Chris Hedges: Obama’s Health Care Bill Is Enough to Make You Sick

[brentspeak]

Despite the author's outrage, I'm posting this as constructive criticism: now is the time for Obama and the Democrats to change the law before the damage to the party gets out of hand. As soon as the HCR legislation got signed, the health insurance industry wasted no time in raising premiums and deductibles almost across-the-board. DU'ers are reporting their own real-life horror stories of dramatically-rising insurance rates. Failure to reform this health care "reform" law could cost the Democrats generations of voters.

Published on Monday, July 12, 2010 by TruthDig.com
Obama’s Health Care Bill Is Enough to Make You Sick
by Chris Hedges

A close reading of the new health care legislation, which will conveniently take effect in 2014 after the next presidential election, is deeply depressing. The legislation not only mocks the lofty promises made by President Barack Obama, exposing most as lies, but sadly reconfirms that our nation is hostage to unchecked corporate greed and abuse. The simple truth, that single-payer nonprofit health care for all Americans would dramatically reduce costs and save lives, that the for-profit health care system is the problem and must be destroyed, is censored out of the public debate by a media that relies on these corporations as major advertisers and sponsors, as well as a morally bankrupt Democratic Party that is as bought off by corporations as the Republicans.

The 2,000-page piece of legislation, according to figures compiled by Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), will leave at least 23 million people without insurance, a figure that translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths a year among people who cannot afford care. It will permit prices to climb so that many of us will soon be paying close to 10 percent of our annual income to buy commercial health insurance, although this coverage will only pay for about 70 percent of our medical expenses. Those who become seriously ill, lose their incomes and cannot pay skyrocketing premiums will be denied coverage. And at least $447 billion in taxpayer subsidies will now be handed to insurance firms. We will be forced by law to buy their defective products. There is no check in the new legislation to halt rising health care costs. The elderly can be charged three times the rates provided to the young. Companies with predominantly female work forces can be charged higher gender-based rates. The dizzying array of technical loopholes in the bill-written in by armies of insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists-means that these companies, which profit off human sickness, suffering and death, can continue their grim game of trading away human life for money.

snip

Insurance companies, which will soon be able to use billions in taxpayer dollars to bolster their lobbying efforts and campaign contributions, know that single-payer nonprofit insurance means their extinction. And they will employ considerable resources to make sure single-payer nonprofit coverage is denied to the public. They correctly see this as a battle for their lives. And if human beings have to die so they can survive, they are willing to make us pay this price.

The for-profit health care industry, along with the Democratic Party, consciously set out to confuse the public debate. It created Health Care for America NOW! in 2008 and provided it with tens of millions of dollars to supposedly build a public campaign for a public option. But the organization had no intention of permitting a public option. The organization was, as Dr. Flowers said, "a very clever way to distract members of the single-payer movement and co-op some of them. They told them that the public option would become single payer, that it was a back door to single payer, although there was no evidence that was true."

[DJ13]

1. Thats pretty damning

"The for-profit health care industry, along with the Democratic Party, consciously set out to confuse the public debate. It created Health Care for America NOW! in 2008 and provided it with tens of millions of dollars to supposedly build a public campaign for a public option. But the organization had no intention of permitting a public option."


That sounds just like the kind of voter fraud usually associated with the Republicans.

:grr:

[depakid]

2. One thing for certain, Democrats own the issue now

Every medical bankruptcy and every person unable to afford care can now credibly be tracked back to their actions (and corruption).

David Michael Green had this take on it- and I guess we'll see:

What could be stupider than saddling thirty-five million Americans with a new monthly bill that will probably represent the second or third biggest item in their budget, in exchange for crappy private sector health insurance that is unlikely to pay out when needed, and wastes a third of the dollars paid in premiums on bureaucracy and profits anyhow? Slapping big fines on them if they don't pony up for the insurance, perhaps? Yep, that's in there too.

