Update: Does this suprise you: the doctors' lobby, AMA, has come out against a public plan option as part of the health care reform bill. That simple fact alone should tell you why America needs public health insurance. For decades doctors have grown rich off the health for profit system. Although there are exceptions, doctors in general have become businessmen not care providers, seeking ways to enhance their profit margins even if it means prescribing treatments or medications a patient does not need. The lobby group has opposed every major health care reform initiative presented in Congress. Since the 2000 election cycle the group has donated $9.8 million to Congressional candidates. House Speaker 'Big' Nancy Pelosi said on MSNBC Wednesday that the House will not pass a reform package without a public option[3].{6/09/09}Senator Kennedy is circulating a draft bill among his Senate colleagues that combines the President's preference for a dual system in which Americans have the option to buy competitive private insurance or a public plan. The public option is intended to control private insurance cost through competition, a concept even Repugnants can understand. By capping its reimbursement rate a 10% above Medicare rates, the public option would put downward pressure on the private sector when it negotiates prices with hospitals and doctors. Of course legislators beholding to the health insurance cartel for their elevated status characterize such competition as "unfair", but when giants like Aetna and Wellpoint use their size advantage to negotiate lower rates, that is simply the miracle of the market at work. Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Finance Committee is now on board with a public health plan option and financing it in part through cost savings in the Medicare program by $200 to $300 billion over ten years.[1] The Senate is expected to vote on a bill from the finance committee in the last two weeks of July. Reform of the broken system comes thirty years late. The US spends more than Switzerland on health care, but our system is not even close to the Swiss as their health statistics testify. Even the Business Roundtable, a bastion of laissez faire capitalist economics, concluded there is a "23% value gap" per dollar spent on health care compared to five leading competitor countries--Canada, Japan, Germany, UK and France.[2] Controlling costs is key to solving our health care mess. As a former participant in the Federal Employee Health Benefit System US Person can testify having comprehensive health insurance at a reasonable cost is a load off your mind. Better reform late than never. Help Senator Kennedy pass health care reform by signing his petition.
[1] before pressure from business heated up, Baucus supported the inclusion of a public option plan in his white paper on health care, Call to Action: Health Reform 2009
[2]The Business Roundtable, Health Care Value Comparability Study, Executive Summary, http://www.businessroundtable.org/sites/default/files/BRT%20exec%20sum%20FINAL%20FOR%20PRINT.pdf
[3] Don't hold your breath because the health business lobby is gearing up to defeat reform. Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth Group Inc. has spent $1.5 million in the first quarter, up 34 percent from $1.1 million in the same quarter last year; Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc. spent $809,793, up 41 percent from last year; and Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. and Louisville, Ky.-based Humana Inc. both saw first-quarter spending rise 16 percent to $1.2 million and $370,000, respectively.