Tag: Public Option

Insurance Could Compete With The Public Option

The Public Option is taking a lot of heat in the current health care debate in the Congress….of course many are saying that the insurance companies could not compete with the option and that they would lose all their money if the public option is adopted.

On the BNET Healthcare website I found the following suggestion:

So how would the private health plans compete with the government-backed plan? “Offering a public health insurance plan as an alternative choice should be a catalyst for private plans to innovate in the way they operate and pay for care,” the report states. “It would help them reduce their administrative costs and implement payment and system reforms that lead to more appropriate utilization, better care, and slower cost growth—and, in the process, contribute to reduced premiums.”

The authors suggest that “community health plans” that partner with integrated delivery systems would be in a good position to reduce costs through joint preventive and chronic care programs. But even if truly integrated hospital-and-doctor systems were more widespread than they are, health systems and health plans have not had a good track record of working together when they’re not fighting over rates.

The Commonwealth Fund has another bright idea: “Private plans could also be given the authority to adopt public plan payment methods and rates.” Whoa! If that means what I think it does, the government and private plans would jointly decide what they wanted to pay providers. I don’t think that idea would go down very well among hospitals and physicians — although in the long run, we may have no other choice.

Finally, the report predicts that if private plans adopted effective cost-control measures “sufficient to slow a rise in their premiums relative to trends in public plan premiums,” the private and public plans would be charging about the same within five years.

If these other “options” were considered then could the insurance industry truly compete with the proposed public option?  If so, then argument that the insurance company is spending $1.4 million a day trying to defeat would be a waste of money, IMO.

A New Deal In Health Care

The debate carries on….and on…..and on…..and with each passing day the Dems show their cowardly side m0re and more……Drug industry has a deal and now the Hospitals have caved, not an accurate word, to the Admin.

Joe Kishore has written an analysis of the newest deal the Dems have made on wsws.org:

US Vice President Joseph Biden Wednesday announced an agreement with major hospitals to cut a projected $155 billion in future Medicare and Medicaid payments over the next ten years. The announcement is the latest in a series of deals worked out between the Obama administration and major corporate bodies and lobby groups.

The administration’s health care proposals are based on two fundamental premises: 1) The need to reduce health care costs for businesses and the government; and 2) To do this while ensuring the profit interests of all the major business interests involved: drug manufacturers, insurance giants, and hospitals. The inevitable results flowing from these premises will be higher costs and reduced care for ordinary Americans.

Currently, hospitals receive higher payments through Medicare if they treat a higher percentage of low-income patients, if they treat expensive cases, and if they are in an area with higher wages for hospital workers. These hospitals are generally not those that dominate the industry lobbying groups in discussion with the Obama administration.

The Associated Press noted: “Officials of public hospitals say they have concerns such reductions could also squeeze funding for trauma centers and burn units, which receive Medicare and Medicaid money.”

Biden repeated the administration’s claim that as more people become insured under the Obama plan, hospitals will face lower costs for treating the uninsured, and so can receive lower payments from the government. To the extent that this is the case, however, it will be because the costs are shifted from the government and the hospitals to individuals. Under the proposals being considered in Congress, individuals will be required to purchase insurance themselves and could be fined as much as $1,000 if they do not.

In fact, every agreement with different industry groups has come at the expense of health care for the population. For example, the drug industry had secured as part of its deal a commitment from Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to oppose a House measure that would reduce payments to the drug industry for Medicare patients previously covered by Medicaid. There are no doubt many other backroom deals that have yet to come to light.

The administration is also indicating that it is willing to reconsider plans for a “public option”—a government-run insurance program that would compete with private insurers as part of the reform proposals. The measure is, not surprisingly, fiercely opposed by the insurance industry.

The ultimate aim is to establish a system in which the vast majority of the population will receive inadequate or no health care, where the majority of the elderly simply can’t receive more expensive treatments because they are expected to die soon anyway. The rich, of course, will continue to be able to afford the best possible care.

Sorry guys but this deal sounds more like the industry is trying to head off any deal on a public option…they are promising savings and any other form of price reduction.

I realize that I am preaching to the chore here, but Americans need to know absolutely everything pertaining to the debate.  It is important that the debate include the people, all the people, not some control group that is suppose to speak for us all.

My interviews of people in my area, shows that overwhelmingly that people do NOT care about the cost…they want adequate health care for them and their families……and I live in a red area that is more neo-con than the neo cons.

The American people want health care and damn the deficit!