THURSDAY NIGHT IS HEALTH CARE CHANGE NIGHT, a weekly Daily Kos Health Care Series
Crossposted on Guaranteed Healthcare
I've been asked to write a diary about what the Obama victory might mean for healthcare reform.
It's time to put the beautiful and uplifting campaign photos aside, the heavy lifting has already begun.
Until the American people force the political class to recognize that access to healthcare is a right not a privilege, we will not get to the promised land. . .
That said, let's try and dream the impossible dream and what better way than to start with this story reality.
Late last night, my phone rang. Those of you who have regularly read the healthcare catastrophe diaries, may remember that one of my closest friends in the world is a cancer surgeon.
We usually talk early in the day as he drives to the hospital. Last night he called as he was finishing an appeal letter to an insurance company. He wanted my opinion on the most effective way to end the plea appeal. This insurer, okay I'll tell you which one, UnitedHealth, had denied coverage for Avastin to a very sick cancer patient. By the time he called he had already finished describing the medical urgency and reasons why his patient required this very expensive drug.
He wanted to know whether I thought his final paragraph would resonate within the murderous walls of the insurance company.
"My patient has insurance with UnitedHealth. For many years she has paid her premiums on time. Like so many Americans, she sacrifices much to make these monthly payements. If you do not reverse your decision, and she is unable to personally come up with the cash for the treatment, she will die."
Stories like this feel like ice water in my veins. This is our American reality. You can turn a blind eye. But make no mistake that the day will arrive when you or someone you love, comes face to face with a nameless bean counter rendering a life and death verdict on behalf of the bottom line of a for-profit insurance company. This is our America. The question is, will tomorrow be different?
Before I go through my own list of essential reform, we should all kneel in front of Senator Kennedy.
Though the healthcare reform plan he and his staff are working on, is far from the ideal single payer plan many of us believe is the only solution to our national catastrophe, Senator Kennedy will force healthcare reform to the top of the legislative agenda, and God bless him for that.
But as tiggers thotful spot wrote eariler today, the people of Massachusetts, voted against Romneycare and overwhelmingly for single-payer. And to paraphrase the failed McCain VP selection, thanks but no thanks for any version of Romneycare, which is nothing but a giveaway to the corrupt and failed for-profit insurance industry.
The healthcare situation in the United States is as grave as it has ever been. Tonight the New York Times is reporting that hospitals are seeing a large increase in non-paying patients and a drop in paying patients. This situation will get worse as more and more Americans lose their jobs and their employer-based health benefits. Brace yourselves for a brutal employment report tomorrow.
Another New York Times article speculates that the deep recession will force President Obama to curtail healthcare reform. But many believe we have a once in a generation opportunity which President Obama will not and cannot turn away from. The crisis is so huge that we no longer have the luxury as a nation to turn away.
President Obama understands our stark reality. The U.S. spends 16% (and counting), of its GDP on health care, more than any other nation on earth, yet nearly 50 million Americans go without health coverage. Despite spending so much (31% of every healthcare dollar goes to the insurance industry), the U.S. ranks below many former Communist bloc nations of Eastern Europe in infant mortality and longevity.
So, if President-elect Obama invited me to join his healthcare transition team, here's what I would propose. Keep in mind, these are all common sense (non radical or socialist) changes. And please understand, this is a wish list, I know President Obama's hands are tied. But my assignment was to dream, so I'm dreaming.
- President Obama would sign an executive order freezing or even better rolling back the healthcare
extortion premium many of us pay. To what level? I'm not sure, but a significant price reduction. I know, ain't happening, but it should. My Congressman pays less than half of what you and I pay.
- An additional executive order would prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against sick people. It would make community rating and guaranteed issue the law in all fifty states. It would prohibit insurance company cherry picking (insuring only the young and healthy), underwriting and all pre-exisiting condition exclusions.
- Another executive order would prohibit the crime of retroactive recission which the insurance industry pursues with abandon in the state of California. It would make the practice of retoractive recission a crime punishable with significant time in jail.
- Insurers would be prohibited from second-guessing doctors. If a doctor orders a test, medication, surgical procedure, the insurer cannot overrule this--ever.
- Medicare Advantage which is nothing more than a taxpayer giveaway to the insurance industry, is thrown in the garbage can.
- Within the first 100 days, President Obama would send Congress real prescription drug coverage for senior citizens, our most vulnerable. Congress would immediately kill Medicare D and replace it with authentic drug coverage with no doughnut holes.The legislation would require Medicare to negotiate for the lowest prices with the pharmaceutical industry.
- Another executive order would prohibit Congresspeople from ever working for K Street or any industry they have supervised as a member of Congress.
- On his first day in office he eliminates the taxpayer subsidies for all Congressmembers and Senators on their FEHBP health benefits. This would mean, they'd just be paying the same
rates extortion as the American people.
- Affordable and guaranteed dental care would become an integral and non-negotiable part of the ultimate health reform package.
- Doctors should be paid what they're worth, which is a hell of a lot more than the .20 cents on the dollar most insurers reimburse.
- If doctors must accept such woefully inadequate reimbursement, then medical school should be free or heavily subsidized.
- Caps on the salaries of health insurance industry executives, and a
gradual swift phase out of the for-profit insurance industry as the nation moves toward single payer.
- President Obama will use the bully pulpit to champion HR 676 and single payer healthcare. He will use his huge mandate to explain to the American people that single payer is a simple and elegant solution--private delivery of healthcare, paid for by a single government entity.
- Another executive order making illegal the practice of charging women more than men for the identical health insurance policy.
- Significant financial penalties wuld be levied against insurers (similar to what the IRS charges delinquent taxpayers) for willfully delaying or withholding payments to providers or patients.
- And extremely important, single payer advocates would have as many seats at the negotiating table as all the AHIP
criminals stakeholders.
- And finally, regulate, regulate, regulate. Regulate these bastards to within an inch of their lives. Then regulate them out of existence.
I'll leave you with this.
This was all the enthusiasm the monsters lobbyists at AHIP could muster.
AHIP Congratulates President-Elect Barack Obama
Washington, DC – Karen Ignagni, President and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), today issued the following statement congratulating President-elect Barack Obama:
"We congratulate President-elect Barack Obama for his historic victory last night. Now is the time for health care reform, and we look forward to working with the Obama administration and the new Congress to develop workable solutions to the health care challenges facing the nation. We support coverage for all Americans, coverage they can afford, and coverage they can keep. We will work collaboratively with other stakeholders to achieve these objectives."
Change is coming--and they know it.