The Wall St. Journal reports on the new marketing plans for the health insurance companies: push health care reform, reap $100 billion in annual public subsidies!

We’ll take a look at that, as well as the GOP candidates who don’t care about cancer, the Sacramento insiders letting kids’ health fail run out, and new problems with the “Massachusetts mandate” law.

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize for GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

It’s like the insurance companies wrote the law themselves.  Across the country, “healthcare reform” proposals are moving forward that would leave the current broken healthcare system intact, protect the role of the insurers, AND give them tens of billions of dollars in new revenues from government funds?

Democratic presidential candidates like to beat up on insurance companies, but there is a lot for the industry to like in their health-care plans — starting with plenty of new business.

“Here’s the potential for a whole new pool of lives for them to cover, with payment behind it,” said Benjamin Isgur, assistant director of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute, which examined the presidential health plans’ impact on industry. The study, a comprehensive look at health-care plans offered by candidates in both parties, also concludes that doctors, hospitals and other health-care providers would likely benefit since more patients with insurance suggest more would seek care and be able to pay their bills.

The leading Democratic candidates all propose boosting spending — by around $100 billion a year — mostly to help people buy private insurance plans.

Of course the insurance corporations are not dumb:

The early signals from the insurance industry, which played a major roll in killing health-care reform in 1994, are positive. The industry’s chief lobbyist, Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, says she is encouraged by the debate so far and says her group is focused on trying to get universal insurance enacted rather than stopping it. “At 20,000 or 30,000 feet, we have heard encouraging statements from Democrats and Republicans,” she says.

Meanwhile, the same “individual mandate” law in Massachusetts is good for insurers, but blowing a hole in the state budget.  And that hole is not fixable, since there is simply not enough public money to give protect the massive profits of the health insurance corporations.

GOP candidates who have survived cancer seem to show no compassion for other cancer survivors, at least if you trust their healthcare plans, and Sacramento insiders are showing precious little compassion for kids in that state who are about to get tossed off the healthcare rolls.

Zenei Cortez, RN, has been a working bedside nurse for 30 years and is a member of the Council of Presidents of National Nurses Organizing Committee and California Nurses Association…and we’re quite proud to say she’s the first Filipino to hold that office.

She takes on the Schwarzenegger-inspired healthcare deal in today’s San Francisco Chronicle with an oped called, “Hasty Health Care Deal Not Ready for Prime Time.”

While reading her words, remember the experience that Registered Nurses across this country share: every day they watch patients *with* health insurance go broke, and get sick because they can’t afford the medical treatment they are allegedly covered for.  This is a key reason RNs oppose health care “reform” built on padding forcing more patients into the arms of the insurers who messed things up in the first place.

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize for GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

In addition to providing the insurance companies with *BILLIONS* of dollars in new public subsidies and forced payouts from working- and middle-class patients, the proposed deal suffers from the following problems:

It’s equally evident what the deal won’t include:
— Limits – other than a vague reliance on the market which created the mess – on skyrocketing insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, hospital charges, doctor’s bills and other fees that are rising at double, triple or more the rate of inflation and increases in worker’s wages.
— Choice of doctor, hospital or other provider. Unlike Medicare, insurers or employers will continue to be able to restrict patients to their medical plan’s network or require costly additional payments to see other providers.
— An end to insurance industry control over basic decisions about your health. Insurers will still be able to block referrals to specialists, deny needed medical tests or access to the newest prescription drugs, and can still refuse to pay for care deemed “experimental” or “not medically necessary,” even when it is recommended by your doctor. 

And if you’ve been reading that you’ll be protected from runaway costs?  Uh…

The cost protections are a mirage. Many middle-income families will qualify for state tax credits to help pay for the insurance they are required to buy. But a tax credit hardly makes up for costly monthly premium payments and other fees.
Further, the proposed annual out-of-pocket limit of 6.5 percent in costs applies only to the barebones mandatory policy. Anyone seeking coverage that includes such essentials as dental, vision, mental health, long-term care, and other needed care will have to pay much more.
The likely result will be more consumer debt for medical bills; a great boon for the banks and credit-card companies but increased financial risk for Californians and an encouragement to self-ration needed care due to the prohibitive cost.

