Watching the health care summit made me ill

It's a good thing that I have (outrageously expensive) private health insurance. Because I suffered through frequent bouts of Nauseated by Bullshit Political Posturing Syndrome while watching -- off and on -- Obama's health care summit today.

Of course, if I sought care for my affliction, Blue Cross likely would find some way to deny coverage. After all, everyone knows that the main goal of health insurance companies is to provide as little health care to their subscribers as possible in order to maximize profits.

This is why I have a lot of sympathy for Jack Bogdanski's take on the current Democratic health care reform legislation. He's right. The proposals discussed at the summit basically supply the health insurance industry with tens of millions of new customers, who they can proceed to screw over just as they do with their current victims.

But Obama also is right: doing nothing is worse than doing something imperfect. I'm not wild about the President's health care reform proposal. It doesn't go far enough toward freeing Americans from the wasteful, inefficient, bureaucratic nightmare of private insurance plans.

However, watching bits and pieces of the health care summit today convinced me that following Republicans over the cliff of Do Nothing would be much worse for our country. As Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post business columnist, said today, "At summit, Republicans prove they aren't putting America's health first."

The most important thing Republicans think is that if there are Americans who can't afford the insurance policies that private insurers are willing to offer, then that's their problem -- there's nothing the government or the rest of us should do about it.

...That was their clear message Thursday. It was their message during all those years when their party controlled Congress and the White House and they did nothing and said nothing about the plight of the uninsured. And it is clear that they would continue to do nothing if, by some miracle, Democrats were to drop their plan or embark on a more modest approach. For Republicans, the uninsured remain invisible Americans, out of sight and out of mind.

For me, the most sickening part of the summit was Republican Rep. John Boehner's purely political grandstanding. Listening to him tell lie after lie, spewing out every bullet point in the Republicant's do nothing playbook, solidified my support for Obama's plan -- because whatever the hugely irritating Boehner is against, I'm for it.

Pleasingly, Obama nailed him. 

I'm glad that I was only able to watch an hour or so of the day-long health care summit. Any more, and I might have gone over the edge and given in to an urge to contribute to the Organizing for America health insurance reform effort.

I've been fighting that urge, because I figure that it is up to Obama and the large Democratic majority in Congress to carry out what they were elected to do last November: fight for the average American against special interests.

If you want to see some Democratically-tilted highlights of the summit, the Daily Kos has a selection, as does the Huffington Post.

[Update: Organizing for America now has a good review of summit highlights, or lowlights, if you're a fervent Republican't.]

Comments

[Rain]

It is disgusting. I am maddest at all the unthinking right wing robots who follow these bozos and support them to their own detriment and that of their neighbors. It's an exercise in madness to try to follow their logic.

[Danno]

So if you don't like your insurance company, then why don't you just drop your coverage? Just pay for your medical expenses with cash. I know of doctors that will charge less for a cash payer than an insurance patient. That way you can thumb your nose at the profit mongers.

[Blogger Brian]

Danno, that's like saying I don't like my fire insurance company, so if my house burns down I'll just pay for my rebuilding expenses with cash.

Except...oops, I don't have enough cash for that. This is the purpose of insurance: to guard against unlikely, but expensive, problems/catastrophes.

None of us knows if we are going to need expensive medical care at some point. Cancer, heart disease, or whatever can strike even the seemingly healthy.

So I'm afraid your idea, though it makes sense in some ways, won't work for those who want their health insurance to guard against going bankrupt from a major medical problem.

[Danno]

Well I guess that is kind of my point. All this hub bub on in DC about health care reform seems to be of an urgent need to insure 30 million people that don't have coverage. A good percentage of these people don't want to pay for insurance anyway. They know if they get hurt or sick, they can go to any hospital and not be denied health care, regardless if they can pay, or have insurance. The heartstrings are being pulled with the individuals that didn't have coverage, or adequate coverage. Now if all the sudden they are diagnosed with cancer, or any other disease that is expensive to treat, they suddenly have a need to be "insured". But it's too late. It's not insurance if the condition is already there. There is no "chance" of it happening... it is merely a desire to finance a condition at this point. At one time the laws of Washington made it possible to get insurance after having a baby, and retro the benefit back to the beginning. How is that insurance?

I just think part of the solution might be to cut it to the underlying costs of services rendered. Cut out the middle man of insurance, and work on removing the things that cause health care to be so expensive.

[Mort]

Nice post, but Brian is not interested in fixing insurance by getting rid of the state mandates, buying across state lines or working on some tort reform as most of the people have been asking for. He just wants to praise Obama and have government hold everyones hand and make the sun shine. He would seem to be happier in Cuba or some other wonderful place where government takes care of all the peoples needs. It's just strange to me that people die trying to get out of those wonderful places to come here, sorry I guess I am confused.