This bill alone could mobilize legions of people to go to the polls and vote for whichever party didn't do it, and I'm pretty sure the GOP won't be shy about reminding Americans who that is.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

48. REALLY???

When did the Democratic Party overthrow and take control of every single health insurance company?

And I'm not really sure that voters want to go back to the way it was before this new health care reform law. They WANT to go back to having pre-existing conditions prevent them from obtaining health insurance coverage? They WANT to go back to not being able to put their older dependents on their health insurance coverage? REALLY?

And people are going to run into the Republican's (un-)loving embrace on this even though they didn't care enough to do ANYTHING about this problem during the 12 years they controlled Congress and/or the WH? Democrats, especially President Obama, won't be shy about reminding voters of THAT!

[Political Tiger]

3. "I'm posting this as constructive criticism"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Jackpine Radical]

4. A brilliant riposte.

God, you just cut him off at the knees with your incisive rebuttal.

[Political Tiger]

11. Thank you!

Your meticulous analysis is paramount to me and I shall be forever beholden to you!

[Aramchek]

5. spite will eat you up inside

[nightrain]

6. knr. Thank you for posting this. The horror stories that we predicted

last year are now coming true. What a horrendous fail of a bill! Saddling people with monstrous insurance bills per month that come close to a decent-sized mortgage is certainly NOT the way to sustain the Democratic Party. You own this fail, Obama. Dumb.

[babylonsister]

8. Because Chris Hedges says so? He's a talking head and a

pundit; why do you believe him? And why did you think progress would happen immediately, when that's not what was said at all?

[brentspeak]

10. Maybe because other DUers say so

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8903175&mesg_id=8903175

[Seneca]

18. Actually, that is even MORE of a reason to be skeptical

If DUers were accurate about anything, Bush would have been impeached in the summer of '02.

[vaberella]

33. !

:rofl:

[Hansel]

52. That would be relevant if HCR was actually in effect.

Are you pretending that insurance companies jacking up prices and reducing benefits is something that just started since HCR was passed? That they would have lowered prices without it? And that this person's story has anything at all to do with HCR passing?

It doesn't go into full effect until 2014, so I'm having a hard time understanding how this is relevant.

[nightrain]

13. Chris Hedges is quite right. And I work in health care and see/hear/experience the horror.

[babylonsister]

7. "I'm posting this as constructive criticism"

:spray::spray::spray::spray::spray::spray::spray:

[firedupdem]

9. jeez...you don't quit. n/t

[brentspeak]

12. I don't quit speaking up on behalf of my fellow Americans and the good name of the Democratic party

If that's what you mean.

[Dr.Phool]

14. The usual suspects can't point to any errors or misinformation in the article.

So they have to attack the "constructive criticism".

Hedges is usually dead on. As he is in this case.

[WonderGrunion]

39. If you cared about the good name of the Democratic party

You wouldn't be incessantly bashing their accomplishments.

In the past century there have been two parties trading control of things, the Democratic Party and the Repuke party. If you're attacking the Democratic party you're only helping the Repukes.

[Skittles]

24. why should he?

[ibegurpard]

51. indeed

they thought everyone would just shut up and forget about it and then laud their "accomplishment" with this shit bill.

[ibegurpard]

15. as pointed out in another thread:

this atrocity will be pointed to as an example of how liberal ideas don't work...
even though it's nothing even close to what a real liberal would have had in mind when reforming our healthcare system.

[earcandle]

16. Well,. well,. well..... I smell a disease industry cooking up some vittles made from funds garnered

out of our disease processes 
as we walk into the pharms... 
ever so gratefully, with insurance.  

Dudes... carry the fucking news already. 
Get un-hypnotized now?  

Right.

How do you do that?  

[SpartanDem]

17. Half of the newly insured will be through Medicaid

how convient to leave that fact or that seniors are charged much more today than they would under this bill. I don't know what's gotten into the water that a bill that has regualtory changes that Democrats have been seeking for decades is now a failure. Truth is not even 10% of this bill has been implemented.

