This seems to be right on the target. The so called "Obama plan" which should be more accurately dubbed "Democrat party apparatchik plan" is a wolf in sheep's skin - taxing the middle class and herding people for fleecing by insurance companies disguised as a "coverage extension." This is not much different from the old Clinton scheme, which failed miserably and rightfully so. This one should fail too, because it is a really bad deal for most Americans. But then, if the health business smells profits, it may actually market is as a "reform" and congressmen will claim it as a feather in their cap.
Wojtek
--- On Wed, 7/29/09, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Why Public Option Is Defective; Why Only Single-Payer Will Do
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2009, 11:49 AM
>
> http://www.progressive.org/mpwool072209.html
>
> July 22, 2009
> The Progressive
>
> Why Obama's Public Option Is Defective, and Why We Need
> Single-Payer.
> By Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein
>
> Once Congress finishes mandating that we
> all buy private health
> insurance, it can move on to requiring
> Americans to purchase other
> defective products.
>
> A Ford Pinto in every garage?
>
> Lead-painted toys for every child?
>
> Melamine-laced chow for every puppy?
>
> Private health insurance doesn't work.
>
> Even middle-class families with
> supposedly good coverage are just one
> serious illness away from financial
> ruin.
>
> Illness and medical bills contribute to
> 62 percent of personal
> bankruptcies -- a 50 percent increase
> since 2001. And three-quarters of
> the medically bankrupt had insurance, at
> least when they first got
> sick.
>
> Coverage that families bought in good
> faith failed to protect them.
> Some were bankrupted by co-payments,
> deductibles, and loopholes. Others
> got too sick to work, leaving them
> unemployed and uninsured.
>
> Now Congress plans to make it a federal
> offence not to purchase such
> faulty insurance.
>
> On top of that, it's threatening to tax
> workers' health benefits to
> meet the costs of simultaneously covering
> the poor and keeping private
> insurers in business.
>
> President Obama's plan would finance
> reform by draining funds from
> hospitals that serve the neediest
> patients. His other funding plans
> aren't harmful, just illusory. He's
> gotten unenforceable pledges from
> hospitals, insurers and the American
> Medical Association to rein in
> costs, a replay of promises they made
> (and broke) to Presidents Nixon
> and Carter. And Obama trumpets savings
> from computerized medical
> records and better care management,
> savings the Congressional Budget
> Office has dismissed as wishful
> thinking.
>
> The president's health plan can't make
> universal, comprehensive
> coverage affordable.
>
> Only single-payer health reform --
> Medicare for All -- can achieve that
> goal.
>
> Single-payer national health care could
> realize about $400 billion in
> savings annually -- enough to cover the
> uninsured and to upgrade
> coverage for all Americans. But the vast
> majority of these savings
> aren't available unless we go all the way
> to single payer.
>
> A public plan option might cut into
> private insurers' profits. That's
> why they hate it. But their profits --
> roughly $10 billion annually --
> are dwarfed by the money they waste in
> search of profit. They spend
> vast sums for marketing (to attract the
> healthy); demarketing (to avoid
> the sick); billing their ever-shifting
> roster of enrollees; fighting
> with providers over bills; and lobbying
> politicians. And doctors and
> hospitals spend billions more meeting
> insurers' demands for
> documentation.
>
> A single-payer plan would eliminate most
> insurance overhead, as well as
> these other paperwork expenses. Hospitals
> could be paid like a fire
> department, receiving a single monthly
> check for their entire budget.
> Physicians' billing could be similarly
> simplified.
>
> With a public insurance option, by
> contrast, hospitals and doctors
> would still need elaborate billing and
> cost-tracking systems. And
> overhead for even the most efficient
> competitive public option would be
> far higher than for traditional Medicare,
> which is efficient precisely
> because it doesn't compete. It
> automatically enrolls seniors at 65 and
> deducts their premiums through the social
> security system, contracts
> with any willing provider, and does no
> marketing.
>
> Health insurers compete by NOT paying for
> care: by seeking out the
> healthy and avoiding the sick; by denying
> payment and shifting costs
> onto patients; and by lobbying for unfair
> public subsidies (as under
> the Medicare HMO program). A kinder,
> gentler public plan that failed to
> emulate these behaviors would soon be
> saddled with the sickest,
> costliest patients and the highest
> payouts, driving premiums to
> uncompetitive levels. To compete
> successfully, a public plan would have
> to copy private plans.
>
> Decades of experience teach that private
> insurers cannot control costs
> or provide families with the coverage
> they need. And a government-run
> clone of private insurers cannot fix
> these flaws.
>
> Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David
> Himmelstein are associate professors
> at Harvard Medical School. They
> co-founded Physicians for a National
> Health Program, a nonprofit research and
> education organization of
> 16,000 physicians, medical students, and
> health professionals who
> support single-payer national health
> insurance. For more about the
> group, go to www.pnhp.org.
>
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