Health Care Kumbaya--How Big A Deal Was Today's White House Event
Earlier today, President Obama welcomed a motley crew of health reform stakeholders to the White House for a summit of sorts. On hand were representatives of a number of health care industry lobbies--including America's Health Insurance Plans, the American Medical Association, PhRMA, and the American Hospital Association--and, on the other side of things, representatives of the Service Employees International Union.
The groups are pledging to support cost-reducing measures that, at least in theory, dovetail with an Obama-backed health care plan and which would incur saving that could potentially be construed as part of the up-front investment comprehensive reform will require.
Paul Krugman is pleased by this development. So is health wonk Jonathan Cohn, and The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder. Ezra Klein is somewhat less enthused. For their part, the administration is playing portraying today's development as something just shy of a watershed moment. But is there reason to be skeptical of the Kumbaya chorus?
Richard Kirsch of the group Health Care for America Now cautions that "the groups did not agree to anything specific whatsoever."
What they did was send a letter to the president saying they'd support as-yet-unnamed reforms, and the president responded by reaffirming his commitment to cost-saving options--such as reductions to Medicare overpayments to private insurance companies, and measures to reduce prescription drug costs--that interest groups by and large oppose.
That's to say nothing of the greater reform options on the table, the most controversial of which--a public insurance option--Republicans and health insurers still oppose, and many Democrats will only support if in a largely unsubsidized form (i.e. it would have to be paid for by consumer premiums). One of those Democrats is Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA)--model of consistency--who was been warm to the idea of health reform in the past, but then switched parties and said he opposed a public option, and now says he would be open to a compromise along the lines of what I've outlined here.
Those who stand against reform, meanwhile, will have an ally in millionaire (and disgraced former hospital executive) Rick Scott, whose group Conservatives for Patients' Rights has launched a campaign (organized by the Swift Boat masterminds at CRC Public Relations) warning that the government is about to ruin the health care system.
Which isn't to say that the administration didn't move the ball forward today. Just that the overall picture remains somewhat less tractable than much of today's coverage suggests.
| TOPICS: Andy Stern, Arlen Specter, Democrats, Health Care, Republicans, SEIU, Senate
Josh
Matt
Eric
I like the commercial going after Rick Scott personally showing on DC's Metro media market right now claiming he was found guilty in medical claims fraud cases. Makes him out to look like a bit of an ass.
MoveOn's add is great too.
May 11, 2009 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The last time this happened (1994) they "cut costs" by giving us HMO's. I don't know why anyone would expect anything different this time. I have ten bucks that says any "reform" they support will result in increased profits for them. Any takers?
May 11, 2009 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who would bet against a sure thing? I hope Obama doesn't. The whole idea that they will save money in a way that will benefit actual PEOPLE when they haven't done it up to now is ludicrous.
May 11, 2009 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing I've seen from Obama suggests he's dumb enough to get suckered. Smiling and saying this is the direction we need to be moving (it is) does not mean it's sufficient.
May 11, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe not such a big deal, but the longer the Insurers look wedded to Obama's reform plans, the harder it will be for them to extricate themselves from the parts they don't like.
May 11, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
When you have seen family members dying because they have denied medical care, as they had insufficient coverage. When your sick child could not afford 14 drugs to keep them alive. Yes! I think its time for a European type health care, without worrying about co-pays and premiums? Only the wealthy like the broken system the way it is, because they can afford everything they need, including home visits by prestigious physicians. We--THE AMERICAN PEOPLE--are given less service, specially if you have been laid-off from your job. However the fact that hundreds of thousands of well-heeled investors make massive profits in the medical industry--AS THAT IS WHAT IT IS--AN INDUSTRY. The million dollar ads on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies are already here to scare people off a European system Their biggest worry is that it will eat into their enormous profits? Nobody on the lower pay scale will get decent humane medical care, while the monolithic for-profit insurance companies are involved, as they will bleed every penny they can from us. Before the British legal and illegal immigration invasion of the 1950's, my distant relatives assured me they received first class health care from the government.
For once I agree with Sen. Reid and Democrats in passing Comprehensive Health care reform. Hopefully it is the Single Payer system, but with so much corruption in politics and the influence of lobbyists for elitists in the trillion dollar medical insurance industry it’s unlikely? THE PEOPLE do not need middleman anymore as they become rich of the backs of sick people. It will be very interesting to see what is enacted on Capitol Hill? Too much money to be made by both parties, for UHC to succeed. Large Campaign Contributions buys a lot of influence in our politics? Let us see if the majority of Democrats and president Obama are really concerned about the working man? Just remember that Health care is a trillion dollar---FOR PROFIT--- industry in America, that does not work for the average person. We saw E-Verify, the legal status verification system, dissolved by Harry Reid and House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Perhaps this time they will contribute to a hurting economy by introducing Universal Health Care for all?
