From: Dick Fojut [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 3:05 AM
To: Jeff Rense
Subject: HEALTH CARE DECEIT By Paul Craig Roberts
Copy of Email sent to all Arizona State Senate and House members...
From Dick Fojut in Tucson, AZ
[email protected]
----------------------------
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS (respected Conservative columnist), one of the wiser
minds in America - has denounced the fraudulent health care "debate!"
Contradicting surprised Republicans in Congress (and like-minded Democrats)
Roberts announced his support for a "single-payer not-for-profit health
system." For any who've not read his column, here it is...
HEALTH CARE DECEIT
By Paul Craig Roberts
9-14-9
http://rense.com/general87/hlt.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23491.htm
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15215
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts09142009.html
Excerpts only from below...
The health care bill is not about health care. It is about protecting
and increasing the profits of the insurance companies. The main feature of
the health care bill is the "individual mandate," which requires everyone in
America to buy health insurance. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max
Baucus (D-Mont), a recipient of millions in contributions over his career
from the insurance industry, proposes to impose up to a $3,800 fine on
Americans who fail to purchase health insurance.
What the US needs is a single-payer not-for-profit health system that
pays doctors and nurses sufficiently that they will undertake the arduous
training and accept the stress and risks of dealing with illness and
diseases.
A private health care system worked in the days before expensive medical
technology, malpractice suits, high costs of bureaucracy associated with
third-party payers and heavy investment in combating fraud, and pressure on
insurance companies from Wall Street to improve "shareholder returns."
-------------------------
Complete text of Roberts' article, presenting his reasoning...
September 14, 2009 --- The current health care "debate" shows how far gone
representative government is in the United States. Members of Congress
represent the powerful interest groups that fill their campaign coffers, not
the people who vote for them.
The health care bill is not about health care. It is about protecting and
increasing the profits of the insurance companies. The main feature of the
health care bill is the "individual mandate," which requires everyone in
America to buy health insurance. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max
Baucus (D-Mont), a recipient of millions in contributions over his career
from the insurance industry, proposes to impose up to a $3,800 fine on
Americans who fail to purchase health insurance.
The determination of "our" elected representatives to serve the insurance
industry is so compelling that Congress is incapable of recognizing the
absurdity of these proposals.
The reason there is a health care crisis in the US is that the cumulative
loss of jobs and benefits has swollen the uninsured to approximately 50
million Americans. They cannot afford health insurance any more than
employers can afford to provide it.
It is absurd to mandate that people purchase what they cannot afford and to
fine them for failing to do so. A person who cannot pay a health insurance
premium cannot pay the fine.
These proposals are like solving the homeless problem by requiring the
homeless to purchase a house.
In his speech Obama said "we'll provide tax credits" for "those individuals
and small businesses who still can't afford the lower-priced insurance
available in the exchange" and he said low-cost coverage will be offered to
those with preexisting medical conditions. A tax credit is useless to those
without income unless the credit is refundable, and subsidized coverage
doesn't do much for those millions of Americans with no jobs.
Baucus masquerades as a defender of the health impaired with his proposal to
require insurers to provide coverage to all comers as if the problem of
health care can be reduced to preexisting conditions and cancelled policies.
It was left to Rep. Dennis Kucinich to point out that the health care bill
ponies up 30 million more customers for the private insurance companies.
The private sector is no longer the answer, because the income levels of the
vast majority of Americans are insufficient to bear the cost of health
insurance today. To provide some perspective, the monthly premium for a
60-year old female for a group policy (employer-provided) with Blue Cross
Blue Shield in Florida is about $1,200. That comes to $14,400 per year. Only
employees in high productivity jobs that can provide both a livable salary
and health care can expect to have employer-provided coverage. If a 60-year
old female has to buy a non-group policy as an individual, the premium would
be even higher. How, for example, is a Wal-Mart shelf stocker or check out
clerk going to be able to pay a private insurance premium?
Even the present public option--Medicare--is very expensive to those
covered. Basic Medicare is insufficient coverage. Part B has been added, for
which about $100 per month is deducted from the covered person's Social
Security check. If the person is still earning or has other retirement
income, an "income-related monthly adjustment" is also deducted as part of
the Part B premium. And if the person is still working, his earnings are
subject to the 2.9 percent Medicare tax.
Even with Part B, Medicare coverage is still insufficient except for the
healthy. For many people, additional coverage from private supplementary
policies, such as the ones sold by AARP, is necessary. These premiums can be
as much as $277 per month. Deductibles remain and prescriptions are only 50%
covered. If the drug prescription policy is chosen, the premium is higher.
This leaves a retired person on Medicare who has no other retirement income
of significance paying as much as $4,500 per year in premiums in order to
create coverage under Medicare that still leaves half of his prescription
medicines out-of-pocket. Considering the cost of some prescription
medicines, a Medicare-covered person with Part B and a supplementary policy
can still face bankruptcy.
