I found some exceprts of the speech today by President Obama at time magazine, the page, and thought I'd talk about them here.
I think this is good. He is defining reform as the People vrs. Big Insurance Companies:
So how much higher do premiums have to rise until we do something about it? How many more Americans have to lose their health insurance? How many more businesses have to drop coverage? How many more years can the federal budget handle the crushing costs of Medicare and Medicaid? When is the right time for health insurance reform?
Here are the excerpts that are available:
Every year, insurance companies deny more people coverage because they have a pre-existing condition. Every year, they drop more people's coverage when they're sick and need it most. Every year, they raise premiums higher and higher. Just last month, Anthem Blue Cross in California tried to jack up rates by nearly 40%. In my home state of Illinois rates are going up by as much as 60%. And you just heard from Leslie, who was hit with a 100% rate increase. 100%. One letter from her insurance company and her premiums doubled. Just like that.
You see, these insurance companies have made a calculation. The other day, on a conference call organized by Goldman Sachs, an insurance broker told Wall Street investors that insurance companies know they will lose customers if they keep raising premiums. But since there's so little competition in the insurance industry, they're ok with people being priced out of health insurance because they'll still make more by raising premiums on the customers they have. And they will keep doing this for as long as they can get away with it.
So how much higher do premiums have to rise until we do something about it? How many more Americans have to lose their health insurance? How many more businesses have to drop coverage? How many more years can the federal budget handle the crushing costs of Medicare and Medicaid? When is the right time for health insurance reform?
time magazine, the page
Dropping people because of pre-existing conditions.
Dropping people because they are sick.
Raising rates.
All good, but the key to me is this, which I highlighted above:
You see, these insurance companies have made a calculation.
It's an easy narrative to understand. The insurance companies will keep raising your rates because they can and they don't care if you drop insurance because you cannot afford it.
This fight will go on until we pass the bills and then through the November election. We need to be together, even if we have differences on issues. The bills are far from perfect, but they will help people and will establish a government interest in health care insurance.
I like this framing.
Someday we will have single payer and insurance companies will be a thing of the past (hopefully sooner than later), but until then, helping people and ameliorating the worst of the insurance companies' many bad acts is useful, in my view.
Update I: Slinkerwink has an excellent diary worth reading:
The Tragic Story Of My Deaf Friend And Health Reform
My deaf friend, who I grew up with and went to deaf school with in St. Louis, was just told that she'd have to stop working full-time to keep her sick son on Medicaid. She's a great mother, a domestic abuse survivor, and she's stuck in a system that doesn't reward her for getting a better education to find a high-paying job to help provide her family. Her employer won't cover her son's expensive medical condition, as the medicine costs about $200,000 a year, and he's already reached the million mark cap.
This was her e-mail to me:
I find out yesterday that I'm not allowed to work full time for 9 more yrs, til my son with the health condition is 18- It's either work full time and lose his medicaid, go broke by taking out loans to pay for his meds, risk his life in other words OR don't work and keep his insurance longer- They need better ins. plans for people and kids with chronic conditions like my son so they're allowed to work & earn a living!
There's more. This is yet another example of why we need refrom and even reform that is flawed may make a difference for the better in many people's lives.