Insurers will benefit most from health bill

By Patriot-News Op-Ed

January 09, 2010, 4:26PM

As one who has openly supported single-payer health care reform, I am extremely disappointed by the impending national legislation.

Granted it contains some beneficial expansions of Medicaid as well as some long-overdue limitations on insurance denials based on “pre-existing conditions.” There might even be some other positive points hidden in the nearly 2,000 pages of legislation, which admittedly I have not read.
Senators must look at basic women's reproductive health, not just abortion.
Nevertheless, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary, this is legislation that will produce no real reform because there was never an honest attempt to confront and correct the forces that have created our health care problems.

In short, real reform has taken a back seat to posturing, politics and appeasement of the entrenched power of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Given the opportunity to produce reform that would help middle-class Americans, the Democrats, with very few exceptions, opted instead to cater to the moneyed interests that fund their re-election campaigns.

The thrust of the legislation is to mandate insurance for everyone. In essence, this means that the private insurance industry would receive windfall profits from 30 million or so new customers (the uninsured) who would be required to buy insurance or pay a fine.

For those who can’t afford the premiums, subsidies from the federal government would allow American taxpayers to contribute to the insurers’ bottom lines. The insurance industry is the big winner.

It is stated that this legislation would be budget neutral. In order to accomplish this, the legislation calls for lowering Medicare reimbursements and taxing longstanding health care plans. Not only would such a strategy be economically ineffective, it is a disgraceful imposition on health care providers, our elderly and union workers who sacrificed wages for benefits they might soon lose.

It should be noted that nothing in the proposed legislation would restrict insurance executives from making eight-figure incomes or prevent the drug industry from raising prices. Indeed, having recently voted to prevent the importation of less-expensive medications, Congress richly rewarded its pharmaceutical benefactors to the detriment of the American people.

The fact that most of this legislation would not be implemented for another election cycle suggests that deep down the Democrats know they have produced a lemon that would adversely affect them at the polls.

Their hope is that by the time the chickens come home to roost, America will have forgotten who was responsible for the further deterioration in our health care system.
Only single-payer reform offers affordable, quality health care for all.

It leaves no room for those that exploit our present system or the legislators who are beholden to them.

When America has had enough with the politics and the payoffs, single-payer is ready to provide the kind of care we all need and can afford. It is not a system intended for only the rich and powerful.

I suspect Republicans who only serve those interests (like most of the Democrats) need not apply as sponsors.

Honest dialogue about end-of-life issues, abortion and rationing will require mature individuals who avoid the hyperbole and look to the greater good rather than defend the narrow interests of influential minorities.

Quality health care for all requires looking through a different lens than the traditional marketplace perspective.

Health care is a public good (like the police and fire departments) and should not be an arena where the profiteers are allowed to determine who lives and who dies.

Dr. William Davidson Jr. is a partner in Lebanon Cardiology Associates.