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The obvious answer is one the President dare not offer, namely that in the United States the insurance and pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions, and greedy politicians like Max Baucus have become quite comfortable feeding off of that cash cow. Max Baucus, of course, has wonderful health coverage thanks to the generous benefits bestowed upon him by the United States Senate.
This doubtless explains why he can smugly laugh while calling for police to arrest healthcare professionals advocating for single-payer healthcare, but whom he has denied a seat at his "reform" table (a table we all pay for through our taxes). Also consider how much all of this lobbying and legal bribery in the form of campaign contributions adds to your insurance premiums, because ultimately that is where this money comes from.
Finally, President Obama suggests that it would be unfair to deprive people of their current healthcare if they are satisfied with it, and he suggests that moving to a single-payer system might force people to "change plans" and/or "change doctors." Let's unmask this rhetoric for what it is: pure disinformation and fear-mongering utilizing talking points developed by the PR agents of the for-profit healthcare industry. It is that industry that rations healthcare by denying medical procedures, that industry that comes between the doctor-patient relationship when it blocks doctors from applying their own best judgment as to what treatments to recommend or what medications to prescribe. It is also the insurance companies and HMO's that restrict free choice by limiting members to defined networks and denying claims if a patient dares venture outside the network without permission.
(I am reminded of the daughter of an acquaintance who was in a serious car accident. Her car went through a guard rail and slid into a ravine where she lay untreated for several days before being discovered. She was transported, unconscious, to a hospital by an emergency medi-vac helicopter and was subsequently billed more than $200,000 for that life-saving flight to the only hospital trauma unit within reach that could treat her injuries a bill which her insurance company refused to pay because they had not approved that out-of-network life-saving transport in advance. This is not uncommon. A similar occurrence was documented in Michael Moore's Sicko.)
The new talking point we are hearing from Barack Obama and others who want to preserve our dysfunctional healthcare system is that people who are happy with their current insurance coverage should be allowed to keep it. The only problem with this seemingly common sense approach is that most people are happy with their current coverage because they have never been in a situation that tested it. Michael Moore's "SiCKO" was all about people who were "happy" with their insurance coverage until they got sick and were hung out to dry by their insurance companies. How many people currently "happy" with their health insurance would balk at dropping it if they knew they could go to the doctor of their choice, would no longer have to deal with co-pays or deductibles, or the cost of pharmaceuticals, and would, in all likelihood, end up paying less for their new, improved coverage which would also restore the exclusive doctor-patient relationship that their for-profit insurance companies had previously interfered with?
How are we doing people a favor by letting them keep the coverage they are "happy" with, if down the road that decision may lead to them losing their homes or being forced into bankruptcy when their insurance fails to cover the cost of catastrophic illness that befalls them or their loved ones?
Let's face it, Max Baucus is intent upon letting the AHIP (American Health Insurance Providers, the PR arm of the health insurance industry) foxes continue to guard the chicken coop, in all likelihood further enriching them by compelling us all to buy health insurance policies while extracting precious little from the insurance companies in return.
President Barack Obama, unfortunately, is enabling Max Baucus, et al. in this endeavor, and it is high time that we tell him to stop. This President has approval ratings in the mid-60's. With a bully pulpit like that he could force Congress to enact real healthcare reform that would benefit our citizens and help restore our economy rather than than further enrich greedy corporate special interests and the compromised politicians who watch out for and protect them. He could mobilize the nation to demand it.
Just last week President Obama said, "I will not rest until the dream of health care reform is achieved in the United States of America."
The path toward fulfilling that dream lies in enacting universal, comprehensive single-payer healthcare, not in catering to the healthcare industry special interests yet again.
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