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And now you propose to address a decade or more of what can only be called Congressional misfeasance by telling American citizens who are sick and uninsured that they must be the ones to pay for decades of your fiscal irresponsibility.
How dishonest can you possibly be?
You list your priorities for health care reform. You want to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse in the system. Who among us doesn't?
But Senator, you have been in the Congress for over twenty years. If there is fraud, waste, and abuse in the system, why haven't you done something about it before now? If you know where it is, why haven't you gone after it already?
You want to pay health care providers for "how successfully they treat patients." That's a fine idea if you overlook the fact that the best doctors are likely also to get the sickest patients, the ones most likely to die whether they receive world-class care or not. Would you pay those doctors if their patients die? If not, why on earth do you think they would continue in their professions?
You are against unnecessary tests, uncoordinated care, unnecessary hospital readmissions, and preventable hospital infections. So are we all. The difference between us is that we have not been in a position to do something about it for the last twenty years. You have been. What have you done?
You say you want insurance industry reforms that will prohibit denial of coverage for preexisting conditions and loss of coverage when sick, and eliminate lifetime coverage limits. You want to extend coverage to millions of people who can't afford it. Again, so do we all. What have you done to be part of the solution to those problems?
You want all these things, yet you oppose "a government-run health insurance company -- the so-called public option." Why? Because, you write, "Medicare teaches us about the fiscal implications of creating a government health insurance program."
No, Medicare does not teach us that. It teaches us what happens when Congress refuses to increase revenues even as it watches expenses increase at an alarming and unsustainable rate. Or when it refuses to get control of costs so that existing revenues will cover them.
Let's be honest, Senator: you -- all of you -- have refused to act responsibly to keep these programs adequately funded because you are afraid to jeopardize your reelection chances. No one wants to run on a record of having supported anything that can be construed by an opponent as a tax increase. So you just don't do that -- you let deficits accumulate instead.
You write that "(a) new public option will likely increase premiums for the 170 million Americans who already have private insurance." C'mon, Senator: when was the last time you saw competition increase and prices go up? My first thought if I saw that happening would be of collusion and price-fixing. You're a former attorney general: what would you think?
You say the CBO warns that public option premiums might not cover expenses in a given year and the public would be at risk for the difference. True enough. But why doesn't that happen in the private sector? It's because private insurers set their prices to cover their costs, extract a risk premium, add to their reserves, and make a profit. Or they lay off some of the risk to the reinsurance markets. A government health insurance program could do the same things if you let it.
You're right on several points, Senator: we have a horrendous economic problem on our hands. Our health care costs are out of control. And Medicare is about eight years from insolvency.
Those are real problems. But they are problems that the Congress -- including you -- either caused or allowed. And now you must solve them. Just don't force the neediest, the sickest,and least fortunate among us to foot the bill for you.
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