With the recent news that President Obama's pick for HHS Secretary, Former Senator Tom Daschle, had taken over $220K from the health care insurance companies through speaking fees, it seems that special interests and lobbyists once again have their place at the table through Tom Daschle.
When someone like Tom Daschle, who professes to support universal health care reform, has taken money from AHIP, one of the worst insurance lobbying groups in D.C., it should raise questions about his ability to get through Congress the sort of health care reform that actually benefits us Americans, not the health care insurance companies.
Another organization, America’s Health Insurance Plans, paid $20,000 for a Daschle speaking appearance in February 2007. It represents health insurance companies, which under Obama’s plan would be barred from denying coverage on the basis of health or age.
There was a $12,000 talk to GE Healthcare in August, a $20,000 lecture in January to Premier, Inc., a health care consulting firm, and a pair of $18,000 speeches this year to different hospital systems, among other paid appearances before health care groups.
The speaking fees were detailed in a financial disclosure statement released Friday, which showed that Daschle pulled down a total of more than $500,000 from the speaking circuit in the last two years, and $5.3 million in overall income.
The question here then is, with Daschle at the helm of the HHS, having taken money from the insurance companies, and ensuring their place at the table, what kind of health care reform is going to take place?
Universal health care reform?
OR
Universal health care access to junk insurance?
AHIP, as nyceve has pointed out in many of her diaries, is opposed to the public option in any mixed health care reform plan. The public option is a key component of the Obama-Biden health care plan, as taken straight off their website here:
Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage.
The health care insurance companies have already infiltrated the Obama-Biden health care session meetings during the transition period and they've distributed discussion guides to their members and stakeholders through the guise of "grassroots activism" to raise their concerns about the National Health Insurance Exchange because it includes the public option, which they are opposed to.
The guides tell discussion leaders how to deal with unruly participants and how to report the results of their deliberations to the Obama transition team. They also provide a summary of Mr. Obama’s plan to “expand coverage to all Americans.” Insurers said they were particularly concerned about Mr. Obama’s proposal for “a National Health Insurance Exchange that offers a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan option.”
Former Senator Tom Daschle, whom Mr. Obama has chosen to be secretary of health and human services, said the public plan would be “modeled after Medicare” and would have “tremendous clout to bargain for the lowest prices” from health care providers.
But Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, and H. Edward Hanway, the chairman of Cigna, said the proposed new public program could lead to higher costs for people who already had private insurance.
Dr. Don McCanne, with the Physicians For A National Health Program (PNHP), knows the fight is going to come over the public option plan and keeping it in any health care reform plan from the Obama administration:
In this window of opportunity for health care reform, the model that has gained traction and is moving forward is reform based on a combination of employer-sponsored plans, an individual mandate to purchase regulated private plans through an insurance pool or insurance exchange, and an option to purchase a public plan based on an improved version of Medicare.
The private insurance industry knows that if it is to survive, it must be willing to accept everyone in both the employer-sponsored and individual markets, and they now have expressed a willingness to do so. They support a market of competing health plans, with one exception. They oppose the creation of a new competing public program because it would have “inherent unfair advantages.”
What are those advantages? Jacob Hacker, in “The Case For Public Plan Choice In National Health Reform,” explains the many reasons why a public plan is superior to the private plans in providing greater value through higher quality, better access, and greater effectiveness in controlling costs. He states that, by establishing a level playing field, the public plan option would set a benchmark as a standard for private plan performance.
The private plans profess to believe in market competition. Why should they object to a level playing field? Read this paper and you’ll find twenty pages of reasons on why they cannot compete with a public program.
The public option is really the only part of the health care reform plan under the Obama-Biden administration that can control the health care costs and premiums by forcing the private insurance companies to compete with them on a level field. It's why it has to be kept in any health care reform plan. I know there are those who are in favor of single-payer, but I've worked in Congress, and many Members of Congress and Senators will not support single-payer insurance.
The public option is the real gateway to single-payer health insurance, and I'm asking you to help walk and chew gum at the same time, even though some of you support single-payer, to support the public option component as well.
And we must fight against any universal mandates to buy junk insurance plans from private insurance companies, and watch the video of Senator Daschle at the Section 8, 2:30 minute mark and ask whether he really is the best person to usher through health care reform.
The universal mandate really is another form of bailout to the insurance companies since they're now losing money by dumping patients off their health care plans, and they'd be too happy in forcing Americans to buy their junk insurance plans. It seems that Daschle is in favor of mandates, judging from his remarks, even though President Obama was not a fan of mandates on the campaign trail:
Obama: “Senator Clinton believes the only way to achieve universal health care is to force everybody to purchase it. And my belief is, the reason that people don’t have it is not because they don’t want it but because they can’t afford it.” (Clinton hasn’t ruled out garnishing wages of those who can afford insurance but won’t.)
My guess here is that President Obama will compromise on the mandates issue, and give up the public option component with Daschle's urging, in order to get the insurance companies onboard with the passage of universal health care access. And the only way that the Obama health care reform plan can pass Congress is through Senator Max Baucus's Finance Committee (as that's where all health care legislation goes), and Baucus is against a competitive public option plan and believes in universal mandates for health care insurance coverage.
So, once again, we're looking at a possible bailout for the insurance companies through a forced universal mandate and the hijacking of the public option (or limiting it to the elderly, disabled, and low-income) all in the name of providing forced universal access to junk insurance.
The only way to keep the public option in as a competitive player open to all is to pressure the White House from the left to keep it in and to fight against the health insurance companies by joining up with the Health Care For America Now group.
HCAN strongly supports the inclusion of the public option in any mixed health care reform plan:
A choice of a private insurance plan, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it, or a public insurance plan without a private insurer middleman that guarantees affordable coverage.
And if you're a fan of single-payer health care, then you should join the the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care, because in applying pressure from the left, it forces the Obama-Biden administration and Congress to keep in the public option even though they may not support single-payer. They'll see the pressure from you and the LCGHC and know there's significant public support for public health insurance funded by the government and keep in the public option.
Even though this is an incrementalist approach through the public option in any mixed health care reform plan, it helps open the gateway to single-payer health care in the future by starving out the private health insurance companies because the public option may be the most attractive option to Americans in their choosing of health care plans due to their low premiums, co-pays, and comprehensive benefits. It helps a great deal when Americans can directly experience what a government health care plan can do for them, and they'll shift over to the public option, but only if it's well-funded and offers the right kind of benefits.
The fight is starting now for the public option, and we need the best person possible for the job as HHS Secretary. In my opinion, Senator Daschle is not that person, due to his ineffectual leadership in the Senate, and his speaking fees from the very same industries that are opposed to the public option component of the Obama health care plan. Senator Daschle is compromised, and we have to ask ourselves whether we really can take the risk of supporting such a person that may very well undermine the real effect of an actual health care reform plan by carving out key components such as the public option and supporting mandates through the guise of getting passage through Congress.