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Those who speak against the idea of a single-payer, Medicare type reform always refer back to the "Nothing should come between the patient and the doctor when it comes to healthcare decisions" argument. It's become a mantra. It's also always disingenuous. Whether it's some insurance company clerk or a government employee, one of the two will be in the room with the doctor, even before the patient becomes aware what the physician had in mind concerning any prescribed therapy.
Those who speak against single-payer proposals, from the perspective of speaking on behalf of the patient, are LYING! And, whether they're Republicans or conservative Democrats or members of the administration or of the insurance industry, they know they are lying. They're just trying to fool the electorate into thinking there may be a legitimate place for the for-profit insurance industry. There isn't.
The only purpose the insurance company clerks serve is to advance the financial interests of their employers. That is accomplished by - whenever it may be even somehow conceivably defendable ("defendable" defined as in a legal action) - denying to the patient a therapy recommended by the physician, by denying coverage, and delaying for as long as possible payment of a claim.
To a real extent we all want that as well. Otherwise, a certain percentage of both patients and physicians would be demanding care that was inefficacious to the disorder, and everyone would be paying the price. With the insurance companies, however, that role has all too frequently put the health and safety of patients at risk, and too often has resulted in unnecessary, avoidable complications, serious injury and death. There will always be elements of lasting impairment and even death when it comes to healthcare; why they refer to the medical profession as a blending of art and science. With an entity who's at financial cross-purposes with the patient, who has a conflict of interest in the decision-making scheme, the entire scheme, however, is indefensible.
Viewing the hearings, listening the comments/questions coming from the committee members and listening to the witnesses' responses, it was evident that, while each and all articulated a dialectic that seemed to be from diametrically opposing perspectives, the answer to their prayers (what they really privately wished), would be concocting a façade of monumental change while actually building nothing much beyond a complicated façade.
New York's liberal Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer rested his forehead in the arched span of his thumb and forefinger, and squinted as a man desperate for the solution, as if he had exhausted every possible idea. Single-payer was as inconceivable as building a bridge between Brooklyn and Staten Island - the Verrazano Narrows Bridge was completed in 1964 - would have been to Peter Minuet when he purchased Manhattan for $24. No one had any intention whatsoever to legislate the companies out of the picture. "We truly respect what you do. What we want to do is to take what you do best and add it to what the government can do best, and create something that will give the consumers a choice as to what will work in their best interests."
No one is more interested in having all Americans have health insurance, or has been working harder to find that solution, Senator," replied one of the insurance executives.
AHIP, everyone should become familiar with the acronym; America's Health Insurance Plans. The following takes you directly to the AHIP page listing the names of the top executives of the companies that compose the organization, the identification of its 48 board members. Virtually every corporation, from Aetna, to Blue Cross, to Guardian Life, to Mutual of Omaha, to The Principal Group, to United Health, to Unum has a chair around that sumptuously appointed table. They're all there! Ms. Karen Ignagni is the organization's President and CEO. At this link, you will find what it represents as a sort of mission statement/target on behalf of healthcare reform, while this link takes you to the core of its campaign to save the industry.
Currently - that means "Right now!" - healthcare consumes 17% of every dollar this country produces in the way of goods and services. And that's with one out of every six Americans not having access to affordable healthcare. The heavenward arc has that economic figure reaching a full 21% by 2020, when, if things do not change radically, that 21% will leave us with approximately one in five Americans being either poorly served, or completely unserved; worse off than we are now, except we'll be spending almost 25% more!
The insurance industry is not the lone culprit in the diabolical paradigm that has been and is dragging US business, consumers, and families ever too close to the cliff's edge. The refusal to endorse, then engage the panoply of life-saving and cost reducing efficiencies offered through IT (Information Technology) and the Internet are taking a horrendous toll. The wholly otherwise unnecessary rental space each physician's office needs to house the thousands of patient records is space and funds that could be better spent elsewhere. Rather equivalently has been this country's tragic failure to incorporate preventative care and healthy life habits in the total picture. Hundreds of billions have been and are being totally wasted! However you and I could traipse prosaically on, the focus of this current discussion is on the insurance industry and the money that's sacrificed to it, all on the defied mantle of "private enterprise."
Since my 1967 honorable separation from Army service, the entirety of my working adult life was dedicated as a business-for-self entrepreneur to private enterprise. But is the fact an enterprise is "private enterprise" sufficient reason that we ought to guarantee its existence? To mold a federal program that will be essential to the saving of our entire economy constructed around the essentiality of that private enterprise?
If the industry had been as ubiquitous and the sums involved as extraordinary, based on what I've seen and read, we'd have blacksmith shops in every town in America, and blacksmith representatives lobbying Congress, . . . and Congress listening to them.
Make no mistake, the battle is on. Sadly, the wrong side is winning, while the right side doesn't seem to care.
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