My Public Option
Headlines these days seem to be nothing so much as a circus of my pet peeves, whole tag-teams of peeves running up and pushing my buttons as quickly as possible. Let's put aside the amazing kabuki of the senate confirmation hearings of Judge Sotomayor and reflect, once again, on the health-care "debate".
You may recall that I wrote recently ("Corporate Chump-Change Perverts American Policy") about how the vast amounts of money our nation's largest corporations–insignificant to their balance sheets but still larger than the GDP of most countries in the world–spend on "lobbying" (i.e., buying congressional loyalty) corrupts the political process and perverts democracy. One of the facilitating reasons is a ridiculous concept in American jurisprudence that treats corporations as "people" with a Constitutional right to free speech.
There is another facilitator to this farcical aspect of public "debate", of course: the electorate, actual people, human individuals, who seem more than willing to believe anything fed to them by these large corporations (perhaps "spoon-fed" by very, very large spoons).
The long list of absurd, incredible (as in not credible, or "unbelievable") anti-reform talking points developed by the private insurance industry, which are indistinguishable from conservative talking points (guess who writes their speeches) is–well, long and incredible.
Why should people give any credibility to the notions that health-care done right in the US–universal, single-payer coverage–will cause "socialism", will force us to "live like Europeans" (why not "live like Canadians?), will take away choice, will deny service, will be un-American, when 1) these talking points are patently ridiculous and easily discounted if one looks at the facts (must I insist on looking at "true facts"?); and 2) these talking points are developed by the self-serving industry that has enormous resources to spend on defeating any health-care reform that has a role for government insuring the uninsured?
It is not just that the health-insurance companies have a vested interest in the status quo, and a great deal of money to spend trying to keep it that way, but their arguments do not stand up to even the most superficial scrutiny.
Beyond that, we should know their tactics by now; they're the same tactics developed by the tobacco industry and used for the past two decades by most regulated industries: obfuscation, casting doubt, innuendo, and outright lies, whatever it takes to avoid good-faith debate and scuttle any legislation that appears to them to be a regulation. A number of legislators, of course, have been converted to a "free-market", anti-regulatory outlook through "campaign contributions" from the regulated industries or, worse, through ideological reflection. (What excuse there is for economists escapes me.)
It's probably the scientist in me, one used to reading truth in nature, who throws up his hands in frustration and lack of understanding at how some people can keep saying things that are demonstrably not true, and that have usually been demonstrated not to be true.
Here is the point, I suppose, where I would list and then analyze the tactics that health-care insurers are using 1) to increase their profits (more precisely, their "medical-loss ratio") by dumping customers from their rolls who make the mistake of making claims; and 2) to scuttle useful and necessary health-care reform with lots of money and lots of not-truth.
Fortunately, I don't have to. Here's a segment from an episode of Bill Moyers' Journal (10 July 2009) in which he talks to former Cigna PR executive Wendell Potter; they cover it all very clearly in a discussion of about 38 minutes.
It seems clear to me that the only way to shift the attention of the bloc of health-insurance companies, unified by their common enemy of regulation, is to find the competitive wedge that would set them all snapping and biting at each other's throat rather than trying to pervert federal policy.
One possible idea might be this implementation of a public option: public health-care could be provided through, say, a competitive bidding process where a 3-year contract to provide public health-care is let to the lowest bidding health-care insurer. Performance based incentives would be useful in ratcheting up the competition.
To be honest, I think it would be a terrible, expensive, and wasteful approach. On the other hand, talking about it might prove useful in keeping the "debate" over health-care reform a little more honest. Could the benefit of redirecting "lobbying" money and the focus of that money be anything other than salutary?
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To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Thursday, 16 July 2009 at 23.57
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Ah, the American Dream: always there for those who can PAY for it. And it ain't most of us.
on Monday, 20 July 2009 at 00.58
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I doubt a feint would work, if that's the intention. The industry will fight any change tooth and nail. Their profits have been so outrageously huge in recent years that I'm sure they perceive even making profits in line with those of most large U.S. businesses as being forced to the brink of insolvency, by comparison. They need to be forced to get over it, and angry public resolve is the only way that's likely to happen.
on Monday, 20 July 2009 at 16.52
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Jeff, I don't know if you have an iPhone, but just in case you do, I'll pass this along. It's apparently only good for Monday, July 20.
Today only: Free astronomy apps for iPhone