[ibegurpard]

19. we didn't need regulations

regularions are easily changed and/or flouted...we needed a systemic overhaul.
Instead they built a brick wall around the current for-profit middleman system.

[sabrina 1]

22. Look, any law that forces people who cannot afford

to buy food for their families, to buy a shoddy product from a corrupt corporation, which they will not be able to use since they won't be able to afford the huge Co-pays, and that uses the IRS as a collection agency, in anyone's wildest dreams is NOT a progressive idea. John McCain ran on that Republican idea, and we rejected it. So, why try to pretend otherwise?

All that does is hand billions in profit, squeezed out of the working poor, too poor to afford health care and 'too rich' to qualify for subsidies.

Then there is the handing over of so much of the Medicaid fund into the hands of Private Insurance when that money should be going directly for health care. What a windfall it was for them.

Those who opposed it this time, opposed it when it was a Republican idea. We did not change, and I still oppose it.

Also, why are they discriminating against people based on age? Why isn't everyone entitled to the exact same coverage rather than singling out groups, like the elderly for special rates?

The whole thing was a crushing disappointment. I never thought Dems would be the ones to privatize Medicaid funds, but I guess they figured we on the left would be screaming if a Republican did it, so they gave the job to a guy with a 'D' after his name, and it worked.

Hedges is only repeating what so many said all along ...

[SpartanDem]

23. How is the medicaid fund being privatized?

why are they discriminating against people based on age? Why isn't everyone entitled to the exact same coverage rather than singling out groups, like the elderly for special rates?

When an article a few months ago said the premiums would increase for the young the bill haters used it as proof why the bill sucks. Seemingly forgetting if you lower the cost one for group it'll increases it for another. Now their is an agrument to be made since older people use more health services they should be pay more and insurance companies charge much today than they would be allowed to under this bill. Y


You'll also remember that both Clinton and Edwards plans included a mandate.

[ThomCat]

28. Turning over Medicaid to private companies to administer

is supposed to be some new way to weed out waste. It's really a way to turn over a certain percentage of the Medicaid budget to private corporations as a first step towards getting the government out of the business of providing healthcare.

Obama is in favor of privatizing. This is the current justification for privatizing. Only private corporations are supposedly capable of finding waste and fraud in Medicaid spending, even through Medicaid has Always been more efficient than private insurance companies at providing healthcare, and even though the identified fraud has always been the result of private corporations trying to suck money out of Medicaid.

You would think that the government would support equal access to health care for everyone. But that isn't the case. The government has put it in writing that, for those who purchase insurance, it is okay to charge women more than men (and provide less service). It is okay to charge older people more than younger people. And it is okay to charge people with disabilities more than non-disabled people. But this isn't considered discrimination.

[vaberella]

32. Hardly. In New York medicare was turned over to insurance companies at least a decade before.

Because everyone on Medicare has some sort of insurance plan attached to it.

[ThomCat]

35. Do you realize that medicare and medicaid are two different programs?

:shrug:

[sabrina 1]

46. Excellent post, thank you. I just posted on the fact that we

meekly accept gender and age discrimination from Insurance Corps as if it were no problem below. More money for the sick also. In a country like this the very first time that was suggested it should have been abandoned as unconstitutional. But Americans have been trained well. It's okay if you are a for-profit Corps. Which is why I have suggested that the American people need to incorporate. We are the only ones not benefiting from these anti-constitutional rules.

It has been proven that the Medicaid fund has an overhead of only approx. 3% but now that it has been handed over to Private Ins. to administer, at least 20% and any more they can get their hands on, will go for profit. Over time, more and more of that fund will be lost to corruption or the stock market or whatever.

And next up is Social Security ....

[glitch]

50. HCR was simply another sector of the economy getting bailed out.

A rather large sector, too.

But a direct bailout after the fubar of the financial sector bailout would have caused bigtime PR problems, so it had to be cloaked as health care reform.