Just have to ensure illegal nationals go home to get health care--NOT ON THE BACKS OF US TAXPAYERS? CALL YOUR SENATORS & REPRESENTATIVES AND DEMAND IT?
May 11, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Congress can find the money to support two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, find money to give to contractors to rebuild the infrastructures in both those countries, and find money to bail out Wall Street for problems their very own greed caused, then they shouldn't have any problems finding money to support universal health care for all the people in the US. Remember, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (Spock - Wrath of Khan).
May 11, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not in Washington. Because it's the few who make the big campaign contributions. Accordingly, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many. It's not even a contest.
May 12, 2009 3:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
My initial response was extreme skepticism, but I think Krugman's got it about right. Skepticism is eminently warranted and necessary but its good news that these guys are trying to shape universal health care rather than joining the Republicans in trying to kill it because it means they know they can't kill it.
While Luntz is busy loading focus-grouped scare words into the C.S.S. Goposaur's magazines, their crew in the last battle (along with most of the rats) is abandoning ship and swimming madly for the other side's hull.
May 11, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think they just figure they can buy enough Democrats to make any plan an insurance bailout bill.
May 11, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone else see the piece on how BCBS is retroactively canceling policies? This is the plan where you make your insurance payment every month for years and then the first time you have a claim they don't want to pay they retroactively cancel your policy to a date before you received medical care. I don't believe this plan includes refunding every red cent you paid them.
Any plan adopted ought to start with telling the insurance industry that we're going to have a public plan and they can go along with this or the entire plan will become a single payer public plan and if they'd like to declare bankrupticy that's fine with us, don't expect to be bailed out.
May 11, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just did a little Google on insurance companies canceling policies and it's definitely an on-going business practice. For every claim you file, if they suspect a pre-existing condition you may have failed to inform them of, you get canceled. For example, suppose you were a smoker and quit about 5 years ago, but have been diagnosed with lung cancer. If your initial paperwork did not mention you were once a smoker, your policy gets axed. Also, just to add insult to injury, when they pay you back all the premiums you paid in, any legitimate medical services you received during the coverage period comes back at you - you have to pay the full price for the service. That could add up to a tidy sum of money on top of your current medical problems. And the repuglicans think this is the best public medical service the US can offer their citizens. BULL$H1T !!!
May 11, 2009 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is not new. Insurance companies have whole divisions whose only job is to come up with excuses not to pay large claims. They'll scour your entire history to come up with the flimsiest excuse not to pay. What's their downside? They know most people don't have the resources for a protracted legal fight, and if they lose a few, it's only money they would have had to pay in the first place.
May 11, 2009 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Matt Yglesias had it right as cited by Kevin Drum:
(http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/05/the-significance-of-todays-health-care-announcement.php)
Whatever kind of backstabbing these industry groups may or may not do in the future, they won’t be able to take back the fact that once upon a time they stood beside the White House in agreeing that it’s possible to achieve massive cost-savings without compromising patient care. That argument may well prove hugely important, politically, to getting a package through congress.
May 11, 2009 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's just bunk. It's not possible to achieve massive cost savings without compromising patient care while still allowing insurance companies to make billions in profits. That's just fantasy.
Plus, they're turning this electronic medical record thing into a mythic cost saving weapon while I fully expect it will just enable the same insurance companies to figure out how to deny you coverage and deny you care much quicker!
May 11, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bluebell where does Yglesias say anything about "still allowing insurance companies to make billions"?
Until now these 5 big groups have all claimed we have the best care in the world (untrue) and any attempt to rein them in at all would destroy it. They've finally admitted it’s possible to achieve massive cost-savings without compromising patient care and we should hold them to that. Of course they'll do everything they can to keep their hands in our pockets and keep their own costs down. But the more they compromise the more ammunition they give us.
May 11, 2009 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't believe for one second that they have any intention whatever to compromise. Unless there is some outcome that Obama wants in addition to lower costs what kind of outcome do you think we are going to get? The outcomes we should be demanding are outcomes that measure the delivery of health care and the improvement in health. Where are the measures on that? When are we going to talk about health and stop focusing exclusively on costs?
You can get your daughter an old junker car for cheap to take her to school -- if you don't care if the tires blow out sending her into on-coming traffic or if the car breaks down and leaves her prey to whoever wanders by. If you want her to actually get to school alive you get something with decent tires and an engine that runs. I want to kick the tires and check the engine on this thing. I don't want El Cheapo Third World Policy A or 19th Century Policy B or Adequate Policy with 5 digit deductibles Policy C or Policy Excluding Anything Bad that will Ever Happen to My Family D.
This is just a farce as far as I'm concerned until we see if any of these policies actually provide for health care and don't exclusively cut costs by not providing it at all.
Sorry, my patience for these con games ended with Iraq and FISA and the bankruptcy bill and the last 20 years of sell outs. Show me the policy. Show me the fine print. Show me the commitment to the American people. Show me something other than a group hug with the biggest bads corporate weasels you can find.
I mean why should we have to compromise with these people anyway? They aren't voters. They aren't constituents. Why are they at the table and none of us are? Who is representing us?
May 11, 2009 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bluebell why do you automatically assume the Big Five will get their way? What do you suggest he do, craft a plan in secret and try to shove it down their throats? That didn't work for the Clintons.
Using your "daughters car" analogy another thing you don't want to do is to give her a Ferrari and a bottle of whiskey to get to school. My mother had wonderful insurance, Medicare backed up with Blue Cross. She was 77 years old when she checked into the hospital a few years ago with an acute gut infection. She was obese, diabetic, with bad knees and a bad back and various other maladies of old age and poor health. None of them were life threatening but the infection was serious and they put her in their brand spanking new critical care unit on a heavy dose of wide spectrum antibiotics.
Within nine days her doctors at this local heart surgery mill scared her into having a triple bypass operation she was in no condition to recover from. After that surgery you have to at least be able to get up and walk around so your lungs can clear themselves of fluids. She wasn't able to walk without a walker before she was admitted and spent most of her time getting around on an electric scooter before she went in. She was way too weak for that surgery and hadn't even recovered from the infection she was admitted with let alone the ones she acquired while in the hospital. She never got out of bed again. After six months of misery on a respirator, being shuttled from the hospital to a rehab unit to a godawful nursing home, she died.
17 different doctors at the heart surgery mill alone got paid off for that "care". Each of the facilities used up every single one of her Medicare days they were entitled to and then pawned her off down the chain. The day before she died an administrator at the nursing home was trying to get me to cough up tax returns for not just my parents but me and all of my siblings to see how much they could get out of us. It cost Medicare and Blue Cross over half a million dollars. None of these decisions were made based on the best medical outcome for my mother. They were all made based on what they could get wring out of my mother's coverage. They lied repeatedly to us and treated her and us like the cash cows we were.
In our current system good coverage is just as dangerous to your health as poor coverage. We have to take the profit motive out of health care. Reward medical outcomes, not procedures done, not medication prescribed, not days in a hospital bed.
May 12, 2009 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is there an issue where the Left won't use Krugman as the go to guy? His reaction to anything Obama does appears to have an impact on how the liberal media reports on Obama's policies. "Let's wait and see what Krugman says..."
May 11, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kick the f***ing insurance companies OUT of this equation!!! They add NOTHING, and they take nothing but money.
I cannot see any rationale for keeping "insurance" as part of the "health care system."
Can anyone -- other than an insurance co lobbyist -- cite one?
May 11, 2009 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. No one can cite a rationale. Every other developed country in the world is ahead of us in this. We could cherry-pick the best of each of their universal health-care programs. There is only ONE reason we are not doing this:
CONGRESS IS OWNED BY THE HEALTH INSURANCE, PHARMA, AND LAB LOBBIES. There is/can be no other reason. Why? Because it simply makes no sense with any other explanation.
May 11, 2009 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wouldn't it be nice if everyone out there actually took the time to educate themselves on pros and cons of not only our healthcare system in the US but in various healthcare systems around the world? Here's your chance - http://rxvette.blogspot.com/2009/04/americas-failing-healthcare-system.html
May 11, 2009 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, that looks Fair and Balanced-y.
Meanwhile, single payer advocates, pediatricians, nurses, and ordinary folks get arrested at Sen. Max Baucus's (D-United Healthcare) healthcare "reform" hearings for asking why no single payer advocates were invited to be part of the discussion.
I'm so glad we Democrats have a big tent....
May 12, 2009 3:11 AM | Reply | Permalink