And we’re not the only ones who see the obvious comparisons with energy de-reg….remember that was supported by just about every lobbyist in Sacramento, especially those with ties to Enron:

A decade ago, there was also a consensus for energy deregulation. The result was blackouts, higher costs for consumers, a financial calamity for the state, and open thievery by Enron and other energy corporations.
We should learn from that experience. Rather than rush through an ill-conceived plan that primarily rewards the same insurance giants, let’s adopt a more commonsense step, expand children’s health coverage with federal funds now and get real, guaranteed health care reform done next year.

(Game on, I suppose. – promoted by Bob Brigham)

I hate to be melodramatic, but that’s pretty much what it comes down to.

At least according to today’s report finding that America is last among industrialized democracies in terms of infant mortality.  Because our healthcare system is set up to guarantee billions of dollars of profit to unnecessary insurance corporations, kids born here are more likely to die than they are in countries with guaranteed healthcare through the single-payer model.

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize for GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

One place this hits hard is Memphis, along with other cities with predominantly African-American populations.  African-American kids are two and a half times more likely than white kids to die in infancy.  Racism starts early, I guess.

This is the context in which Rudy Giuliani stated his big lie about cancer patients being better of in America than Europe.  He’s been proven wrong but refuses to apologize.  Kids are being killed on a daily basis by this system and he refuses to admit it because it doesn’t square with his bid for President.  Ezra Klein takes a look.

One of the real flashpoints for the battle over healthcare is in Kentucky and West Virginia, where nurses across the country are traveling to support their striking colleagues in the Appalachian Regional Healthcare System.  ARH is trying to bump up their profits by slashing the number of nurses caring for patients.  Profits over patients indeed.

In California, we’re working hard to stop a fake reform plan that includes an individual mandate, e.g. a requirement that every person purchase expensive, wasteful insurance products.  Fortunately, public opinion is turning against this nasty little brew cooked up by Arnold Schwarzenegger.  If we can break it here, we can break it anywhere!

(We haven’t front-paged anything about this today, probably out of sheer depression. So let this be a conduit for the discussion. Hopefully soon somebody will come by and tell us this is “the best we can do” and we should stop whining! Wouldn’t that be great? – promoted by David Dayen)

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee said today that it will oppose the latest healthcare plan proposed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, which would sentence patients to patients to forced insurance, threats to seize wages to pay the premiums of the very for-profit insurance companies who are speedily wrecking our health care system, and mandatory costs.

“As more details continue to emerge, it is apparent that this proposal is riddled with flaws that could exacerbate the healthcare crisis for countless numbers of California families,” said CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.

More details below, or visit the online home of the Nationanl Nurses Organizing Committee and California Nurses Association, and join the fight for guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model.

Here’s a look at the rest of the plan:

Individual mandate — forcing Californians to buy insurance

“No matter how you dress up this proposal it still amounts to a huge windfall for the insurance industry, millions of new customers who may get virtually nothing in return,” De Moro said. And, anyone who fails to buy insurance would face “the draconian threat” of having the cost of insurance deducted from their paychecks. “Punishing the uninsured by seizing their wages to pad insurance company profits is not healthcare reform.

No comprehensive coverage

The state’s Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board will establish the basic plan Californians would have to buy. But the plan is likely to only include a bare bones set of benefits, with probable high deductions and caps on coverage. All other medical care, such as dental, vision, mental health, long term care, and more would cost extra. “The likely result is that families with limited resources will self-ration rather than obtain needed medical care,” DeMoro said.

Affordability

DeMoro criticized claims that the bill meets affordability standards as “a sad hoax for Californians desperate for genuine healthcare coverage.”

1- Since the bill fails to set standards for basic plans, “it is likely families would be forced to effectively buy junk insurance, and have to spend thousands of dollars more for a long list of essential care needs.”
2- The plan fails to reign in skyrocketing insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, or other rising costs. With costs continuing to escalate, there will be growing pressure on the MRMIB board to further erode the basic plan.
3- The supposed protection for middle income families is tax credits for the cost of buying the forced insurance. But tax credits only benefit those who can afford to buy insurance in the first place, and a once a year tax credit hardly makes up for costly monthly premium payments. The result will almost certainly be more credit card debt for medical bills; “a great boon for the banks and credit card companies but increased financial and health insecurity for Californians,” DeMoro said.
4- The proposed out-of-pocket limit of 6.5% in costs applies only to the bare bones mandatory insurance policy – those with more comprehensive plans will pay much more of their income.

Employer mandate

The new bill makes the extensive problems of the earlier versions by the legislature and the governor even worse, said DeMoro. Under the bill the maximum requirement for employers would be just 6.5 percent of payroll.

But, according to a June 2007 report by the California Healthcare Foundation, California employers in 2005 paid on average 10.4% — and unionized employers paid 14.5 percent of their payroll – for health care benefits.

Especially as there are no controls on rising premium costs, what the bill thus does is create a clear incentive for businesses to sharply erode existing plans or drop coverage entire, DeMoro said.

Unionized employers, for example, would save nearly $5,000 per employee to dump their current benefits and pay the new tax.  “Get ready for more strikes and other labor battles as workers struggle to maintain decent health coverage for their families,” DeMoro said.

Amidst the talk of the 2008 Senate races, Senator Barbara Boxer may be the most endangered incumbent in the class of 2010.

Polling came out this week finding that she narrowly trails Arnold Schwarzenegger in a projected matchup.

And now the health insurance industry has come up with a devilish scheme to prop up Arnold, increase their revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars, end the drive for genuine healthcare reform all in one fell swoop…with Boxer’s Senate seat being collateral damage in this scenario.

We’ll take a look below…cross-posted at daily kos, hence more background than Caliticsians might need!

It all hinges on the drive for health care reform in California.  There’s a fake debate going on right now, with insurers funding both sides.  Governor Arnold’s proposal is to require individuals to purchase expensive, wasteful, private insurance products.  Some Democrats in the legislature are countering with a proposal to force employers to purchase these same products.

Really, what’s not for insurers to like?

And now we are presented with a strange political kabuki between these two proposals.  Advocates on both sides are bashing the other-with arguments that would apply exactly equally to their own proposal.

So yesterday, in a bit of Capitol irony, Schwarzenegger’s health care plan was heard on Halloween-and it is scary and full of treats for insurance donors.  The charge that the legislators made against his plan?  It’s unaffordable!  But their counter-plan, for so-called employer mandates, is just as bad.  That’s the system we have now, but more.  And it’s a recipe out-of-control premiums, rising co-pays and deductibles, and an entire industry devoted to denial of care.  In short, we’d have the healthcare crisis we already do. 

We don’t know the third act of this drama.  But since the sides aren’t really too far apart, there’s a good chance that Schwarzenegger will compromise, look like a conquering hero, bring fake healthcare reform to California, and be all set up to turn the wonderful Barbara Boxer out of the Senate in 2010, with full complicity of a number of legislators who are heavy on the payroll of the big insurance corporations. 

George Skelton, dean of the California press, doesn’t think so, but neither he nor I are privy to the planning sessions that the insurers have convened between Arnold and their Democratic allies. 