[sabrina 1]

45. I know Clinton and Edwards supported a mandate which is why I

did not support them. That was one of the few differences in the end between Obama and Clinton and many people were influenced by that enough to support Obama, who opposed mandates in the campaign.

As for age discrimination, it's interesting in this country that Insurance Corps are the only ones free to discriminate based on gender and age. They RULE!

The fact that 'an argument can be made' for any kind of discrimination is an argument against having a for-profit, Private Insurance-run healthcare system. In other modern democracies, if you are sick, you get treated and it doesn't matter how old or young you are.

The rolling over for rules set by private industry that affect people's very lives in this country, simply demonstrates how beaten down the American people are compared to other developed nations, even to the point of arguing FOR private industry against their own best interests.

[ThomCat]

27. Exactly. It was a bad idea when McCain campaigned on it.

It was still a bad idea when Obama made back room deals to deliver it as a massive wealth transfer to the insurance industry.

What we all need is not a legal mandate to buy insurance policies we will never be able to afford to use, but access to health care. We still have not seen anything providing access to health care.

The people crowing about how lots more people are getting Medicaid, and how this is supposedly the big success of this bill, have obviously never seen or been on Medicaid or seen how close to impossible it is to find any doctors (especially specialists) willing to accept medicaid.

If you do manage to find a doctor who accepts Medicaid, you are only going to get 30 seconds of their time. More often, it will be their Medical Assistant's time instead. The reimbursement rates are so low that the doctors only survive by running their offices as assembly lines, bumping people threw every few minutes. That means incredibly generic care, with no time for in depth physicals, interviews and detailed family histories, and anything even remotely resembling personalized care and attention.

I was on Medicaid. For all the "personal attention" patients get from the doctors, we might as well be in the office as a group. The nurse could save time by checking our temperatures and blood pressures all at once, and handing each of us our individual prescriptions as we head out the door.

[jeanpalmer]

20. Hedges assumes it'll be around

in 2014. There's a good possibility the subsidies will be reduced between now and then, or perhaps eliminated. Alan Simpson told Obama HCR would be subject to budget cuts by the Catfood Commission and Obama, according to Simpson, said "I'm with you to the hilt." The only issues seem to be to what extent they will recommend to cut the benefits and whether Congress will go along.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

21. Hopefully we can win more seats in November and push through better legislation?

something to quicken it up towards single payer.

[dotymed]

25. That is the problem.

No matter how many seats we have (remember our super-majority that couldn't get any decent progressive legislation passed?), "we" (the DLC), will not support progressive legislation. It has to be "bi-partisan"; what a sick game. In other words, the corporations must approve.
I have not seen a move to stop the upcoming SCOTUS "decision" to allow unlimited political spending.
"We" must get out of the corporate pocket and start defending the 98% of Americans who are the real majority. Or stand aside and allow a real "peoples party."
Any HONEST person (of the aforementioned 98%), will agree that Universal Health Care is our ONLY option.
Yet "we", the DLC, took this option "off the table" before it was ever allowed near "the table."
If "they" had only allowed the GAO to present the unbiased numbers, that show the tremendous saving of money and of lives, NO political party could have been able to prevent Universal Health Care. It sells itself.
"We", (actually I no longer feel a part of this group) proved that "our party" is motivated by the same exact thing (money) as the rethugs.
I realize we are no longer allowed to advocate for a viable third party creation on DU.
That is why we are a "banana republic" or a "third world nation with the arsenal of the Gods."
I really, no longer know what to say. I have said "it" so many times.
Until the 98% wakes up and becomes (at least) extremely vocal, there is no hope for change.
Just more "Hoovervilles."

[ThomCat]

29. Right. Our party neutered any hope of improving this.

What we have is all we are going to get.

And as the wars continue to suck money out of our devastated economy, and our party gives in to the idea that budget cuts to services are somehow "necessary," they are going to start cutting funds from their own health care reform bill too.

