Posts Tagged ‘public insurance option’
Dazzling: Olbermann indicts elected officials on healthcare-funded campaigns
Watch this video!
Keith Olbermann reveals the numbers behind those Senators and Congressmen and women who have funded their elections with health industry money, and who now deliver the goods by killing the public option.
I believe that Iowa’s own Chuck Grassley (who lately has joined in the “death panels” fabrication) is among the top ten recipients of health industry contributions in the Senate. Sen. Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, received more campaign money from the industry than from his home state.
The public option is the single greatest cost-cutting measure of this entire process. It creates competition for an industry that operates in near-monopoly conditions. It takes the need to make a profit out of the choices doctors offer their patients.
It is good for Americans but bad for health industry millionaires. And the CEOs are calling in their debts.
The politicians who rode industry money into office know what’s at stake: choke the the public option, or find other money to fund your re-election.
Write your elected officials today. Tell them you want the option to choose insurance that doesn’t connect care with profits. You can find their addresses in the right sidebar, under the heading “E-mail.”
They’ve got the money. But we cast the votes.
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Health insurers near monopoly control of most markets
- Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr
I thought I understood why insurance companies were the main threats to a “public option.” It’s easy. Their overhead—exec salaries, advertising, political lobbying, etc.—averages 31%. Medicare’s overhead is 1%. No duh they don’t want to compete.
Today, I found out there’s another reason: they mostly don’t even compete against each other. Consumers in 94% of America’s insurance markets buy their health insurance from near-monopolies that dominate their region. The Bigs don’t want to avoid public competition, they want to avoid any competition.
And what happens when profit-makers don’t have to compete? You know what.
Premiums have risen 87% over the last six years, while profits at the ten Bigs rose 428%. Wait a minute: If your insurer’s profit is up 400%, why are your premiums rising so fast?
So, on with the debate: Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), speaking on Fox News, defended the insurance company position, saying a public option would “destroy the marketplace for health care.”
But TPM today covered a report by Health Care for America Now, saying:
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And maybe that’s why millions of your excess insurance premium dollars are being spent on defeating a public option, rather than on reducing your premium.
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- What’s a public health plan anyway? (money.cnn.com)
- NY Times/CBS News Poll: Wide Support For Government-Run Option Competing With Private Insurers (huffingtonpost.com)
- Why the Critics of a Public Option for Health Care Are Wrong (tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com)
- No Country for Old Men (thehealthcareblog.com)
- Antitrust Laws a Hurdle to Health Care Overhaul (nytimes.com)
- Study: Americans Struggle To Pay For Health Care, With 40 Percent Delaying Treatments Or Services (huffingtonpost.com)