The sad part is that after the legislature passed a guaranteed healthcare, single-payer bill last year, Arnold set the terms of this year’s debate by vetoing it.  Now the Capitol insiders are running around saying, “let’s get something, anything done so we look good.”  Malinda Markowitz, RN, a member of CNA/NNOC’s Council of Presidents, takes on this argument, saying:

Sadly, the main beneficiaries of a rushed “compromise” will be the same insurance companies that created the present crisis. They would harvest millions of new customers, with the government using its power and the public purse to further an insurance industry that will continue to be able to profiteer and deny care.
We don’t have to turn just to Massachusetts to see an example of how this can lead to disastrous public policy. A decade ago, the same “consensus” pushed the hurried passage of energy deregulation. That was followed by blackouts, skyrocketing energy costs for consumers, financial calamity for the state, and open thievery by Enron and other energy corporations.
Californians should demand that legislators pull the plug before we plunge into another disaster.

And in case we needed it, here’s one more reason to fight for genuine healthcare reform on the single-payer model: nearly two million veterans, who already face a number of challenges, have no coverage at all.  That’s just not right.

Trick or trick?

It’s not just that Rudy Ghouliani lied about the odds of patients in Britain surviving the kind of prostate cancer he had, in the controversial radio ad and message of the day he’s offering this Halloween.

It’s not just that Rudy asserts the big lie, that “we have the best healthcare system in the world,” better than the “socialized medicine” practiced by scary countries like Canada, Taiwan, France, England, etc.  Or even that he is willing to pimp out his own cancer diagnosis, while dismissing the healthcare inequality that shames our nation.

We’ll look at what’s really scary after the fold…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

What Rudy’s Halloween health care moment highlights is just how scared American patients should be of any of the Republican candidates, and their “it’s your problem” approach to healthcare.  The lot of them are against universal healthcare-let alone guaranteed healthcare. 

We’d be back to square one: the debate would not be over how to guarantee every American can access the health care they need-but whether poor people really need or deserve healthcare.  The debate would no longer be over whether to replace or regulate insurance companies-but instead how to ensure their ongoing profitability.  The debate wouldn’t be about we-it would just be about he.  We wouldn’t be on a path to guaranteed, single-payer care–we’d see be on a fast track to more pain, suffering, and heartache.

What may be even scarier than Rudy this Halloween?  The trend towards health care credit cards.  Already half of all bankruptcies are medical-related…now you can get all that and 19 per cent interest, also!

The good news is that the activist docs at Physicians for a National Health Program continue their sharp advocacy…and nurses striking in Appalachia over patient care issues are still on the picket line.  Go nurses!

The movement for guaranteed healthcare remains centered this week in California, as plans based on huge public subsidies for insurance corporations wend their way through a special session of the legislature.  The good news?  In-fighting has broken out between Governor Schwarzenegger and some of the Dems in the legislature, making it harder for them to reach the anti-patient compromise they’re shooting for.  RNs and patient advocates, among other groups, continue to monitor the situation and work to ensure that any bills hurting patients are defeated. 

Nationally, the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report looks at the health care angles of the latest Republican Presidential debate.  Seems like they’re more interested in attacking Hillary Clinton than the healthcare crisis.

Clarence Page notes the central confusion over the SCHIP veto:

…the public has been very supportive of Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, for children whose family income is too high for Medicaid but too low to afford private coverage. Nevertheless, the president and his allies are reduced to reminding people that, “Pssst, it’s government health care so you’re supposed to be afraid of it.”

Hopefully, George Bush is right and S-CHIP is the first step towards guaranteeing all people, child or adult, have access to healthcare.

Right now, that’s only true in San Francisco.

Finally, as health insurance takes a bite out of wages, labor unions getting more involved in healthcare issues, and nurses in the Appalachian region Appalachian RNs are striking.  Go, nurses!

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

Great news for the single-payer movement: a majority of state federations of labor have now endorsed guaranteed, single-payer healthcare!  (Well, ok, 25 out of 50, but one of them is MD-DC.)  This follows on the heels of the recent announcement by the national AFL-CIO that they are pushing Medicare for All.  Do not discount how important this is…guaranteed, single-payer healthcare now becomes the only proposal with an organized, powerful constituency pushing for it. 