This shitty bill that is supposedly their grand achievement won't be improved. It will be compromised even further, and deteriorated with reduced funding from even as bad as it was. It will get worse.

:(

[WonderGrunion]

26. If the insurers wrote the HCR bill and got everything they wanted

Why exactly would they even need lobbyists anymore?

[ThomCat]

30. Because those lobbyists are the ones that gave them what they wanted

and keep giving them what they want. It's an ongoing process.

Nothing in politics and in building and managing power relationships ever stands still. Nothing in the process of raiding the US Treasury stands still.

[WonderGrunion]

31. So then they didn't get EVERYTHING they wanted.

Otherwise they wouldn't need to continue their lobbying efforts.

[ThomCat]

37. This idea that once they have everything they'll stop lobbying

is weird and naive. You lobby to keep what you have, and to keep getting more. There is no such thing as stopping.

The whole idea of having everything doesn't exist. The whole idea that you stop lobbying is absurd. :shrug:

[WonderGrunion]

38. But I'm told repeatedly by the far left that the insurers got

"Everything they could ever want" from this legislation. Are you telling me they were all full of shit?

Hint: I already know the answer to that question.

[bluethruandthru]

49. Gee...who is the "far left"?

Must be anyone who doesn't think that everything Obama has done is wonderous, good and virtuous. Sheesh!

[denimgirly]

34. 80%+ wanted Public Option -- Democrats, Republicans, WH, Insurers said No

so who works for the people? :shrug:

[Yavin4]

36. When Chris Hedges Can Explain How To Get Single Payer Health Care Passed By This Congress

then I will listen to him. Obama is not a dictator.

[RBInMaine]

40. Hedges is an incessant bitcher who, I guess, would rather have Bush back. PISS ON HIM !

[SoxFan]

41. +1

Who the hell is this guy, anyways?

[LWolf]

42. k&r nt

[ProSense]

43. Medicare recipients will now have

free preventive care

That's a step toward keeping them well.

[Scarsdale Vibe]

44. Compare actual bill to ideal bill instead of status quo. Rend garments.

Using Hedge's information, but in a more rational manner:
32,000 lives will be saved each year due to increased coverage.
Prices will climb slower due to cost controls, mandates, and various programs focused on quality of care payment instead of quantity.
Those who become seriously ill will no longer be kicked off their insurance due to technicalities or suffer from lifetime limits.
447 billion dollars will be transferred from the wealthy to the poor and middle class to help them pay for health insurance with federally mandated benefits.
Gender-rating is banned in the individual and small market.
The elderly can no longer be charged infinite times the rate provided to the young.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

47. and we should believe........

that insurance companies would NOT be raising premiums, etc. WITHOUT the Democratic Health Care Reform legislation, right?

I think that most, if not all of us are disappointed that a public option, let alone single-payer, didn't get approved by Congress earlier this year but anything short of single payer (which, let's face it, was NOT going to be a viable in this Congress) is going to leave the private health insurance industry intact as the main provider of health insurance in this country (which is what I suspect what most people are upset about- and I can sympathize with that). Unfortunately, for whatever reason, it will take awhile before we will see the full benefits of the health care reform law, but IMHO it does more to hold the industry accountable than just about anything that anybody has seen in recent years and it does eventually will create an exchange to provide different options and theoretically help improve competition and prices. It will be difficult to fully judge the health care law until it is fully implemented and maybe for some time after that but just because things haven't changed overnight, it doesn't mean that they won't change.

Also, the more outrageous the insurance industry gets, well, the easier it will be to continue pushing for public option and/or single payer. I view this health care law as the ultimate "put up or shut up" warning to health insurance companies- that that they need to either prove that the private market can deliver a good product (health insurance coverage) at reasonable prices for people who need it (which is everybody) or the government will inevitably, like it so often does, have to step in and do it one way or another- first with a public option and/or single payer.

[Hansel]

53. Yes, they were just about to slash premiums and deductibles and then...

that mean Obama hurt their feelings with the big nasty HCR.
:rofl: