Health Wars (9/18/09)

For the health care reform push, which got something of a reboot last week with President Barack Obama’s address to Congress, the aim is for the first lady’s imprimatur to put a friendly face and a noncontroversial spin on a complex, highly partisan issue.

 

She won’t get into the weeds on health care, pushing specific details or plans as Clinton did. Instead, she’ll make the soft, soccer-mom sell, highlighting the need to eat healthy, exercise and get preventive care. On Friday, Michelle Obama will appear at an event where women and families will talk about the health care system, and she will deliver remarks that will “amplify the president’s message on the need for health insurance reform,” according to the White House…

 

“Women are the swing voters on health care, and they are the people who pay most attention to health care for their families,” said Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now, a coalition of community, labor and health care provider groups. “Having Michelle Obama as a spokesperson on health care makes a tremendous difference in terms of having women understand what the president’s plan will mean for families. It takes it from the policy to the personal.”

While a top executive at the hospital, Mrs. Obama helped engineer the plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs. Under the Orwellian banner of an “Urban Health Initiative,” Mrs. Obama sold the scheme to outsource low-income care to other facilities as a way to “dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents.” The program guaranteed “free” shuttle rides to and from the outside clinics.

 

In truth, it was old-fashioned cost-cutting and favor-trading repackaged as minority aid. Clearing out the poor freed up room for insured (i.e., more lucrative) patients. If a Republican had proposed the very same program and recruited black civic leaders to front it, Michelle Obama and her grievance-mongering friends would be screaming “RAAAAAAAAACISM!” at the top of their lungs…

 

Following the Adams incident, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) blasted Mrs. Obama and Mr. Axelrod’s grand plan. The group released a statement expressing “grave concerns that the University of Chicago’s policy toward emergency patients is dangerously close to ‘patient dumping,’ a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act (EMTALA)” – signed by President Reagan, by the way – “and reflected an effort to ‘cherry pick’ wealthy patients over poor.”

President Obama said this week that his health care plan won’t cover illegal immigrants, but argued that’s all the more reason to legalize them and ensure they eventually do get coverage.

 

He also staked out a position that anyone in the country legally should be covered - a major break with the 1996 welfare reform bill, which limited most federal public         assistance programs only to citizens and longtime immigrants.

 

“Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don’t simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday evening in a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. “That’s why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

 

Mr. Obama added, “If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of twelve million                     undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all.”

 

Republicans said that amounts to an amnesty, calling it a backdoor effort to make sure current illegal immigrants get health care.

Two claims are made all the time in the health care debate: 1) that there is little competition among those providing health insurance and 2) that it is important to take the profit motive out of providing health insurance. Both are myths. It turns out that claims about too little competition are based on a misinterpretation of the data and that non-profit insurers are so abundant that the largest insurer in virtually every state is a non-profit.

 

You would probably never know either of these points from listening to the news. Proponents of government provided health insurance, such as President Obama, argue that such a government option is required to inject competition into the market. “Insurance companies and their allies don’t like this idea, or any that would promote greater competition,” Mr. Obama warned during a weekly Saturday radio address during the end of August. Even those who don’t support a government option are concerned about the lack of competition. “There is a serious problem with the lack of competition among insurers,” said Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine. “The impact on the consumer is significant.” …

 

But they leave out the fact that for most people it is their employer, not the insurance companies, that pays for any bad health outcomes. The firm does so out of the company’s own pocket. The companies do what is called “self-insure” or “self-fund” their plans, and that occurs for around 55% of employees according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality with the Department of Health and Human Services.

 

Take Maine, Senator Snowe’s state, as an example. There, the two largest insurance companies appear to control 88% of the market. And Well Point Inc. makes up most of that, with 78%. But what isn’t made clear is that these numbers only deal with privately insured patients who are insured by insurance companies. Slightly over half of the privately insured in Maine (52.1%) get their insurance through their employers who “self-insure.” These companies merely hire other companies to handle the paper work. Well Point Inc. thus really provides primary or “full” insurance to 78% of the market not covered by self-insurers. Doing the math gives 78% x (1 - 52.1%) = 37.1% of the total market in Maine. The second largest insurance company has only 4.8% of the total market.

 

For Alabama, instead of the “almost 90% is controlled by just one company,” as the president claims, the correct number is 36%. The second largest company has just 2.1% of the market.

After I raised questions about its accuracy, President Obama has dropped from his last two health care speeches an inaccurate reference he made about the health care travails of an Illinois man, whom Obama claimed had died after his insurance company declined to pay for his cancer treatments.

 

When Obama spoke to Congress about health care reform on September 9th, he attempted to put a human face on his push for a provision barring insurance companies from dropping patients with pre-existing medical conditions....

 

It’s just not true, which I pointed out in my Chicago Sun-Times column. I confirmed with the White House that the man Obama was referring to was Otto Raddatz, from a Chicago suburb. His insurance company did indeed yank his coverage in April 2005. But after a fight led by his sister, Peggy, an attorney and the Illinois attorney-general, Raddatz got his coverage reinstated in a few weeks and never missed any needed treatments. And he did not die until January 6th, 2009.

As has always happened when progressive change is in the air, the backlash gets fierce, ugly and anti-American. This time is no different. Right now, there is an insidious and coordinated effort on the part of the extreme right to target individuals and grassroots community groups as a way to silence the voices of women and men who have suffered the most under 8 years of right wing policies.

 

These extremists will attempt to shut down and shout down anyone with a different point of view.

 

Let’s be clear who we are talking about—call them attack dogs, call them Teabaggers, call them Glenn Beck–these are the same folks who cheered the policies that crashed our economy. Who make up lies about death panels to try to kill healthcare reform. Who scream about democracy while denying workers a voice on the job. Who target anyone who poses a threat to a status quo that for too long has rewarded greedy CEOs while leaving people who work out in the cold.

 

As has always happened when [reactionary] change is in the air, [when the American people figure out what we're trying to do to them and object, we get] fierce, ugly and anti-American. This time is no different. Right now, there is an insidious and coordinated effort on the part of the extreme [left] to target individuals and grassroots community groups as a way to silence the voices of women and men who [want no part of our left-] wing policies.

 

These extremists will attempt to shut down and shout down anyone with a different point of view.

 

Let’s be clear who we are talking about—call them attack dogs, call them [Obamunists], call them [Ed Schlutz] – these are the same folks who cheered the [Democrat Financial Logic Bomb] that crashed our economy. Who make up lies about [there not being] death panels to try to [jam down] healthcare reform. Who scream about democracy while denying workers a voice [in whether they get forced into a union]. Who target anyone who poses a threat to a status quo that for too long has rewarded greedy [Democrat politicians] while leaving people who work out in the cold.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide now oppose the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the highest level of opposition yet measured and includes 44% who are Strongly Opposed.

 

Just 43% now favor the proposal, including 24% who Strongly Favor it. …

 

If the plan passes, 26% of voters say the quality of care will get better, and 51% say it will get worse. In August, the numbers were 23% better and 50% worse.

 

Fifty-one percent (51%) say passage of the plan will make the cost of health care go up while 20% say it will make costs go down. In August, 52% thought the plan would lead to higher costs, and just 17% thought it would achieve the stated goal of lowering costs.