Therefore, everyone should take note that a "public option" can leave people
with large out-of-pocket costs. I know a professional who has chosen to
continue working beyond retirement age. His Medicare coverage with
supplemental coverage, Medicare tax, and income-related monthly adjustment
comes to $16,400 per year. Those people who want to deny Medicare to the
rich will cost the system a lot of money.
What the US needs is a single-payer not-for-profit health system that pays
doctors and nurses sufficiently that they will undertake the arduous
training and accept the stress and risks of dealing with illness and
diseases.
A private health care system worked in the days before expensive medical
technology, malpractice suits, high costs of bureaucracy associated with
third-party payers and heavy investment in combating fraud, and pressure on
insurance companies from Wall Street to improve "shareholder returns."
Despite the rise in premiums, payments to health care providers, such as
doctors, appear to be falling along with coverage to policy holders. The
system is no longer functional and no longer makes sense. Health care has
become an incidental rather than primary purpose of the health care system.
Health care plays second fiddle to insurance company profits and salaries to
bureaucrats engaged in fraud prevention and discovery. There is no point in
denying coverage to one-sixth of the population in the name of saving a
nonexistent private free market health care system.
The only way to reduce the cost of health care is to take the profit and
paperwork out of health care.
Nothing humans design will be perfect. However, Congress is making it clear
to the public that the wrong issues are front and center, such as the belief
of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and others that illegal aliens and abortions will
be covered if government pays the bill.
Debate focuses on subsidiary issues, because Congress no longer writes the
bills it passes. As Theodore Lowi made clear in his book, The End of
Liberalism, the New Deal transferred law-making from the legislative to the
executive branch. Executive branch agencies and departments write bills that
they want and hand them off to sponsors in the House and Senate. Powerful
interest groups took up the same practice.
The interest groups that finance political campaigns expect their bills to
be sponsored and passed.
Thus: a health care reform bill based on forcing people to purchase private
health insurance and fining them if they do not.
When bills become mired in ideological conflict, as has happened to the
health care bill, something usually passes nevertheless. The president, his
PR team, and members of Congress want a health care bill on their resume and
to be able to claim that they passed a health care bill, regardless of
whether it provides any health care.
The cost of adding public expenditures for health care to a budget drowning
in red ink from wars, bank bailouts, and stimulus packages means that the
most likely outcome of a health care bill will benefit insurance companies
and use mandated private coverage to save public money by curtailing
Medicare and Medicaid.
The public's interest is not considered to be the important determinant. The
politicians have to please the insurance companies and reduce health care
expenditures in order to save money for another decade or two of war in the
Middle East.
The telltale part of Obama's speech was the applause in response to his
pledge that "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits."
Yet, Obama and his fellow politicians have no hesitation to add trillions of
dollars to the deficit in order to fund wars.
The profits of military/security companies are partly recycled into campaign
contributions. To cut war spending in order to finance a public health care
system would cost politicians campaign contributions from both the insurance
industry and the military/security industry.
Politicians are not going to allow that to happen. It was the war in
Afghanistan, not health care, that President Obama declared to be a
"necessity."
-------------------
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan
administration. He is coauthor of
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0307396061/counterpunchmaga>
The Tyranny of Good Intentions. His new book, War of the Worlds: How the
Economy Was Lost, will be published next month by AK Press/CounterPunch. He
can be reached at:
<mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]
--------------------
-----------------------
WHISTLEBLOWER (POTTER): BAUCUS HEALTH BILL AN 'ABSOLUTE GIFT' TO INSURERS
BY DANIEL TENCER
September 15, 2009
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/09/15/big-pharma-baucus-bill/
Excerpts Only...
Pharma group that made deal with Obama now backing Baucus health bill
The health care reform plan proposed by Senate Finance Committee
Chairman Max Baucus is an "absolute gift" to health care insurance
companies, says an industry whistleblower.
Wendell Potter, a former executive at Cigna, said the Baucus plan "would
not provide affordable coverage Š gives the industry too much latitude to
charge higher premiums based on age and geographic location, fails to
mandate employer coverage, and pushes consumers into plans with limited
benefits," Politico reports.
Potter's claims come at a time when it looks increasingly likely that
the White House will back health care reforms that will be very similar to
Baucus' proposal.
-------------------------------
----------------------------------
Brief reminder from my own earlier Email... Whether one is for or
against ("Socialist") Medicare For All, a "single payer not-for-profit"
system, whatever phoney plan is finally passed, none of us should forget
Medical Insurance Policies do NOT give us "Health." We go to doctors and
hospitals only when we are SICK or have been INJURED!
It's SICKNESS-CARE, not "HEALTH"-CARE!
- Dick Fojut 8-22-9
http://rense.com/general87/sickness.htm
Excerpt:
The label "HEALTH"-CARE is false, misleading!
The label should be SICKNESS-CARE!"
This so-called "HEALTH CARE REFORM" debate is entirely about SICKNESS
CARE!
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