10 Responses to “What HCAN is really about…”

1. David Priver, MD
   July 10th, 2008 at 5:09 pm

   

   As a long-time activist in medical politics and very much in agreement that the problem lies in the abuses engaged in by private insurance companies, I wonder if it might be time to reconsider the commitment to a single-payer solution. After all, does it really matter how many payers there are, so long as they are carefully regulated as to what they can and/or must do? A good many other countries have achieved universal coverage or nearly so and at the same time permitted private insurance companies to sell things like optional benefit packages. As someone who sits as a liberal-minded physician in doctor’s lounges dominated by competent, but very conservative colleagues, I find it hard to imagine that it will be possible to overcome the negative feelings engendered by phrases such as “single payer”. At the same time, these docs realize that the insurance industry is their enemy and would likely jump on board if we simply changed the emphasis from what it is to a program which would regulate the industry. Let’s face it: what we want is a sensible system which provides quality care for everyone. As a first order of business, we should be sure that what we propose is politically achievable. If all it takes to do that is to change verbiage and get rid of buzz words, let’s consider that alternative.

2. Shelley Trazkovich, M.D.
   July 10th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

   

   We already regulate the insurance industry, but they do what ever they can to hang on to the money, even after 1.5 billion+ dollars of class action settlements to doctors. Let them be Medicare Providers like Trailblazer for the 3% administrative overhead. Let them be insurance for luxuries, like in France. I think plenty of conservative doctors would be glad to be rid of ‘health insurance’ that regulates and controls medicine with profit and multi million, i.e. hundreds of millions dollar CEO salaries and benefits. The US government doesn’t waste money on salaries like that. More doctors favor universal health insurance. We don’t have to say single payer but that is what it must be for the overall system. Show them the HR 676. It is really great.

3. Becky Curry
   July 10th, 2008 at 10:37 pm

   

   so — what’s the plan to co-opt their agenda? — these are all good people — how can we let them know they are not helping?

4. Theresa Welsh
   July 10th, 2008 at 11:54 pm

   

   I don’t understand why single-payer is so often called “not politically feasible.” Why would that be, other than our lawmakers are unwilling to face the wrath of the insurance lobby? All polls on the subject show American, by a majority, want government-funded universal health care. Even a majority of doctors support it. Since this is the solution of choice, the solution that has repeatedly been shown to save the most money and that is guaranteed to cover everyone (unlike “individual mandates”), tell me again why we can’t have it.

   I think one of the best ways to attack the “some people like what they have” line of thinking, is to point out that no matter how good your coverage is with what you have, you can lose it in an instant. The only good coverage is through employer plans, and these disappear when you lose your job. I had a lunch table discussion with co-workers recently and made this point. They just looked at me and had no reply, but a few mumbled, “she’s right.”

   People don’t stay in jobs forever anymore, and where I live (Detroit), the economy is so bad and mortgage defaults so numerous that it’s pretty hard to afford health insurance if you don’t have good coverage on the job. I’ve had to buy my own in the past, and I’ve watched the premiums go higher and higher and the coverage get skimpier until I have to conclude that such “insurance” is not worth the money.

   Michigan has been ruined by the gold-plated health benefits of the auto companies, and my mother and sister never pay a dime with their General Motors retirement benefits. Our auto plants are shuttered, but health care organizations and fancy hospitals are everywhere. But now General Motors is facing bankruptcy, threatening those fabulous benefits, and those of us who did not spend our lives laboring in GM factories have very few options. I’d like to retire, but I’m two years away from Medicare age. Our current healthcare environment has created healthcare haves and healthcare have nots.

   That brings me to attack plan number two, which is all the people who can’t get insurance at any price. They are sick, they are old, or they take Lipitor or went to a psychiatrist seven years ago. All these things mean insurance companies will turn you down. I don’t think many Americans, even those lucky enough to have the gold-plated coverage, find this a fair situation.

