Congressman Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) voted "No" on the bill. Last night he said,
We (here in Massachusetts) tried to provide access to medical care before we addressed health care costs. It didn't work. We are now dropping people's coverage. This bill doesn't address health care costs.
Lynch did not support the Public Option as a way to cut health care costs, the public option in and of itself will not prevent overall medical industry cost gouging in America.
Some would have you believe that the insurance industry was not party to the negotiations held in March of 2009 that determined the scope and breadth of the insurance reform package that the Obama Administration would sponsor coming out of the Baucus-chaired Senate Finance Committee.
What these people fail to realize is that, even if (doubtful) the insurance industry wasn't party to the discussions that made this deal, they were there in proxy because of their function. The insurance industry is the payor to the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries who negotiated the bill with the Obama administration. Therefore any agreements with this industry, if made in their benefit will also be a benefit to the insurance industry as well.
We need government controls on health care costs in America!!!
link to firedoglake talking points about the bill
http://static1.firedoglake.com/...
BIG MONEY!!! BIG MONEY!!!
You can call it single payer or the Canadian way, only socialized medicine will ever save the day. C'mon now! let me hear that dirty word, SOCIALISM!!!
Specifically, there are four things in the bill that work together to push medical care costs higher. That's right, not only will this bill not push medical costs lower, it will push them higher.
Those four things are:
- A public mandate
- A minimum 85% payout limit for insurance companies
- No public option
- Continuation of the Anti-Trust Exemption
The reason this will push medical costs higher is that the insurance companies will no longer have it in their best interests to negotiate lower costs with medical care and pharmaceutical providers. If the overall cost of health care is increased, then the now regulated insurance companies will be able to raise their rates and keep more profit (15% of a higher number is more money in the bank)
The CBO projection for reduced health care costs does not account for the fact that a regulated insurance entity is really just a payout-firm for the actual health care costs, and the CBO assumes that this bill will have NO EFFECT ON OVERALL HEALTHCARE COSTS.
Since there is no public option and now an agreement in place for the administration not to pressure the industry to reduce costs, and no public option offering that will check the balance of the private health care industry as a whole, we will see overall health care costs increase.
This is the state of our private health care system, this will be forced farther to the right as insurance companies are no longer compelled to negotiate lower prices for services.
on November 1 2009, the Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor Index jumped 10% above the industry standard S&P 500 index. It continued to outperform other industries until today where it is 32% beter than the S&P 500 since November 1st.
Here is the link to the stock chart that has the S&P 500 comparison.
and here is the chart of the index.
Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payors
The Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor Index (HMO) is an equal dollar weighted index designed to measure the performance of companies involved in the business of managing the health care dollar, including HMOs (health maintenance organizations) and PBMs (pharmaceutical benefit managers). The HMO Index was established with a base value of 200.00 on December 16, 1994. To ensure that each component stock continues to represent approximately equal weight in the index, adjustments are made annually, based on closing prices on the third Friday in December.
Here is what was done by Joseph Lieberman on November 1st to inspire such a boom in the insurance and medical industry stock.
CBS) Senator Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said Sunday that anyone supporting a government-backed health insurance plan is not only "wrong," but is jeopardizing the passage of any reform of health care.
"I'm all for health care reform," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "We have a system that needs fixing. But we've got some more urgent problems than that, and the first most urgent is to fix our economy, to get at creating jobs again."
Lieberman told moderator Bob Schieffer that the public option "came out of nowhere," and said it was not necessary to achieve what he described as the two goals of health reform: "Make health insurance more affordable, and to extend it to people who don't have it now.
"The public option I think was raised in the last year by people who really want to have a government-controlled health insurance system. That's their right. I think they're wrong.
"But it's not necessary - as President Obama has said over and over again - to achieve the goals that he has. So I hope it's not in there at the end" he told Schieffer.
The senator said that he would filibuster any legislation including a public option.
On the day that the public option died, the healthcare industry rejoiced at the giveaway bill.
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Addendum I:
Insurance industries can accurately be considered as a slot machine. The modern slot machine is programmed to payout .9995 of every dollar put into it in winnings. That way the casino is guaranteed a profit.
The insurance industry maintains a fund of all payments, they will only pay out a percentage of what is given to them and will keep the profit made on any investements of policy fund money.
So, by paying health insurance we are all buying into a fund that will eventually go toward health care costs, we are pulling the casino lever. However, in this case, we are forced to pull the lever 12 times per year, for the rest of our lives, and each pull costs $500.00.
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Addendum II:
I know I can hear some of you saying, "Yes, but what about the touted industry concessions that will reduce overall costs??? Won't those limit the overall cost increases?"
not really, they were very small and really just locked in the previous unsustainable rate of health care cost increases for the next decade.
Here is what Kucinich had to say about the "phony" concessions back in March.