Health Care Reform Bill: Senate Plays Santa For Insurance Companies; Scrooge To American Citizens
Posted: Monday, December 21, 2009
by Edward Rhymes
The Senate took a big step toward passing its sweeping healthcare bill early today. Shortly after 1:00 a.m., the Senate voted 60-40 along party lines to break a Republican filibuster and approve a motion to move the legislation to final passage later this week. The legislation has no public option, no expansion of Medicare eligibility, and includes restrictions on the use of federal funding for abortions.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused Republicans of needlessly holding up the bill: "This is not about partisanship or about procedure, and everyone knows we're here at 1:00 in the morning because of my friends on the other side of the aisle. For them to say with a straight face, and I noticed some of them didn't have that straight face, that we're here because of us is without any foundation whatsoever, and everyone knows that."
Strong words from a weak moral position seems like just a whole lot of noise doesn't it?
It, therefore, should not have come as a surprise to anyone that last week, stock prices in the nation's largest insurance companies were on the rise following news of a Senate plan to abandon the public insurance option. The Standard & Poor's Managed Health Care index rose 1.6 percent Wednesday, December 10th, compared to a 0.6 percent drop for the broader index of 500 companies. The gains followed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement that Democrats won't propose a government-funded health plan to compete with private insurers.
Additionally, according to a recent Huffington Post article, from the first time Sen. Lieberman threatened to oppose the public option, health insurance companies have experienced a heyday:
Instead, Democrats backed a measure in which the federal Office of Personnel Management would hire the insurance companies to run government-backed health plans. One day after Reid's announcement, a new poll showed a majority of Americans continue to support the public option rejected by Democrats. Fifty-nine percent want a government-funded public option included in a healthcare reform bill, a 30-point margin over the percentage of Americans opposed.
I believe that this bill has been crafted in order to win the approval, first and foremost, of the health insurance industry, of the pharmaceutical industry, and then Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, the conservative Democrats in the Senate. And it essentially was a success in that it attracted sixty Democratic votes in order to break a Republican filibuster and to pass a bill that essentially mandates that all Americans buy private health insurance. It provides subsidies to some of them, but to a large number of Americans who are quite poor and will have difficulty buying these products; it effectively forces them, on their own, under penalty of law, to purchase health insurance.
This is how the insurance companies got practically everything on their Christmas wish list and the American citizens were left with lumps of coal in their stockings: the whole point of the public option (originally) was that if you're going to mandate that people buy health insurance, then it is only a legitimate and moral thing to do if you actually provide them with a public-run program, so that the health insurance industry, which is notorious for short-changing people and for engaging in all sorts of reprehensible business practices, can't use the mandate to essentially get 30 million new customers and then gouge them for profits while providing them with virtually no services.
The rejection of this bill isn't about ideological purity, but rather, it's because bill actually does more harm than good in that it reinforces the monopoly status of the private healthcare industry. While at the same time, forces huge numbers of Americans; many of whom will not be able to afford it, to buy products that are inadequate and that they do not want. It perpetuates the very system that supposedly was the impetus to pass healthcare reform in the first place.
This is essentially due to a failure in leadership by President Obama, who campaigned against the very things that this bill forwards: mandates, strengthening the health insurance companies' stranglehold on insurers etc.
Many commentators have been speculating about whether this bill will hurt Democrats and/or President Obama politically, but that's not my main concern. It is the millions of uninsured and under-insured Americans who will be left at the mercy of the same health insurance industry that made the need for healthcare reform necessary; for the millions hopeful citizens who watched their sugar-plum vision of a public option transformed into Grinch-like public subsidies.
Congratulations Mr. President; Congress, Ebenezer would be proud.
Strong words from a weak moral position seems like just a whole lot of noise doesn't it?
It, therefore, should not have come as a surprise to anyone that last week, stock prices in the nation's largest insurance companies were on the rise following news of a Senate plan to abandon the public insurance option. The Standard & Poor's Managed Health Care index rose 1.6 percent Wednesday, December 10th, compared to a 0.6 percent drop for the broader index of 500 companies. The gains followed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement that Democrats won't propose a government-funded health plan to compete with private insurers.
Additionally, according to a recent Huffington Post article, from the first time Sen. Lieberman threatened to oppose the public option, health insurance companies have experienced a heyday:
- Coventry Health Care, Inc. is up 31.6 percent;
- CIGNA Corp. is up 29.1 percent;
- Aetna Inc. is up 27.1 percent;
- WellPoint, Inc. is up 26.6 percent;
- UnitedHealth Group Inc. is up 20.5 percent;
- And Humana Inc. is up 13.6 percent.
Instead, Democrats backed a measure in which the federal Office of Personnel Management would hire the insurance companies to run government-backed health plans. One day after Reid's announcement, a new poll showed a majority of Americans continue to support the public option rejected by Democrats. Fifty-nine percent want a government-funded public option included in a healthcare reform bill, a 30-point margin over the percentage of Americans opposed.
I believe that this bill has been crafted in order to win the approval, first and foremost, of the health insurance industry, of the pharmaceutical industry, and then Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, the conservative Democrats in the Senate. And it essentially was a success in that it attracted sixty Democratic votes in order to break a Republican filibuster and to pass a bill that essentially mandates that all Americans buy private health insurance. It provides subsidies to some of them, but to a large number of Americans who are quite poor and will have difficulty buying these products; it effectively forces them, on their own, under penalty of law, to purchase health insurance.
This is how the insurance companies got practically everything on their Christmas wish list and the American citizens were left with lumps of coal in their stockings: the whole point of the public option (originally) was that if you're going to mandate that people buy health insurance, then it is only a legitimate and moral thing to do if you actually provide them with a public-run program, so that the health insurance industry, which is notorious for short-changing people and for engaging in all sorts of reprehensible business practices, can't use the mandate to essentially get 30 million new customers and then gouge them for profits while providing them with virtually no services.
The rejection of this bill isn't about ideological purity, but rather, it's because bill actually does more harm than good in that it reinforces the monopoly status of the private healthcare industry. While at the same time, forces huge numbers of Americans; many of whom will not be able to afford it, to buy products that are inadequate and that they do not want. It perpetuates the very system that supposedly was the impetus to pass healthcare reform in the first place.
This is essentially due to a failure in leadership by President Obama, who campaigned against the very things that this bill forwards: mandates, strengthening the health insurance companies' stranglehold on insurers etc.
Many commentators have been speculating about whether this bill will hurt Democrats and/or President Obama politically, but that's not my main concern. It is the millions of uninsured and under-insured Americans who will be left at the mercy of the same health insurance industry that made the need for healthcare reform necessary; for the millions hopeful citizens who watched their sugar-plum vision of a public option transformed into Grinch-like public subsidies.
Congratulations Mr. President; Congress, Ebenezer would be proud.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I dont live in the US though my sister and her family does! I have heard so much about the hope they had over this bill and also on the vision of President Obama. What a let down for thousands of Americans who believed in his vision!Thanks for commenting Robert. Yes, I'm one of those disenchanted Americans who feel let down by this, dare I say, betrayal.I hope that in committee they can make this a better deal.Thanks for stopping by.
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