   I wonder if all those well-paid medical specialists with offices around Flint (a city devastated by job loss and poverty) will move to the sun belt when General Motors stops paying for health care.

   I know, the pushers of “you can keep what you have” say they will make insurance companies operate more fairly, with community ratings and guaranteed issue. But is that really going to result in affordable prices? Nothing trumps “everyone in, no one out,” and, with single-payer, you’re in automatically when you are born and you’re covered until you die. No insurance company can give us that!

   We need to just keep beating the drums for what works, and keep pointing out what doesn’t work. And we need to keep pointing out those polls. Yes, the results vary depending on how you phrase the question and who you ask, but government-funded universal health care is what people want, and we need to keep pointing that out until these well-meaning idiots get it.

5. Levana
   July 11th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

   

   I would like to invite the readers of this blog to read our statement of common purpose that over 100 groups and thousands of Americans have signed on to.
   http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/about_us/

   If you agree with those principles, then you are welcome to join us. We intend to fight industry lobbyists until all people have quality, affordable health care they can count on.

   I understand that this organization has fought for a long time to solve the health care crisis. I respect and applaud those efforts.

   However, we are simply open to additional solutions that will get us all to same destination. I hope that you can consider this, and realize that we have more in common that separates us.

   I will not comment after this, since I know that I will not change your minds. But, I hope that will spend your efforts promoting your position instead of opposing us.

6. Harriette Seiler
   July 11th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

   

   HCAN is simply another group of tweakers–the people who think band-aids will heal our troubled system. Sadly, they are well-funded tweakers with a hidden pro-market, pro-profits agenda. I am surprised that several respected people and organizations have been taken in–just as our elders and their supporters were taken in by Plan D and privatized Medicare Advantage.

   I am also surprised that Elizabeth Edwards has signed on as a HCAN spokesperson because a private-public insurance system will perpetuate the “two Americas” her husband railed against. US taxpayers should not be giving 20 to 30 cents on every health care dollar to the administrative costs (incl profits) of the health insurers. Insurers are not PROVIDERS. That money could be used for cancer research.

   Deriving their principles from polls, pollsters, PR firms and focus groups, HCAN sounds a lot like AHIP –the public face of the health insurance industry.

   HCAN claims that Americans want “choice” above all. That is not so–Americans want high quality preventive and therapeutic care for every man, woman and child. They want choice of physician and hospital, plus affordability and cost control. They want the end of denials, inequities, endless and confusing paperwork.
   In short, Americans want what HR 676 promises.

   Read the bill at thomas.gov. Urge your rep in Congress to co-sponsor the legislation.

   HR 676 explains how we can fund health care as we now fund fire and police protection. We can care for each other. Now there’s an American value–and we don’t need a focus group to tell us that.

7. Liz B
   July 17th, 2008 at 10:42 pm

   

   I’m puzzled about how DrSteveB correctly points out that HCAN is not advocating any specific health care policy, then goes on to assert that HCAN has taken “single payer off the table” ?

8. Liz B
   July 17th, 2008 at 10:54 pm

   

   worth a read - Richard Kirsch on single payer:

   http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/blog/why_not_single_payer/

9. DrSteveB
   July 17th, 2008 at 11:07 pm

   

   Liz: To answer your first questions… On the one hand, they don’t specificy details of legislation or which current bill or proposal they would support or comes closes to their vision. However, their “poll” and and the content of their message specifies that the private for-profit insurers are to be kept, and the hope is to regulate them better. Single Payer is not an option within their material.

10. Herbert Ginsberg, Santa Rosa, CA
    July 18th, 2008 at 10:44 am

    

    Levana refuses to debate. Keeping in mind the concept of “adverse selection” and competition between the private plans and the public plans is moot; the privates will get the healthy, wealthy, employed and the public plans will get the sick, poor destitute i.e. the public plans will be overwhelmed and underfunded. HCAN makes no mention of single payer or H.R. 676, or extending Medicare for all. Opinion: private health plans are strong supporters of HCAN.