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"Doctors, hospitals, nurses, labs can all be for-profit," Reid said. "But the payment system has to be non-profit. All the other countries have agreed on that. We are the only one that allows health insurance companies to make a profit. You can't allow a profit to be made on the basic package of health insurance."
As insurance companies do everything they can to stay top dog in the healthcare profit pile, you'll hear plenty from their surrogates in Congress. Republicans have already begun trotting out the same fear tactics that worked to defeat healthcare reform back in the 90s: the loss of patient choice and privacy.
Hopefully the American people will be able to see this red herring. The only thing they need consider is whether they actually have that supposed "choice" being trumpeted as the American way. Does Blue Cross Blue Shield allow you to see any doctor in the country, such as patients can do in, say, France?
The problem is that single-payer is inextricably tied to socialism in the minds of Americans. If the administration is going to give up the single-payer idea anyway, perhaps we should throw it to the wolves: Tell Republicans screaming about socialized medicine that our doctors and clinics will stay private. Then the GOP might have to actually admit that it's the health
insurance companies they want to protect, not doctors and patients.
Related: When Does a Health Insurance Merger Become a Monopoly? And Who Is It Good For? (BuzzFlash, 4/8/09)
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
T.R. Reid's book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care, is now out and available at the BuzzFlash Progressive Marketplace.
The reporter's book, T.R. Reid, is now out: http://www.buzzflash.com/store/items/1806
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Mark Karlin
Editor and Publisher
BuzzFlash.com
BuzzFlash@BuzzFlash.com
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