To those led to believe that, as President Obama claimed, the passage of the health care bill is "comparable to the passage of Medicare and Social Security", and that "every American will be guaranteed high quality, affordable healthcare coverage" as a result of it, my advice is to hold off on uncorking the champagne.
For one, Social Security and Medicare were public programs that from their inception offered immediate benefits to millions of ordinary Americans, who for the first time could rely on old-age pensions and access healthcare services that until then had been completely out of reach.
But, aren't single payer advocates party spoilers, unable to recognize that the bill, even if "not perfect" is, as President Obama has asserted, a "step in the right direction" that will bring the American Dream closer to millions of suffering Americans?
The short answer is no.
As Physicians for a National Health Program has argued (disclosure: I am the vice-president of the California Chapter of this organization), there are multiple reasons to be deeply concerned about the bill, and not a shred of evidence that whatever good it may do required that Main Street pay Wall Street the bill's trillion-dollar price tag.
Yet this is precisely what it does, because this "historic bill", instead of eliminating the root of our healthcare woes, a profit-driven health insurance industry which makes money when it succeeds in not paying our medical bills, will enrich and further entrench the power of this industry.
How so? By forcing millions of Americans to buy its shoddy products or pay a fine, even as it offers eligible ones subsidies courtesy of taxpayers -- to purchase those products. Sound familiar? It should. The bill consolidates the major transfer of wealth from
Main Street to Wall Street of the last decades, only second to the recent, similar transfer implemented under the dubious claim that otherwise the economy would disintegrate.Below follow selected facts
about the bill to help readers assess if this is the sort of change they were
waiting for or, indeed, can believe in (Further information is available at
www.pnhp.org).
* Millions of middle-income people will be mandated to buy commercial healthcare
policies costing up to 9.5 percent of
their income, yet covering as little as 60 percent of "covered services" (God
only knows what those may be), leaving them vulnerable to financial ruin if
they become seriously ill. Let us note that close to 80% of those filing for
bankruptcy due to medical bills had insurance when they filed, because their
policies, as will remain the case with many sold under the current bill, were impossible
to use due to high co-pays, co-insurance, and deductibles. So yes, over 30
million Americans will be "covered" by this bill, but by an umbrella full of
holes under pouring rain.
* People with employer-based coverage will be locked into their plans' "preferred
providers' networks". So yes, workers will "keep their plans if they like them"
(assuming they can afford the ever-increasing prices and don't lose their jobs,
or their employers don't drop their plans), yet will have to keep them even if
they don't like them.
* Insurers will be handed at
least $447 billion in taxpayer money to subsidize the purchase of their shoddy
products, which will entrench their financial and political power, thus their
ability to block future reform. (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
