Healthcare battle brewing: political groups gear up

[FayeforCure]

Healthcare battle brewing: political groups gear up
A public insurance alternative is likely to be the most contentious of the reform proposals.

By Alexandra Marks  |  Staff writer/ April 8, 2009 edition

Reporter Alexandra Marks discusses the upcoming debate over health care reform.

Reporter Alexandra Marks

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New York

The Obama administration hopes to give all Americans the option of buying into a public, Medicare-style health insurance plan. That is now shaping up to be the biggest flash point in the emerging debate about healthcare reform.




Advocates of a Medicare-style plan say it would give consumers a lower-cost alternative to private insurance, forcing those private insurers to become more responsive to consumer needs. Opponents counter that it would undermine the private health insurance market by prompting millions of businesses to switch to the cheaper, public alternative. In the long term, they argue, that would undermine consumer choice in healthcare.




Lawmakers and their staffs are currently hammering out the details of reform legislation that is expected to go to the floor in June. But interest groups on the right and left have already begun a fierce ideological battle, with each side trying to shape the public’s perception of a public insurance plan.


A coalition of conservative groups led by The Heritage Foundation just issued a list of “six deal killers” for healthcare reform. Top on their list is the creation of a public health insurance alternative. On the liberal side, Howard Dean is leading a grass-roots campaign and petition drive with groups like MoveOn.org and Democracy for America to support a Medicare-for-all-type alternative in any reform legislation.


“This is a relatively new idea. It’s not completely framed in the public’s mind yet, and so the debate could shape where people finally come out on the idea,” says Robert Blendon, a political and healthcare analyst at Harvard’s School of Public Health. “Initially, people are very favorable to the idea of a choice that could get them good medical care at a lower price, but they haven’t thought about the implications yet.”


In the past, opponents have swung the public

Currently, a few polls show that more than 70 percent of Americans support the idea of having a choice between a private and a public health insurance plan. But as history has shown, that could change dramatically.

In 1992, when President Clinton first outlined his Health Security Plan, more than two-thirds of Americans initially supported the idea. Then, the health insurance industry launched a massive advertising campaign opposing the plan. Within a year, support had plummeted along with any chance of healthcare reform.

Similarly, in 1945, when President Truman proposed a national health insurance plan, 75 percent of Americans were in favor. But after the US Chamber of Commerce and medical groups attacked the plan as “socialized medicine,” support sank to just over 20 percent.
“It really matters how each side gets their ideas out there and frames the debate â€" both sides are trying to influence bloggers and columnists to lay the groundwork for how people see it,” says Professor Blendon. “On one side, it’s framed as a terrific thing that will lower costs and give you more options. On the other, it’s painted as something where people could end up in a straitjacket of government-directed healthcare.”

Impact on consumer choice

Opponents of a public health insurance alternative, such as the Health Policy Consensus Group, the conservative coalition that issued the list of “deal killers,” contend that the government would use its “regulatory, pricing, and taxing authority” to favor its own plan. The group says that would make it difficult, if not impossible, for private health plans to compete and consumers would eventually find themselves without private insurance alternatives.


A Rasmussen poll in December 2008 found that 58 percent of Americans would oppose a public plan if they thought it would undermine their present private insurance policy.

Supporters of the public insurance option charge that conservative groups are “blatantly” misrepresenting Obama’s plan and exaggerating its impact on private insurers. “There will always be people who want private insurance, and this system allows them to have it,” says Dr. Dean, founder of Democracy for America. “It would be like what everyone over the age of 65 already has: You’d be able to choose your current plan, or you could choose a public option like Medicare.”

The presence of a public health insurance plan will not drive private insurers out of business, say advocates such as Dean, but force them to become more efficient and responsive to businesses and consumer needs because they’ll have some competition.

While each side gears up for battle, some health-reform advocates are concerned that inflexibility on this issue could damage the overall goal of reform.

“It’s one thing to seek strong and broad support for different faces of healthcare reform, but it’s another to draw hard lines in the sand. That demonstrates a reckless disregard of the American public’s need for meaningful healthcare reform,” says Ron Pollack, president and CEO of Families USA, a health-reform advocacy organization in Washington. “Clearly, on the very difficult issues that are at the heart of healthcare reform, there needs to be a willingness to search for common ground instead of a knee-jerk rigidity.”


http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/04/08/healthcare-battle-brewing-political-groups-gear-up/

I blogged about this issue here:
http://celebratechange4florida.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/healthcare-crisis-in-florida/

[BridgeTroll]

This paragraph should scare every American to death...

Lawmakers and their staffs are currently hammering out the details of reform legislation that is expected to go to the floor in June. But interest groups on the right and left have already begun a fierce ideological battle, with each side trying to shape the public’s perception of a public insurance plan.

And this is exactly why...

“This is a relatively new idea. It’s not completely framed in the public’s mind yet, and so the debate could shape where people finally come out on the idea,” says Robert Blendon, a political and healthcare analyst at Harvard’s School of Public Health. “Initially, people are very favorable to the idea of a choice that could get them good medical care at a lower price, but they haven’t thought about the implications yet.”

Lawmakers, staffers, and lobbyists are hammering out the details as we speak.  These three groups are the lowest common denominators in government.  There will be little or no public debate and the reform will be some incredibly crappy new law crammed down everyones throats costs be damned...

I can hardly wait...

[urbanlibertarian]

Why should you pay for my healthcare?

Why should I pay for your healthcare?

[mtraininjax]

Who cares who pays, all I know is that if the US can spend 3 TRILLION dollars in Iraq, it can pay for healthcare for every person living in America.

[BridgeTroll]

Why should you pay for my healthcare?

