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Senate Health Care: Uninsured Forced To Pay Corporations
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by nanute | December 16, 2009 at 01:12 pm
175 views | 4 Recommendations | 1 comment
Critics of the Senate version of health care reform are charging that Americans will be required by law, to pay private corporations for health insurance. Furthermore, critics are laying the blame squarely on the shoulders of Senator Joesph Lieberman, I. CT., and to a lesser extend on Senator Ben Nelson D., Ne. Senator Lieberman is being singled out for his insistence that the Senate Bill does not have a public option, and does not allow citizens age 50 or older that cannot buy insurance to participate in Medicare. The net effect of the legislation will be to have citizens purchase insurance from private insurers, with the premiums collected by the US Government.
20% of your labor belongs to Aetna
Consider, first of all, this fact. The bill, if it became law, would legally require a portion of Americans to pay more than 20% of the fruits of their labor to a private corporation in exchange for 70% of their health care costs.
Consider a family of 4 making $66,150–a family at 300% of the poverty level and therefore, hypothetically, at least, “subsidized.” That family would be expected to pay $6482.70 (in today’s dollars) for premiums–or $540 a month. But that family could be required to pay $7973 out of pocket for copays and so on. So if that family had a significant–but not catastrophic–medical event, it would be asked to pay its insurer almost 22% of its income to cover health care. Several months ago, I showed why this was a recipe for continued medical bankruptcy (though the numbers have changed somewhat). But here’s another way to think about it. Senate Democrats are requiring middle class families to give the proceeds of over a month of their work to a private corporation–one allowed to make 15% or maybe even 25% profit on the proceeds of their labor.
It’s one thing to require a citizen to pay taxes–to pay into the commons. It’s another thing to require taxpayers to pay a private corporation, and to have up to 25% of that go to paying for luxuries like private jets and gyms for the company CEOs.
Furthermore, it is alleged that a middle class family of four will pay approximately 9.5% of income for insurance under the current plan. If this family experiences a catastrophic event the estimates rise to approximately 22% of income.
Former DNC Chair Dr. Howard Dean publicly called for the Congress to start over and not pass the bill in its current form. Democrats seem reluctant to take that approach and signals from the Obama Administration seem to be more critical of Howard Dean's comments, when it could be argued that Senator Lieberman is the problem.
If Democrats pass this bill as dictated by less than a handful of Senators that appear to have been heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical and private health insurers, Americans will hold them accountable for this sell out to the corporations of America. Just think about this: What happens if in the future, Blue Cross is purchased by a foreign country? Americans will be paying a foreign company for their health insurance.
And, finally, while the Senate bill does not accord these corporate CEOs a droit de seigneur–the right to a woman’s virginity the night of her marriage–if Ben Nelson (and Bart Stupak) get their way, it would make a distinction in this entire compact for how the property of a woman’s womb shall be treated. source firedoglake.com
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Recommendations (4)
Hugh Askew
Omaha, Nebraska, United States
a211423
Clearlake, California, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 13:29 on December 16th, 2009
Thanks nanute for furthering the argument.
I have not considered that an American Health Insurance company could be bought by, say China? This definitely puts a new spin on the possibilities of insurance companies without controls or real competition. The insurances exchanges are included in the bill, but they are not as good as the public option or the Medicare at 55 proposal.
I already commented on smk's post, and I will post it here as well.
How much do we have to give up for expediency?
Some liberal Democrats from small states feared that Medicare buy in for 55 year olds would adversly effect those who are 65+ in their states because of the availibility of care. Because of the "panic" that set in, the provision to add on additional benefits for those states became a footnote. There is the notion now that this bill has to be passed before Christmas. Why? I think this is one of the basic questions Dean is asking now that the bill has been watered down in favor of the insurance companies.
This administration wants this finished by January, so they can move on to jobs and other issues. I think the question is valid to ask. How much should we be prepared to give up for expediency?