More labor endorsements are coming every day…Here’s what Oregon has to say:

The resolution continues, “. . . (T)he fundamental principal of the labor movement — that fragmentation leads to weakness while solidarity leads to strength — is a powerful tool that can be applied to create a consolidated, single payer American healthcare system.”

The Rockridge Institute and George Lakoff are also advocating for single-payer healthcare.  They’ve written a very interesting study on the “neo-liberal” biases inherent in how we talk about the debate.  Long story short: the conservatives don’t want you to think of a sick child, they want you to think about the problems with regulating industries like insurance.  Check out their new video…

Don’t forget, Al Gore’s also fighting for single-payer healthcare, and the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association are thanking him for it.

Elsewhere, it seems the public is quite ready to pay for SCHIP.

In case you missed it…HMOs in California?  Not doing such a great job.  But nurses could have told you that.

Finally, when conservatives attack single-payer healthcare, here’s the best they can come up with:

A shift to a single-payer system for all Americans would yield net savings in reported administrative costs of about $100 billion annually, or $2,100 in additional health care benefits for each of the 47 million individuals estimated as uninsured.

Everything else in the article is a bunch of lies written by corporate PR people, so be warned.

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

More than SCHIP, the important action in the movement for guaranteed healthcare is happening in California, where the insurance industry almost pulled off the big scam, getting Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Speaker Fabian Nunez to cooperate on a plan forcing the sale of more expensive, unworkable insurance products-and blocking the guaranteed, single-payer reform this country needs.

Good news!  The Schwarzenegger-Nunez scam is dead!  This is a major victory for progressives, patients, and nurses.  The Dems have figured out how bad a deal Schwarzenegger is offering, and the plan’s main cheerleader Nunez is near-dead politically by revelations that his wife is now on the hospital industry payroll to the tune of six figures, and that he is struggling with a nasty case of luxury shopaholism with donor money.

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

The quick background for those of you who missed it…insurance corporations have set the terms of the debate this year in California, with Schwarzenegger proposing that all individuals be forced to purchase private insurance products, and Nunez and certain corporate Dems countering that all employers be forced to purchase them on behalf of their workforce.  Both plans would give more customers, revenue, and medical influence to the very insurance corporations who have ruined our healthcare system…while doing nothing to actually solve our healthcare crisis.

Everything has changed as a broad coalition of mainstream Dems has realized that Arnold’s plan is unaffordable for the average patient.  Of course it is!  Private insurers waste one-third of care dollars on overhead and profits.  You simply cannot do that and provide people with the care they need.  Of course, any plan built on private insurance corporations is unworkable.

What’s politically significant is that these Dems seem to be making it impossible for the grand Schwarzenegger-Nunez deal to be cut.  Personal attacks on the Governor are not the road to compromise.  Even USA Today noted the failure of the industry plan.

The Dems have hired attack dog Chris Lehane to help beat up the Governor, and he says, “the only way you get a health care plan done in this country is making it more affordable, not less – and this plan doesn’t do that.”

Meanwhile, Barbara O’Connor, a noted political commentator, added “clearly the goal is to define the governor as soft on industry, and it’s not going to resolve the conflict – and so health care will not get out.”

But what really kills the deal is the fact that Speaker Nunez’ wife has just gone on the payroll of the hospital industry, having been hired by a lobbying group funded by the California Hospital Association.  It is quite possible that he will be legally required to recuse himself on all healthcare bills…including the one he is trying to push through with Schwarzenegger.  Even if not, the symbolism of doubling his family income through HMO money leaves him with no credibility on the issue.

Or as Zenei Cortez, RN, put it: “Californians can no longer trust that he will represent the public interest and not the financial interest of a large industry that has put his wife on their payroll.”

Of course you gotta feel for the Nunez family…it’s not easy to fund global luxury travel anymore!

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.