Why should I pay for your healthcare?

Should people lose their home and life savings because they get cancer?  Is the choice ...life or destitution?

[NotNow]

Who cares who pays, all I know is that if the US can spend 3 TRILLION dollars in Iraq, it can pay for healthcare for every person living in America.

The US Government is Constitutionally empowered to take my money for defending the nation.  It is not empowered to take my money for universal health insurance.

(And 3 Trillion...really?  That is not an accurate figure.)

[FayeforCure]

Who cares who pays, all I know is that if the US can spend 3 TRILLION dollars in Iraq, it can pay for healthcare for every person living in America.

The US Government is Constitutionally empowered to take my money for defending the nation.  It is not empowered to take my money for universal health insurance.

(And 3 Trillion...really?  That is not an accurate figure.)

Too bad you don't value living in a civilized society, where we commit national resources to infrastructure and other national needs that many of us occasionally use, but none of us can afford to pay on our own:

Home > Newspapers > U.S. Newspapers, Major Markets > Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service articles > December 2003
  Government can't provide services without levies.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)
Article from:Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service Article date:December 11, 2003 Author: Wright, Jim More

Byline: Jim Wright

"Taxes," said Oliver Wendell Holmes, "are what we pay for civilized society."

We love the things that taxes buy: schools that educate our children; military power second to none; enough police and courts to protect us from thieves, murderers, dope dealers and drunk drivers; superhighways adequate to accommodate our big, modern family chariots; a sophisticated public infrastructure to facilitate our armada of commercial and private jets, eliminate our industrial and municipal waste, and keep our air and water clean; public research to develop cures for diseases that killed our grandparents _ all that whole matrix of services that make up our ...

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-111180051.html

[NotNow]

Faye,

Please don't misunderstand me.  I do value our American society, which is why I point out that the U.S. Constitution does not empower the federal gorvernment to provide for universal health insurance.  The dangers from a Federal government that does not follow the supreme law of the land far outweighs any benifit that we might gain from a socialized industry such as medical care or medical insurance.  I believe that your avatar and previous post state that you have a family member who requires specialized care.  I sympathize with you and hope for only good things, but I want to point out that by allowing the Fed to tax us all to provide these services we aquiesce to their control.  That control will inevitibly result in less service and rationed care, and individual care will fall by the wayside.  I think that a civilized society realizes that some systems are not feasable, and works towards systems that are sustainable and fair.  In the long run, mass socialized systems have NEVER been successful. 

I am not against paying taxes, and I pay plenty, but I am oppossed to growing a larger and larger Federal government that is not authorized by our Constitution.  I am not opposed to State and community systems.  These are more locally controlled and MUCH less costly.  Importantly, they do not contradict our National Constitution.

[urbanlibertarian]

Faye,
I read on another thread that you are an economist.  How can we reintroduce the normal relationships of price, supply and demand into health care since most health care consumers are insulated from the real costs of the services they receive by insurance?  When you're just paying a copay you have no reason to care whether the services cost $100 or $1000.  The insurance company cares and they try to control costs by negotiating with providers but the natural relationship between price and demand doesn't exist for the consumer.

[mtraininjax]

The US Government is Constitutionally empowered to take my money for defending the nation.  It is not empowered to take my money for universal health insurance.

I remember your comments when I look at my paycheck and see social security taken out of it every pay period. Another part of our government, as flawed as spending billions overseas, when your own country is failing in so many ways.

If the Chinese call in their markers on US Debt - goodbye to life as we know it.

[FayeforCure]

That control will inevitibly result in less service and rationed care, and individual care will fall by the wayside.  I think that a civilized society realizes that some systems are not feasable, and works towards systems that are sustainable and fair.  In the long run, mass socialized systems have NEVER been successful. 

I am not against paying taxes, and I pay plenty, but I am oppossed to growing a larger and larger Federal government that is not authorized by our Constitution.  I am not opposed to State and community systems.  These are more locally controlled and MUCH less costly.  Importantly, they do not contradict our National Constitution.

States cannot provide medical care, or people will come flocking to the states with the best medical care.

I'm surprised you don't see any rationed care from the for-profit insurance industry:

1. They ration care by cherry-picking healthy individuals to insure. Anyone with a pre-exsiting condition is excluded from receiving any insurance.

2. They ration by rescinding your insurance, when you come down with cancer, but "forgot" to mention you had an ear infection at age 7 for example.

3. They ration by capping your care and denying proven procedures.

In summary, the persuit of profit in healthcare insurance leads to the 3 Ds: Delay, Deny and Deceit.

Healthcare is not a commodity one can purchase in a free market situation.

Pure free market situations require perfect information, in terms of availability and access.

BTW I favor a system where if you like your private insurance, you keep it. But in addition we should provide a national health insurance option, like an expanded Medicare system. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Publicly funded, privately delivered!

[FayeforCure]

Faye,
I read on another thread that you are an economist.  How can we reintroduce the normal relationships of price, supply and demand into health care since most health care consumers are insulated from the real costs of the services they receive by insurance?  When you're just paying a copay you have no reason to care whether the services cost $100 or $1000.  The insurance company cares and they try to control costs by negotiating with providers but the natural relationship between price and demand doesn't exist for the consumer.

I agree there is over-utilization by those who have insurance.

However, I caution that the normal price, supply and demand doesn't work well in healthcare if you are in coma, had a car accident, have a mental illnesss, alzheimers, or any other medical condition where you are at the mercy of the doctors and hospitals milking your health insurance.

The New England Journal of Medicine reported in 2003 that our nation could save $350 billion from what it currently spends on healthcare, if we went to a national health insurance system. Imagine how much more we could save in today's dollars.