! It is easier for family members to make an informed decision based on the desires of their loved ones. I stood by helpless and hopeless while my father suffered without an advance directive, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Good health is a blessing. But when we become ill or injured, the last thing we need is to worry about how we’re going to recover physically, mentally, or financially. Americans should not live in fear over their health care. President Obama and Congress cared enough to put forward a plan to put our nation at ease. We shouldn’t allow a few angry voices set us back from our progress toward the greater good.
I’m not stating that our existing health care system is not difficient in many ways, but I am saying that I’m not biting the President’s hook until I know the real particulars of his bill. I’m not interested in what is not in there, but what is in there. And until the specifics are out there for everyone to see, instead of platitudes and opinion, every opinion is as valid as the next.
The attacks on Obama’s health care plan are malicious and unfair, but there’s a lesson to be leaned: try to be all things to all people and you end up ticking off everybody.
Obama is trying to achieve two irreconcileable goals: achieve universal coverage within the framework of private insurance, and bring costs down at the same time. Requiring people to buy health insurance if they want to get medical treatment, allowing insurance companies to keep siphoning off 30% of our health care dollars, and forcing health care providers to keep spending billions on billing and hassles with claims adjustors won’t reduce costs. Adding one more insurance plan that happens to be government-run to the hundreds of competing private plans changes nothing.
No act of Congress can guarantee that “if you like your insurance you can keep it.” You could be laid off, your employer could dump the plan because it’s too expensive, you could be forced by your plan to pay higher deductibles or see your premiums rise. You may think you like you have a good plan, then find out differently when you have an expensive medical emergency that your plan refuses to cover.
And in fact, Congress HAS been talking about financing universal coverage with cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. That’s how the crazy rumors about forced euthanasia got started.
Obama’s strategy was supposed to avoid a head-on fight with the insurance industry. Obviously it’s not working out that way. We need to take another look at single payer. If we’re going to have a fight to the death with the vested interests, let’s at least make it over something worth fighting for.
The House will be voting on HR 676 (single payer) in September. Contact your repentatives now and tell them to support it. It’s our best chance to get “change we can believe in.”
What Insurance Company is gong to run this Health Plan? If it is Medicare, at present all Seniors over 65 who have Medicare pay almost $100.00 a month into Medicare and have had a deduction for Medicare taken out of their paychecks every payday when they were working. This deduction is still being taken out of the paychecks of people who are presently working. What is to stop the employers who are now offering Health Insurance to their employees to decide to stop doing so once this plan goes into effect? All things to think about before we rush into anything. It is always suspect when the government trys to rush something through without fully explaining said plan. Look what happened with the Billion dollar bailout.
Let’s review:
1. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.
This one makes me nervous. Does this mean my former employer (I’m retired) will be prevented from ‘pulling the plug’ on the insurance I currently have because there will be ‘affordable’ options and he can save a ton of money by not carrying me anymore? What I have right now is the same insurance I had before retirement. I pay NO monthly premium and the coverage is outstanding! If I were to be dropped and subsequently required to buy my own coverage it would be financially devastating.
2. Insurance companies will be prohibited from denying coverage because of a person’s medical history. Period.
2a. Insurance companies will not be able to drop your coverage if you get sick.
The way I see it these two issues could be resolved by regulation. No sweeping ‘reform’ required.
3. The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for “death panels” that will basically pull the plug on Grandma. I am not in favor of that.
Now this one really troubles me. He’s ‘not in favor of that’? Well, thank God he’s not ‘in favor’ of it but what exactly does that mean? A resounding ‘absolutely no, that is NOT going to happen’ would have been far more comforting!
4. The bottom line, said Obama: If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform.
Quality, affordable options. Sounds great. But a mandate(?) that requires everyone to buy coverage doesn’t sound so great. I’m already required to carry insurance on my home and my car. Now the government wants to ‘require’ health insurance? Of course they’re going to ‘assist’ those who can’t afford it (which could include illegals since the amendment to check eligibility was defeated) but my/your idea of what I/you can afford and their’s may not be the same. And how are they going to enforce this ‘requirement’? Oh, I bet I know. A health care czar. Add another bureaucrat to the ever growing list!
It’s all about money.
From the perspective of the medical-profits industry, the national “health” care reform debate is all about money. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not your premiums or deductibles or co-pays that concern them. It’s their profit margins they are worrying about.
