Health Care

Commentary By Ron Beasley

The Democrats - yes Democrats - are going to eliminate the 650 million dollars for health care reform from Obama's budget.  I'm not sure that in the long term that may not be all that bad because the Obama reform isn't that much reform at all.  The only thing that will really reduce costs and fix the health care system in this country is a single payer system.  We hear a lot of talk about how we can't afford it.  What few talk about though is how we can't afford not to do it. Over at Common Dreams Dave Lindorff explains how the problem with US health care is the  parasitic insurance companies.

As the country contemplates a major reform and restructuring of the way we run our national health care system (if it can even be called that), it needs to be pointed out that the mammoth health insurance industry is nothing but a parasite on that system.

Health insurance companies add zero value to the delivery of health care. Indeed, they are a significant cost factor that sucks up, according to some estimates such as one by the organization Physicians for a National Health Program, as much as 31 percent of every dollar spent on medical services (a percentage that has been rising steadily year after year).

One example of what is wrong is UnitedHealth Group CEO Bill McGuire.

"Dollar Bill" has made lots of news with cash-and-stock paydays that have topped $100 million in recent years -- and he's still sitting atop stock options valued at $1.6 billion. McGuire's admiring outside board members -- 10 of whom have become millionaires through the sale of their own appreciated stock in recent years -- have defended his league-leading compensation on grounds that the giant health insurer's stock price has been a superb performer.

Yes that sucking sound you hear are dollars going from health care delivery to the bank accounts of insurance company executives. 

But it doesn't end with the cost.

They also actively interfere in the delivery of quality medical care, as anyone who has had to battle with some "nurse" on the phone at an insurance company to get required pre-authorization for needed procedure can attest. Just recently, the editor of a local weekly alternative paper in Philadelphia, Brian Hinkey, the victim of a near fatal hit-and-run accident last year who spent several days in a coma, and has been working hard to regain the use of all his limbs and faculties, reported in an opinion piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer on how his insurer after a few successful weeks of in-hospital rehab, denied him coverage for six critical weeks for out-patient rehab services, though every specialist on head injuries knows that early, consistent therapy is crucial to recovery of lost brain function.

This kind of human abuse is standard operating procedure for companies whose bottom lines are fattened the more services they can deny to insured clients. My own father, once doomed by a metastasized cancer following prostate surgery, was saved by a procedure offered by a physician in Atlanta that his Blue Cross plan in Connecticut refused to pay for. He had to finance the expensive treatment himself.

A few health care patches won't fix the problem only elimination of the parasites will. 

Comments

[buermann]

And the government already covers 60% of all healthcare costs. Push the insurance companies off to the edges with single-payer and we could cut taxes. Or, alternatively, actually have the best care on the planet because we'd still be spending twice per-capita what any civilized nation does.

[Christopher H. Brown]

To see President Obama address questions to key issues on-line, go to whitehouse.gov/openforquestions President Obama will be on at 11:30AM Eastern, 03/26/09. Health-care will be among the topics.