Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
The legislation the Senate Finance Committee will vote on next week relies heavily on Co-ops to help cover the uninsured. It discards a robust public option, or any public option completely. It also mandates that uninsured Americans must buy insurance with subsidies to help them do it. Senators Baucus and Conrad are intent on including this model into law and voting against any more Progressives ideas such as a Public Option and single-payer.
Kent Conrad recently laid out his defense of the Co-op model, complete with Republican talking points added:
"The co-op plan aims to achieve the same benefits for consumers as a public option without government control of health insurance," Conrad said in a statement this month. "It does so by creating private, consumer-driven, nonprofit health plans. Because these plans will be owned by their members, they will focus on getting the best value for consumers, rather than maximizing revenues or profits."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
This paints such a sunny scenario does it not?? I mean, I am feeling so very warm and fuzzy to have public servants like Sen. Conrad watching out for all of us. Has he not seen the way that a Co-op within his own state has behaved??
North Dakota's largest insurer is Blue Cross Blue Sheild and is a cooperative and is owned by it's policy holders. It has come to be called "the Blues" by those who are members. The Finance Committee seeks to create new insurance cooperatives in all fifty states in lieu of a public option or single-payer. However, recent scandals have shown that these entities care little about their members and would operate in similar fashion as a typical corporation:
For the North Dakota insurance sales reps, March may have been the ideal time to enjoy the swim-up bar at a resort on Grand Cayman Island. But back on the northern Plains, where temperatures were below zero, policyholders at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota were less delighted when they learned about the trip for 66 staff members and guests.
Word of the $238,000 Caribbean retreat broke last winter, compounded by news of other perks: $15 million in executive bonuses over five years, $400,000 for charter flights and $35,000 for a vice president's retirement party. And when the ensuing uproar cost Michael Unhjem his job as chief executive, his landing was softened by a $2.5 million severance payment. The golden parachute had been added to his contract after his 2006 drunken-driving arrest, a state audit pointed out.
To add insult to injury of the members, this wonderful little getaway occurred at a time when they were raising premiums substantially:
In North Dakota, which has a $1 billion state budget surplus, residents wear their parsimony proudly. And all of the spending excesses, said state Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm, came roughly at the time the company was seeking premium increases of 15 to 20 percent.
This behavior was unfortunately not limited to Conrad's home state of North Dakota either:
For the Blues, which have common roots in the cooperative model, controversies over executive compensation have not been limited to North Dakota. Maryland's insurance commissioner halved an $18 million severance payout last year for the chief executive of CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield, calling it "simply too much money to pay the departing CEO of a nonprofit company."
In Massachusetts, where residents are required to carry health insurance, the attorney general last month launched an inquiry into executive and board compensation at health-care nonprofits after the chairman of the state's Blue Cross Blue Shield retired with a $16 million lump sum.
These Co-ops not only appear to behave more like corporations by raising premiums to pay for the outrageous salaries of their CEOs but some experts believe that they will accomplish nothing towards the supposed main goal of healthcare reform, controlling costs:
Not much is known about health- care cooperatives on a large scale because there are only a few in the country. Timothy S. Jost, who studies health-care policy at Washington and Lee University, said they tend to provide good service to members but have not made "any tremendous difference in terms of cost or price."
In fact, a resident of North Dakota offered this dismal assessment of what Co-ops could mean to reforming healthcare:
"Call it cooperative, call it mutual, call it private insurance," said Don Morrison, executive director of NDpeople.org. "If what we want is to have quality health care at a price people can afford, it's not coming from the culture of private insurance. If this is a model, let's get real."
He was not the only one who sees it that way:
"One of the main things you see in health-care cooperatives in this country is the board hasn't always acted in the best interests of the membership and cut down on waste," Hamm said. "It hasn't been able to achieve in the health-care economy what it's been able to achieve in agriculture and other areas."
Lets get real indeed. Folks, we are talking about something here that can really affect us for decades to come. We will be MANDATED to buy into whatever is created by this legislation and signed into law. What model is it that we want to be forced into??
We already know that we cannot depend on private insurers to treat their costumers fairly. We cannot trust them to control costs. They will do anything to cut coverage, deny claims and raise premiums and deductibles on policyholders to maximize profits. They do all they can to keep costs as high as possible because they get to put more money in their own pockets.
But how can we trust other "non-profit" entities that behave in the same way?? In many of these organizations the members have no say in decisions or in what executive compensation is. Corruption and greed can run just as rampant as a result and the best interests of the members as a whole is basically ignored. Is this really what we want to be mandated to put our trust in??
The Senate Finance Committee is a lost cause. Senators Conrad and Baucus are completely bought out by the interests mentioned above and others in the health insurance, healthcare and drug lobbies. They are simply going to push through a garbage bill at all costs, and President Obama is not going to call them on it.
Our only hope is the reconciliation process in the House and Senate when Progressives will get to weigh in more. We must demand a real public option as an alternative to the fraud, corruption and idiocy of private insurance and cooperatives.
Why can't the government just give me a price of what they would charge me a month for me to join the Medicaire program?? If folks can afford and want to trust these insurance companies and cooperatives they should very well have the right to, but why should I be forced to?? They have denied me coverage already and have shown that they will not deal with me fairly even if I do buy into them. How will a mandate ever change that??
The issue of Universal Healthcare has become so pressing because tens of millions of Americans cannot afford health insurance. When they have gotten sick they are forced to go to Emergency Rooms running up bills they cannot pay. Why has is the emphasis on a solution concentrating more now on making the very people who have contributed so much to the problem more money that before?? They are lining up to pick the system clean once more and I now will be forced to allow them to fleece me also.
If this is the best thing we can get in terms of healthcare reform then as Progressives we must fight against it. If something is wrong it is just wrong no matter what party comes up with it and mandating insurance without giving Americans a viable alternative to the current practices is insane. If this is the best we can do, then honestly why do anything??
If Democratic leaders do not change their tone and indeed continue to kill, or seriously water down a public option then as Progressives I honestly believe that we need to oppose healthcare reform as loudly as possible. The ideas being floated in the Senate Finance Committee and touted as the most likely model of reform simply do not provide choice and will not drive down costs nor curb waste and fraud.
In the end we would be much better off living to fight another day. The legislation being pushed will destroy our party for decades to come. We may very well be wise to just let it go once again and let the American people continue to see the huge price they are paying for continued inaction. Hopefully then our lawmakers will be as ready to pass real reform that is more than corporate welfare as we are. Maybe then we would get the single-payer debate we need to be having now.