Back in the Seventies, a Monty Python skit about the Spanish Inquisition portrayed a hapless woman charged with multiple heresies and subjected to the tortures of the “comfy chair.” (See video at right.) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) must think himself a comic as he pastes up a health care reform package that slams insurance companies down hard into a featherbed of obscene profits and unfettered monopolies. Trouble is, Reid’s skit isn’t funny.
I’ve got to admit that Reid and the insurance companies put on a good show. “Oh, noooo,” insurance lobbyists shriek as Reid tacks giveaway after giveaway onto his bill to sweeten the pot for Blue Cross, United HealthCare and Cigna. They all hope their protestations will divert your attention from the fact that Reid has sucked all reform out of the legislation. Despite their screaming and yelling, all for effect, the insurance companies want his bill passed. They want it bad.
Remember how the President and the congressional reformers promised to see to it that every American has health insurance and access to quality medical care? Remember when most Democrats were promising a single payer system? Then a public option? An end to pre-existing conditions and annual/lifetime caps on benefits? It wasn’t that long ago.
Well, you’re getting none of that. No, instead you’re getting the shaft. Like every time before, they win and you lose.
The single payer system got axed before the ink dried on the President’s lease on the White House. The words “single payer” have not passed his lips since his inauguration. Every time he’s opened his mouth and you thought he was about to say “single payer,” something like “public option” or “bipartisan support” came out. Now, “public option” has disappeared from his lexicon as well.
We just can’t have a public option. Harry Reid says that Joe Lieberman won’t let us. Ah, but don’t despair… Joe will let us have some kind of cockeyed not-for-profit quasi bullshit thing operated by “for profit” insurance companies which will be just as good as a robust public option. Kinda like the way tofu breasts taste just like chicken. Hey… I didn’t know tofus had breasts either, but that’s what the package at the health food store said. “Tofu Breast. Tastes Just Like Chicken.” (Monday Morning Update: Now Joe says he won’t let you have this either. Evidently, he’s withholding his vote until the bill calls for sick poor people to caddy for the insurance execs.)
Pre-existing conditions? Well, those are banned by Harry’s bill… well, except that the bill provides that insurers can establish different rates for different people using sound actuarial principles. Lies are banned, but terminological inexactitudes are okay… as long as they’re based on sound lying principles.
Okay, you say… but what about expanding Medicare eligibility to those 55 and older. Yippee! Punch those insurance companies again with the soft pillow! The insurance companies don’t want to insure senior citizens, even senior citizens that are healthy right now. Older folks have a way of becoming unexpectedly not so healthy. The insurance companies are itching to get them off their rolls, and now they can.
Still, it’ll be a good deal for those seniors who currently don’t have health insurance and who stand to be tripped up by those pre-existing conditions we did away with (fingers crossed). Right? Well, maybe not. The premiums won’t be anything like the premiums paid by those 65 and older. No, no, no. They’ll be more. A lot more. So much more that damn few seniors who need this coverage will be able to afford it.
Yeah, it’s dismal, but at least the bill provides for universal coverage. Well, not really universal coverage … not in the sense of meaning “everybody” or anything like that. But, it will require some 30 million of America’s 45 million uninsured to buy policies from private insurance companies, whether they can afford it or not. Bring on the comfy chairs!
“Oh no… oh nooooooo… thirty million more people are going to buy our lousy coverage and pay our princely premiums,” protest the lobbyists. “Please, no more comfy chair! Please, stop!”
Still, that will leave 15 million people out in the cold. Soon, they’ll be joined outside by those in the 30 million target market group who just can’t pay the premiums. Penalty or no penalty, many just won’t be able to pay.
Harry Reid and his Democrat caucus tell us that we must support this bill because we “can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” It’s a crock. In this case we can’t let the lousy… the low down bought-and-paid-for crummy… the opposite of everything we voted for in the last election… be the slayer of the whole concept of reform.
It’s hard to think about health care reform at Christmas time. Unless, of course, you’re an insurance lobbyist expecting a whopping bonus, a paid off politician toting fat campaign contributions to the bank, or an uninsured person wondering how you’re gonna get the treatment you need to stay alive. Still, you need to buck up and make yourself think about it. It could be you standing in line for that dialysis machine.
Call your senators. Call your senators something ugly if they support Harry’s bill. We need to start this conversation over and demand the reform we voted for.
It’s time to demand our turn in the comfy chairs. We’ve spent enough time between the rock and the hard place.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Why are so many Democrats supporting this bill? They act like this is the only kind of bill they can get passed. Most Americans want a single payer system or at the very least a strong public option. The kind of bill we want and need can be passed through the reconcilation process with only 50 votes and that is what Senate Democrats ought to be doing.
Well said………..