(They certainly are circling. I’m quite confident that John Garamendi, if elected before the health care vote, will stand up for Americans, not the insurance companies. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)
Did you catch the Ed Show yesterday on MSNBC?
I was asked to come on to talk about my past experience with the health insurance sharks who are long on making a profit and short on consumer protection. I said what needs to be said about health care reform: it is irresponsible to force people to pay for insurance if we cannot control the cost of their premiums. As I explained to the Los Angeles Times in a story printed today, this is akin to forcing millions of Americans into an insurance market with sharks circling. They have sharp teeth, and they smell blood. It brings a new perspective on who the “consumers” are in health insurance.
Without effective protections – most importantly a robust public option allowing competition – we will continue to allow administrative and advertising overhead to skyrocket. Otherwise, the insurance companies will be able to charge a captive audience whatever they want for insurance.
Some in Washington are seriously considering penalizing Americans for being unable to afford care in a marketplace that doesn’t control costs. If voters in the 10th Congressional District choose me to be their representative in Congress, let me be clear. I will not vote for any bill that includes the individual mandate unless I am confident that bill offers generous subsidies for Americans struggling to make ends meet and unless that bill includes the public option to provide real competition in the health care marketplace. I regulated the insurance companies for eight years as California’s State insurance Commissioner, and I know those companies well enough to know that we can trust them to put profits before people. They aren’t friends to consumers.
More over the flip…
In California in the first half of this year, according to data provided by the insurance companies to state regulators, PacifiCare denied 39.6 percent of all claims, Cigna 33 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 28 percent and Kaiser 28 percent. 45,000 people died last year in the United States because of a lack of health care coverage. These are not statistics you see in the rest of the industrialized world. Profits ahead of people, greed ahead of the general good is no way to run a health care system.
The proposals outlined by President Obama and most Congressional Democrats are good starting points for health care delivery that I can support. They would make significant strides in lowering costs for individuals and small businesses while providing a consumer-friendly path to universal coverage. However, if the language in the Senate Finance Committee bill comes to my desk for a vote, a bill without a public option that fines people for not being able to afford private insurance, I will vote “No” without hesitation.
Some will read this and say to me, “But John, don’t you think we need to compromise?” I am open to compromise, and that is why I am not demanding Medicare for All, the best solution for our health care woes. I recognize the political realities and want to see real improvement in health care delivery. What I don’t want to do is penalize poor and middle class Americans to guarantee insurance companies have greater profits. We know the public option is likely popular in almost two-thirds of all Congressional districts, including almost all Democratic districts. In CA-10, which I hope to soon represent, it is estimated that 64 percent of the population supports a public option.
Others will ask me, “But John, don’t you want a bipartisan health care bill?” My response to that is this: there are plenty of kind-hearted Republicans in this country who sincerely want health care reform that works. Unfortunately, with few exceptions, elected Republicans in Washington are more interested in stopping health care reform to appease their insurance company benefactors and embarrass President Obama than they are interested in working with the President and Congressional Democrats to make life better for the American people.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson fought tooth and nail to pass Medicare in 1965, the most important improvement in health care delivery in U.S. history, did you know he had the support of 13 Senate and 70 House Republicans? We must come to terms that we now live in a different political climate. Even with the watered down Senate Finance Committee bill, I would be shocked if we managed to find five Republican votes. In this polarized political climate, I am more interested in pursuing the best policies. In the health care debate, that means a comprehensive health care reform package that removes administrative excess, controls prescription drug costs, and ends the shameful practices of denying coverage for those who have preexisting conditions and finding technical reasons to kick people off their insurance when they become sick. That also means making sure the insurance companies know that if they continue profiteering off our suffering, the public will have another option – the public option.
Some pundits and prognosticators will tell you the public option is lost, that we need to accept the tenets of the Senate Finance Committee bill if we want to see health care reform passed this year. Don’t believe them. As I explained at the Democratic Unity Brunch last week in Concord, health care is in the hands of the Democratic activist base, including the many men and women that make up the netroots. You have stood strong on the public option and helped shape the national narrative. Continue contacting your representatives in Congress and tell them no public option is not an option you will support.
I’m convinced we’re winning this fight. Let’s keep up the pressure, and when we get a comprehensive health care bill with a public option on the President’s desk, remember, you helped make it happen.
Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi served two terms as California’s State Insurance Commissioner. As a California State Senator, he served as chair of the Senate Health Committee. For more information, please visit http://www.garamendi.org.