Herbert: This Is Reform?

I don't know how many more 'we're getting screwed' articles I can
stomach or send you. Almost all who get my emails know this,
feel that and are frustrated as hell. The game goes on. The only
saving graces are that the public still massively supports a public
health alternative and that at least 65 Democratic Reps agree and
can stop the giveaway to the healthcare industry and big Pharma,
IF they hold on. The other 'grace' is that if the giveaway passes, IT
WON'T WORK and maybe, MAYBE, people will go to the polls in 2010,
even 2012 and elect reps and senators who support them. Problem
is the president, knight in now-tarnished armor, doesn't, no matter
what he says, beautifully or as of late, disjointedly. To that point,
did you hear or see his speech in Mexico where he claimed as
hypocrisy progressives wanting government provided health-care
while opposing U.S. government involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pure rhetoric, approaching insanity...and he knew it, stumbled while
grasping for how to follow that to a conclusion, and ended on an
incomplete, incoherent sentence. Oh yeah, he holds on to his vast
movement of 2008, now almost totally paralyzed precisely because
its strongest participants opposed the wars and wanted health care,
among other human decencies. He's called, they haven't responded.

The saddest part of this is that Barack Obama is a decent, thoughtful,
compassionate person, who seems to be selling his soul, piecemeal,
to satanic forces. This is becoming a tragedy of Shakespearean
proportion. For all of us.

Ed

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/opinion/18herbert.html?th&emc=th

This Is Reform?

By Bob Herbert
NY Times Op-Ed: August 17, 2009

It's never a contest when the interests of big business are pitted against
the public interest. So if we manage to get health care "reform" this time
around it will be the kind of reform that benefits the very people who have
given us a failed system, and thus made reform so necessary.

Forget about a crackdown on price-gouging drug companies and predatory
insurance firms. That's not happening. With the public pretty well confused
about what is going on, we're headed - at best - toward changes that will
result in a lot more people getting covered, but that will not control
exploding health care costs and will leave industry leaders feeling like
they've hit the jackpot.

The hope of a government-run insurance option is all but gone. So there will
be no effective alternative for consumers in the market for health coverage,
which means no competitive pressure for private insurers to rein in premiums
and other charges. (Forget about the nonprofit cooperatives. That's like
sending peewee footballers up against the Super Bowl champs.)

Insurance companies are delighted with the way "reform" is unfolding. Think
of it: The government is planning to require most uninsured Americans to buy
health coverage. Millions of young and healthy individuals will be herded
into the industry's welcoming arms. This is the population the insurers
drool over.

This additional business - a gold mine - will more than offset the cost of
important new regulations that, among other things, will prevent insurers
from denying coverage to applicants with pre-existing conditions or imposing
lifetime limits on benefits. Poor people will either be funneled into
Medicaid, which will have its eligibility ceiling raised, or will receive a
government subsidy to help with the purchase of private insurance.

If the oldest and sickest are on Medicare, and the poorest are on Medicaid,
and the young and the healthy are required to purchase private insurance
without the option of a competing government-run plan - well, that's reform
the insurance companies can believe in.

And then there are the drug companies. A couple of months ago the Obama
administration made a secret and extremely troubling deal with the drug
industry's lobbying arm, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America. The lobby agreed to contribute $80 billion in savings over 10 years
and to sponsor a multimillion-dollar ad campaign in support of health care
reform.

The White House, for its part, agreed not to seek additional savings from
the drug companies over those 10 years. This resulted in big grins and high
fives at the drug lobby. The White House was rolled. The deal meant that the
government's ability to use its enormous purchasing power to negotiate lower
drug prices was off the table.

The $80 billion in savings (in the form of discounts) would apply only to a
certain category of Medicare recipients - those who fall into a gap in their
drug coverage known as the doughnut hole - and only to brand-name drugs.
(Drug industry lobbyists probably chuckled, knowing that some patients would
switch from generic drugs to the more expensive brand names in order to get
the industry-sponsored discounts.)

To get a sense of how sweet a deal this is for the drug industry, compare
its offer of $8 billion in savings a year over 10 years with its annual
profits of $300 billion a year. Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary
in the Clinton administration, wrote that the deal struck by the Obama White
House was very similar to the "deal George W. Bush struck in getting the
Medicare drug benefit, and it's proven a bonanza for the drug industry."

The bonanza to come would be even larger, he said, "given all the Boomers
who will be enrolling in Medicare over the next decade."

While it is undoubtedly important to bring as many people as possible under
the umbrella of health coverage, the way it is being done now does not
address what President Obama and so many other advocates have said is a
crucial component of reform - bringing the ever-spiraling costs of health
care under control. Those costs, we're told, are hamstringing the U.S.
economy, making us less competitive globally and driving up the budget
deficit.

Giving consumers the choice of an efficient, nonprofit, government-run
insurance plan would have moved us toward real cost control, but that option
has gone a-glimmering. The public deserves better. The drug companies, the
insurance industry and the rest of the corporate high-rollers have their
tentacles all over this so-called reform effort, squeezing it for all it's
worth.

Meanwhile, the public - struggling with the worst economic downturn since
the 1930s - is looking on with great anxiety and confusion. If the drug
companies and the insurance industry are smiling, it can only mean that the
public interest is being left behind.