Hi ho, one and all. It's 8:36 a.m. here in cold Maryland, where the polls have opened for today's Chesapeake/Potomac/Beltway/whatever-you-wanna-call it tri-area primaries. I won't be long with this post, because it's a little past my bedtime (I'm an overnight shift guy, and my work week starts tonight, hence staying up to get my body acclimated).
As these crucial primaries begin, two parts of me are torn between our two candidates -- my head is for Hillary, my heart for Obama. So -- with hours to go before the polls opened -- I decided to spend some of my waking hours on their respective websites, and see where they really stood on the issues (yeah, the night before...what an involved voter I am, huh?). Honestly, I skimmed most of them, but I focused in on two or three key points for ME: energy independence, foreign policy/the war in Iraq, and health care.
Hi ho, one and all. It's 8:36 a.m. here in cold Maryland, where the polls have opened for today's Chesapeake/Potomac/Beltway/whatever-you-wanna-call it tri-area primaries. I won't be long with this post, because it's a little past my bedtime (I'm an overnight shift guy, and my work week starts tonight, hence staying up to get my body acclimated).
As these crucial primaries begin, two parts of me are torn between our two candidates -- my head is for Hillary, my heart for Obama. So -- with hours to go before the polls opened -- I decided to spend some of my waking hours on their respective websites, and see where they really stood on the issues (yeah, the night before...what an involved voter I am, huh?). Honestly, I skimmed most of them, but I focused in on two or three key points for ME: energy independence, foreign policy/the war in Iraq, and health care.
Frankly, I saw no real difference between the two of them on any of these issues, with the exception of a 10-point plan by Obama to invest in this nation's transpotation infrastruction, includng the development of a high-speed freight and passenger rail system -- a subject I am very interested in, both as a means to combat global warming and to create (hopefully) good-paying jobs. It's a subject that's been promoted by another diarest just a couple of weeks ago (but I forgot to link to that person's diary, so my sincere apologies).
But as I read Obama's pdf on his healthcare plan, something truly stood out to me -- to be more specific, this here (bold quotes mine):
The insurance business today is dominated by a small group of large companies that has been gobbling up their rivals. In recent years, for-profit companies have bought up not-for-profit insurers around the country. Other not-for-profits found business so lucrative, they converted to for-profit companies. There have been over 400 health care mergers in the last 10 years, and just two companies dominate a full third of the national market.40 The American Medical Association reports that 95% of insurance markets in the United States are highly concentrated41 and the number of insurers has fallen by just under 20% since 2000.42
When I read that, it reminded me of a conversation I had with my cousin last week: the only way we are going to get true universal health coverage in this country is to remove the profit motive from health insurance. My cousin, a businessman with his hands in various ventures, reminded me that I'm an idealist,not a capatalist, so there goes that notion.
But I truly believe any health care insurance company who wants to participate in a government-sponsored/administered universal health care plan should be a non-profit entity. If the current big-name health insurance providers (e.g. Blue Cross/Shield, etc.) want to participate in such a program, they should either switch to a non-profit company, or make them set up a non-profit entity, which they entirely subsidize, or the government gives them a hefty tax write-off.
So,what say you?
(And just for clarification -- my mentioning of Obama on those two specific points about transportation and health care, does NOT mean I am endorsing him through this diary. Thery're just two things I happened to come across in my research, is all.)
So,what say you?