16 December 2009
Three Groups of Service Providers Block Healthcare Reform
The health care reform bills in the U.S. Congress have turned out to be, in fact, health care insurance reform bills, despite the charges that the bill’s Democratic drafters have caved to pressure from the insurance industry. As Darcy Burner points out on the December 16, 2009 Alternet website (www.alternet.org), the Senate bill only gets a passing grade for fixing insurance company injustices (like pre-existing conditions, etc.) while failing to bring down the cost of insurance coverage, to raise the effectiveness of health care, or to guarantee an improvement in any of those areas in the next twenty years.
There are three groups of service providers who have an interest in preventing true health care reform:
1) Health care providers who need to cover their expenses and assure a profit on their operations: hospitals and doctors. They all operate within a program of incentives that rewards them for providing services rather than for attaining good healthcare results. One of the most egregious examples of this incentive muddle is the ownership of imaging and other diagnostic laboratories by doctors.
2) Trial lawyers, who are among the smartest and wealthiest contributors to politicians on all sides of the issue. They protect their lucrative medical liability business by convincing consumers, and their representatives in Congress, that an individual’s health is better assured in the courtroom than in consultation with his health care provider.
3) Oh, and insurance companies who must protect their profit if they are to stay in business financing the expense of our totally overpriced and inefficient health care system.
The American political culture will never achieve needed health care reform if voices, such as Ms. Burner’s or Howard Dean’s, don’t keep harping on the weaknesses of whatever legislation can be adopted by the Congress as an initial step. That should be their role, while the role of those in office and of the President is to get something on the books now. The Burners and Deans must keep the pressure on for improvements in reform to occur in the future. Our democratic system is not easy.
The health care reform bills in the U.S. Congress have turned out to be, in fact, health care insurance reform bills, despite the charges that the bill’s Democratic drafters have caved to pressure from the insurance industry. As Darcy Burner points out on the December 16, 2009 Alternet website (www.alternet.org), the Senate bill only gets a passing grade for fixing insurance company injustices (like pre-existing conditions, etc.) while failing to bring down the cost of insurance coverage, to raise the effectiveness of health care, or to guarantee an improvement in any of those areas in the next twenty years.
There are three groups of service providers who have an interest in preventing true health care reform:
1) Health care providers who need to cover their expenses and assure a profit on their operations: hospitals and doctors. They all operate within a program of incentives that rewards them for providing services rather than for attaining good healthcare results. One of the most egregious examples of this incentive muddle is the ownership of imaging and other diagnostic laboratories by doctors.
2) Trial lawyers, who are among the smartest and wealthiest contributors to politicians on all sides of the issue. They protect their lucrative medical liability business by convincing consumers, and their representatives in Congress, that an individual’s health is better assured in the courtroom than in consultation with his health care provider.
3) Oh, and insurance companies who must protect their profit if they are to stay in business financing the expense of our totally overpriced and inefficient health care system.
The American political culture will never achieve needed health care reform if voices, such as Ms. Burner’s or Howard Dean’s, don’t keep harping on the weaknesses of whatever legislation can be adopted by the Congress as an initial step. That should be their role, while the role of those in office and of the President is to get something on the books now. The Burners and Deans must keep the pressure on for improvements in reform to occur in the future. Our democratic system is not easy.
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