They know they won’t get too much support using that argument, so they’re pulling the old bait and switch gambit. They do not want the public talking about unconscionable profiteering on the part of insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and for-profit corporate hospitals. In order to change the topic of debate they decided to funnel money to surrogate organizations who will do their bidding – for a price.
That’s why all the lies are out there: “death panels for seniors”, “rationing care”, “government snooping”, “losing your right to choose our own doctors”, ad nauseam.
Here’s the dirty little secret the profiteers are paying to hide: Private insurers are the ones who deny life-saving care to seniors (and others). That’s death by withholding. That’s death by “rationing”. Insurers are the ones who snoop into our lives. Insurers already tell you which doctors you may or may not see. Those are facts. All of us have heard the horror stories.
Medicare, on the other hand, covers the kind of care your doctor says you need. Period! That’s the opposite of rationing. Over 40 million people have Medicare (myself included). I have never heard one complaint about “government snooping”. What’s more, those of us on Medicare get to choose our own doctors. We’re not subject to the whims of bean-counters who work for private insurers.
Medicare, of course, is a “government” health care system. It is single payer. Care is publicly financed but privately delivered. All that means is that I get to go to the doctor of my choice, and the government pays the bill. It is not, however, “free” care. During my working years I paid into the Medicare Trust Fund just like everyone else. I have a $96 monthly premium. Insurance companies hate Medicare. Without it they’d have over 40 million new “customers”. That’s the goldmine they’d reap if all of us on Medicare had to switch to private insurance. And make no mistake about it: that’s their eventual goal.
Medicare was enacted in 1964, despite strong objections from the medical-profits industry. Medicare has saved [literally] millions of lives. It has made health care affordable for millions of seniors. Without Medicare many seniors would have no medical insurance. They wouldn’t be able to afford it. They would be unable to get the care they need. That would be “death for seniors”.
Let’s take a moment and get back to those surrogate organizations mentioned earlier. They are receiving huge ”grants” from the profiteers of medicine. They get to keep some of it in order to fund their own pet projects, but by agreeing to accept the money in the first place they promise to use some of it to spread lies about health care reform.
Some of those groups sell themselves as religious organizations. That prompts a “holy mackerel”. The income of their “CEOs” would make some corporate insurance executives envious. Their job is to represent the highest bidder no matter what the issue. It’s all about money – and power.
Unfortunately, too many folks have gotten caught up in the clap-trap being peddled by Wall Street “public relations firms” daring to pose as advocates of the people.
Supporters of “free market health care” want to distract us from recognizing that the free market has been in control of millions of people’s health care for decades. We’ve seen denial of benefits, bureaucratic minefields, and sky-rocketing increases in premiums and other out of pocket expenses.
Why would anyone want to defend a system that denies care and over-charges?
The average family of four with health insurance pays anywhere from $12,000 – $16,000 annually for health care coverage though private insurers. Many are restricted to “in network doctors”, which means doctors who contract with one of more of the 1300 different health insurance companies. Their choices of doctors are therefore limited by edict of the insurers. Credible reporting reveals that between 22% and 31% of every premium dollar goes to “administration”. The family spending $12,000 pays somewhere in the neighborhood of $2640 – $3720 to cover the “administrative costs” of private insurers. The “administration” figure for those paying $16,000 is $3520 – $4960. That’s per year!
Medicare, on the other hand, has administrative costs of only about 4%. If private insurers were as efficient as Medicare, administrative costs for the families listed above would be $480 and $640 respectively.
There is a plan that would put a halt to “free market” excesses. (Remember, it was the “free marketers” who jammed NAFTA and WTO down our throats.) The plan is already in place. It is called Medicare. A bill in Congress would expand it and improve it. The bill is House Resolution 676 (HR 676). Under its provisions Medicare would be expanded to include every resident, and would be improved to cover benefits not currently covered by Medicare, like dental, vision (eyeglasses, etc.) hearing aids, durable equipment, etc. In fact, all evidence-based, scientifically sound medically-necessary care would be covered. (That’s what people with “gold plated coverage” now have. The provisions of HR 676 would guarantee “gold plated coverage” for everyone.)
Such a plan would be expensive, right? Sure it would. It would cost what the U.S. will spend on health care this year: $2.4 trillion.
But no new funding would be required. The $2.4 trillion would cover everyone for everything.
How?
