I dare you to read this article all the way through.
It's from Businessweek, via TPM, and it's right here.
I could barely force myself to scan most of it.
There will be no real health care reform, folks. Deal with it. It will be called "Reform". It is nothing of the sort.
And you need to accept that Corporate America, especially the financial and insurance sectors, runs this country.
Think I'm joking? Read on.
And for God's sake, get real about your own country.
From the article:
The [health insurance] industry has already accomplished its main goal of at least curbing, and maybe blocking altogether, any new publicly administered insurance program that could grab market share from the corporations that dominate the business. UnitedHealth has distinguished itself by more deftly and aggressively feeding sophisticated pricing and actuarial data to information-starved congressional staff members. With its rivals, the carrier has also achieved a secondary aim of constraining the new benefits that will become available to tens of millions of people who are currently uninsured. That will make the new customers more lucrative to the industry.
Yes, folks, UnitedHealth. Remember that name.
UnitedHealth's relationship with Democratic Senator Mark R. Warner of Virginia illustrates the industry's subtle role. Elected last fall, Warner, a former governor of his state and a wealthy ex-businessman, received a choice assignment as the Senate Democrats' liaison to business. The rookie senator landed in the center of a high-visibility political drama—and in a position to earn the gratitude of a health insurance industry that has donated more than $19 million to federal candidates since 2007, 56% of which has gone to Democrats.
UnitedHealth has periodically served as a valuable extension of Warner's office, providing research and analysis to support his initiatives. Corporations and trade groups play this role in all kinds of contexts, but few do it with the effectiveness of the insurers. In June, Warner introduced legislation expanding government-backed Medicare and Medicaid coverage for hospice stays for the terminally ill and other treatment in life's final stages. The issue isn't a top UnitedHealth priority. But the corporation wanted to help Warner with his argument that in the long run, better hospice coverage would save money. UnitedHealth prepared a report for lawmakers finding that 27% of Medicare's budget is now spent during the last year of older patients' lives, often on questionable hospital tests and procedures. Expanded hospice coverage and other services could save $18 billion over 10 years, UnitedHealth asserted.
When Warner went to the Senate floor on June 15 to offer his bill, he cited those exact figures. He thanked the company for its support and put a letter from UnitedHealth applauding him in the Congressional Record.
Warner acknowledges in an interview that he worked on the hospice-care legislation with UnitedHealth executives. But he stresses that he has long experience with health issues and has formed his own views. The senator echoes UnitedHealth's contention that a so-called public option could be a "Trojan horse for a single-payer system," meaning government-run medical care. Warner has heard from some of UnitedHealth's largest employer clients, such as Delta Air Lines (SWY). Delta CEO Richard H. Anderson, a former UnitedHealth executive, has told Warner and other lawmakers that big companies don't want government to limit their flexibility in crafting employee health benefits
Yes, God knows we don't want an awful Single Payer System! Thank God Mark Warner is helping to kill that!
And Tom Daschle is a UH hero, too:
In August 2007, the company hired [Judah C.] Sommer, who previously headed global lobbying for Goldman Sachs (GS). He quickly built a new Washington team of former congressional aides and other K Street operatives. One key acquisition: Cory Alexander, former chief of staff for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), an influential moderate Democrat. Alexander had been lobbying for the huge mortgage financier Fannie Mae (FNM). Today, Sommer directs a team of nearly 50 people from UnitedHealth's spacious Washington office on Pennsylvania Avenue, equidistant between the Capitol and White House. The company spent more than $3.4 million on in-house and outside lobbying in the first half of 2009.
Sommer has retained such influential outsiders as Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate Leader who now works for the large law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird. Daschle, a liberal from South Dakota, dropped out of the running to be Obama's Secretary of Health & Human Services after disclosures that he failed to pay taxes on perks given to him by a private client. He advised UnitedHealth in 2007 and 2008 and resumed that role this year. Daschle personally advocates a government-run competitor to private insurers. But he sells his expertise to UnitedHealth, which opposes any such public insurance plan. Among the services Daschle offers are tips on the personalities and policy proclivities of members of Congress he has known for decades.
And of course, we don't want coverage to be too generous, as that might harm profits:
A fundamental question about the health overhaul is what minimum standards will apply to the coverage all Americans will be required to have. UnitedHealth has been exchanging a high volume of information on the topic with members of the Senate Finance Committee and their staff. Stevens, the former British health aide, regularly scans PowerPoint presentations generated by the committee staff that attempt to calculate the actuarial value of proposed benefit packages. Senators stung by the projected $1 trillion price tag are winnowing down the required coverage levels to cut costs.
This is good news for UnitedHealth, which benefits when patients pick up more of the tab. In late spring, the Finance Committee was assuming a 76% reimbursement rate on average, meaning consumers would be responsible for paying the remaining 24% of their medical bills, in addition to their insurance premiums. Stevens and his UnitedHealth colleagues urged a more industry-friendly ratio. Subsequently the committee reduced the reimbursement figure to 65%, suggesting a 35% contribution by consumers—more in line with what the big insurer wants. The final figures are still being debated.
Big Pharma has gotten what it wants-- no competition from Canada. Billy Tauzin, for God's sake, is being "negotiated" with. What a joke.
Kevin Phillips nailed all this beautifully in his book Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. He points out 71% (!) of hedge fund contributions in 2004 went to Democrats, with Schumer being the top beneficiary. The Private Equity Council gave 69% of its contributions to Democrats in 2006. U.S. investment firms in the 2nd quarter of 2007 gave $900,000 to Republicans, and $1.4 million to Democrats. Why? Liberal social inclinations? (Ha ha!) They were BUYING US, AND IT WORKED.
BTW, Finance is now 21% of the GDP and 40% of corporate profits. You think just one party did that??
The financial industry has poured money into both major parties,. and they have gotten their way. Goldman Sachs hurls its executive bonuses in our faces. Trillions of dollars have been guaranteed to the major banks. Our government is simply a revolving door for lobbyists and officeholders. Geithner and Summers guide economic policy instead of Krugman and Stiglitz. Conservative senators and representatives call the shots on "regulation" and "reform". Investors clean up and those at the bottom get shoved down farther. About the only thing I have left is my ferocious hatred for the Radical Right and its thug spokespeople, especially Oxycontin Boy Rush "Anal Cyst" Limbaugh, Sean "Lying Punk" Hannity, Glenn "Psycho Killer" Beck, and the rest of the Right Wing Noise Machine. But I need something to be FOR, G-D DAMN IT! How in the hell can I be for a Democratic Party that, in economic policy, is increasingly bought and paid for by Big Business?
I used to think that this was just radical Left ranting. Now, it seems more and more like the truth:
It ain't GBCW yet, but it's DAMNED near.
I'M FROM THE DEMOCRATIC WING OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!