Health Care In a Time of Desolation, Part 1

The cost of health care in America has risen dramatically faster than the cost of living and far beyond the ability of most middle-class people to afford. The enormously profitable health insurance and health care industries in America are frantically trying to head-off the inevitable passage of universal health coverage. They have now stooped to disgraceful lying and deceit to achieve their goal.

On May 11, 2009, President Obama met with six major health care organizations which promised to cut health care costs. The President hailed their promise as historic: “These groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment,” the President said. “Over the next 10 years, from 2010 to 2019, they are pledging to cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year — an amount that’s equal to over $2 trillion.”

Shortly after the meeting, the health care lobby pulled a double-cross. Despite clear proof to the contrary from notes taken at the meeting, the hospital association insisted that it had not, in fact, promised what the President said it had promised. The association said that President Obama had substantially overstated their promise to reduce the growth of health spending. The head of the hospital lobby said: “The groups did not support reducing the rate of health spending by 1.5 percentage points annually.” The head of the insurance lobby said that the idea was merely to “ramp up” savings, whatever that means. They lied to the President and to the public.

President Obama desperately wants to achieve bipartisan health care reform with the cooperation of the existing health care and health insurance industries. Unfortunately, these industries, and their Republican allies in Congress, do not plan to play by the same rules. They are willing to slap the President in the face for his naïve belief in their cooperation.

Everyone knows that the crucial element of any healthcare reform will have to be a “public option,” that is, a plan offering Americans the right to buy health insurance directly from the government as well as from private insurance companies. Without it, any health care reform will be meaningless. Legislation for such a plan is being spearheaded by Senator Sherrod Brown.

In spite of their fraudulent assertions about reducing the cost of health care, the health insurance lobby is actually gearing-up to stick a knife into the back of the President’s efforts to bring about meaningful health care reform.

On May 18, 2009, the Washington Post reported that one week after the May 11 meeting, the health insurance industry completed an ad campaign aimed at killing the public option plank in the President’s platform. The ads are like the infamous Harry and Louise ads that helped kill health care reform in 1993. The Post reported that: “In three 30-second videos, the insurer paints a picture of a future system in which patients wait months for appointments and can't choose their own doctors.”

Such ads are dishonest and repugnant. A public option would not result in waits for appointments, denial of choice of doctors and hospitals, or any of the other problems threatened. There are already large programs providing governmental health insurance for tens of millions of people, including Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE for veterans, the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program, and numerous state health insurance programs such as Ohio’s OPERS. None of these programs have brought about the kind of horror stories being spread by the health care lobbyists.

The health care industries are driven by profits and greed. They have vast sums of money with which to fight healthcare reform, and you can be sure that they will use it. Be prepared to see frequent commercials denouncing government-provided health insurance. Do not be hoodwinked by their mendacity.