• By eliminating wasteful, for-profit “administrative costs, which include bloated salaries for CEOs, corporate jets, ultra-fancy corporate offices, and dividends to preferred stockholders, $400 billion would be captured. and
• 4.75% premium on income (paid by employees and self-employed)
• 6% premium on payroll (paid by employers)
• 5% health care tax on wealthiest 10%
• 10% health care tax on wealthiest 1%
• Ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy
• A one-third of 1% fee on stock and bond transfers
A family of four earning $55,000 per year would pay $2612.50 annually. That’s for the whole family! There would be no deductibles or co-payments. The employer would pay $3300. That’s a combined total of $5912.50. That’s $6087.50 less than what a family now spending $12,000 pays, and $10,087.50 less than a family spending $16,000.
Money would also be available to increase Medicare reimbursement rates for our nation’s woefully underpaid family physicians.
You’d have one health insurance card, just like my Medicare card. And just as with Medicare, it could be used in any city or town, and at any doctor’s office in the U.S. Yes, you’d get to choose your own doctors, just like I now do with my Medicare coverage.
So why isn’t everyone pushing HR 676? Because “go along to get along” misrepresentatives are advocating something less than what is needed. (Those people already have what they need, yet they are willing to support something less than what you and I need!)
It is my understanding that a large number of unions, Labor Councils, and State Federations have sent resolutions to the AFL-CIO Convention in September that call for the enactment of HR 676. That discussion should be quite revealing. Will pie cards try to kill the resolution? They’ve already signaled their support for HR 3200, which is a sorry substitute for true reform. Which side will prevail? Will the voice of the rank and file win out, or will mouthpieces of go along to get along sham reform carry the day?
Contact your union delegates to the Convention. Tell them to support HR 676. Those who refuse should be put out to pasture.
The solution is HR 676. Why should we settle for less?
With all of the lawyers in Washington; why can’t some organization i.e. the Democratic Party file an action in federal court to stop the lies??
Reassuring words from a President who signed a trillion dollar stimulus bill he did not read. That is what scares all of us. President Obama may not support some or none of the bill that will reach his desk but will he sign it without reading it again? When people are reading paragraph and sentence directly from the house bill how can that be a wild misrepresentation? Just after 911 when someone proposed a US identity card be carried by everyone and that fingerprints and DNA be kept on file to aid in identification of body parts and criminals the ACLU raised hell. Its an invasion of privacy etc etc and so on and so forth. So what if it would drop the crime rate across the nation and save Billions of dollars spent on Police man hours . We can not trust the Government to not abuse this information they said! Now we should trust the government with our medical records, and our medical care ? Every blood test the government pays for will yield our DNA. When did the government suddenly become so trustworthy? I look at the wonderful job the government does with medicare and medicaid ( You know, the government insurance plan that already exists for uninsured low income folks ) and giving them even more of my money to screw up yet another program at my expense does not seem a smart thing to do. I agree that there needs to be SOME changes. A total rewrite is not needed in the best health care system in the world. A simple law that states that a lawyer who brings a medical lawsuit and loses must pay some or all of the ammount sued for out of his own pocket for wasting the courts and the doctors time. This would certainly allow real and good cases to be brought and won but would eliminate the frivolous like the suing Mcdonalds because the coffee was hot . These frivolous cases are what drives up costs of healthcare. Cause millions of dollars of tests to be run just to prevent a lawsuit. Cause doctors to refuse to do bypass on a patient because his or her odds of making it are poor due to their condition but the doctors and the hospitals fear the lawsuits if they die in surgery so they wont even try. Bottom line is if an engine is idling rough you adjust the carb, you do not replace the whole engine.
There are two basic visions at work. Why does it seem like most on the right don’t trust this thing, and most on the left do? The right is ready to condemn it before they know even the basic facts; the left is ready to accept it before they know all the facts. The right doesn’t trust what Obama is doing; the left fawns over him.
But now the best polls are saying 53% of voting Americans are against this. Is it just because the right and big biz has done a better job of propaganda, or is this simply the easiest scarecrow for the left to blame?
Bottom line is it appears no one, including the politicians, really knows what is in this, what it will really cost, or what it will really do. But it seems 47% of voting Americans are still fine with that.
Many books will be written about this epic battle . . . interesting to watch . . . let’s hope it doesn’t get too far out of hand.
37 countries in the world have some type of health-care for all.I would think that taking a good look at what works there and what doesn’t,would be a good place to start with health-care reform here,but that is evidently to easy for our lawmakers.Surely we could use what works and fix what doesn’t and if insurance companies go broke because of it so what.Listen to Rich A I have disagreed with him several times but on this he is correct,my hats off to you Rich.