There will be plenty of posts about the details of the cost-cutting proposals today, and plenty of posts about the immediate political intermingling. But let's step back and look at the broader political implications of the staged event at the White House. "Voluntarily," Obama will say today, he's brought together the major health care stakeholders -- or most of them -- to promise cost cuts, yes, but actualy, let's end the sense at "stakeholders." The President of the United States was able to get the major union associated with health care and the major lobby associated with health insurance companies to come together, under his aegis, at an event that White House hopes will be the public kick off of the president's engagement with Congress as its committees write the health care bill. "This fundamentally allies these groups with
the President's goal of getting health care reform this year and
that's a game changer, in our opinion," a senior administration official told reporters last night. "And it makes clearer than
ever that health care reform is going to happen this year in Congress."
This convention has been in the works for a week, and its existence has
been a secret of sorts even to many White House officials. The worry
was that if news leaked that these groups were going to participate,
they'd receive intense internal pressure -- or pressure from their
ideological compatriots -- to withdraw their participation.
This
is the brainchild of Nancy Anne DeParle, the White House health care
czar. Her approach to reform is quite different than the route
preferred by former Sen. Tom Daschle, who had definite ideas and would
have been less of an honest broker and more of a shaper, a crafter. De
Parle has convinced the White House that the devil is not in the
details, even though she knows -- and they know -- that the details of
what comes out of Congress to matter. The White House favors some sort
of public plan option, but it has not (as of yet) told members of
Congress how big that plan should be, whether it should immediately
complete with health insurers, and whether there should be more than
one. This has pleasantly surprised the business community, mollified
the insurance industry, and worried the unions, who want a public,
competitive government health care option immediately, knowing that its
leverage would essentially end the employer-based health care system
within a decade.
Why would unions want a national health care plan? Wouldn't they lose the ability to offer health care to their members?
The health industry profiteers will never allow a public insurance option. They know they could never compete with what the government could offer.
So there will be no true 'reform'.
America will maintain its third world for-profit health care system along with all the other third world nations, because that's all we are any more...a third world country with a bloated military.
3rd world? I've been on medical volunteer trips to 3rd world countries. Please don't try and make an argument through grandiose exaggerations. There is a lot to discuss about health care in the US, but calling it 3rd world is not only asinine, it's insulting.
I'm suspect but I have to say it put a smile on my face to see these six groups come together this way at the White House. Personally, I don't think profit has any place in healthcare and would prefer a single-payer system. Still, it would be great to make a start this year though Congress will need to pass legislation that holds these "profiteers'" feet to the fire. We've lived what they've done to us already; they're not to be trusted as good-will volunteers.
Debbie, I agree they aren't to be trusted, and they quite obviously aren't in it for for good will. However, I believe a lot of people overlook some of the pitfalls of a government run system. First, while we pay a lot for our health care, ours is one of the last, major venues for drug research and discovery, because we pay for that R&D. Many European giv't-run health care systems won't pay for risky/experimental trials, and research suffers accordingly. Also, I worry about giving the government the ability to choose treatments for me. At some point, people will begin to realize that one of the major costs to the health care system is end of life care, and one of the ways other countries avoid this is by not allowing/paying for Doctors to exercise every option available if it isn't "cost effective". But I do hope that these groups getting together is a good sign, because there are other wasteful ways that can be eliminated to help streamline costs.