Doctors' Group: Obama's Plan Leaves Mills Uninsured, Boosts Insurers:

[amborin]

Doctors' Group: Obama Plan Leaves Millions Uninsured, Boosts Private Insurers
by Physicians for National Health Program

WASHINGTON - President Obama's health care proposal, preserving as it does a central role for the for-profit, private health insurance industry, is incapable of achieving the kind of universal, comprehensive and affordable reform the country needs, a spokesman for a national doctors' group said Wednesday.

"Regrettably, the president's proposal is built on some of the worst aspects of the Senate bill," said Dr. Quentin Young, national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of 17,000 doctors who support single-payer, Medicare-for-All approach to reform. Young's statement comes on the eve of the president's bipartisan summit in Washington.

"For example, the president's proposal would ship hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry in the form of subsidies," Young said. "And to help finance this, it would impose a new tax on health benefits of workers, especially those in high-cost states.

"Its individual mandate would force millions of middle-income uninsured Americans to buy insurers' skimpy products - insurance policies full of gaps like ever-rising co-pays, deductibles and premiums. Such policies already leave middle-class American families vulnerable to economic hardship and medical bankruptcy in the event of a serious illness like cancer," continued Young, citing a recent study.

"Even so, at least 23 million people would remain uninsured," he said. "We know that being uninsured raises your chance of dying by about 40 percent," he continued, citing another recent study. "That translates into about 23,000 unnecessary deaths each year. As physicians, we find this completely unacceptable."

In short," Young said, "this proposal is an insurance company bonanza, not good, evidence-based health reform.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/24-5

[Donnachaidh]

1. I wish I could k&r this 10000! n/t

[w8liftinglady]

2. K&R-settle for no less than this..

[babyblonde]

3. and

WASHINGTON — A major health insurer that wants to boost rates in California by up to 39 percent was trying to maximize profits by purging its sickest customers while spending millions on exorbitant salaries and retreats for its executives, congressional Democrats said Wednesday.

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said at a hearing on WellPoint Inc. that his panel's investigators had received internal company documents showing that in 2008, 39 company executives received salaries of $1 million or more. And in 2007 and 2008, it spent $27 million for 103 executive retreats, which Democrats said included stays at fancy resorts in Hawaii and Arizona.

"Corporate executives at WellPoint are thriving, but its policyholders are paying the price," said Waxman, D-Calif.

[flyarm]

4. K&RK&RK&RK&R!!!!

[bvar22]

5. There you go again....

"Begrudging" those poor Health Insurance Execs their Millions of Dollars.
I mean, look at all the baseball players!!!

Just because the Health Insurance Industry manufactures NOTHING, and produces NO (value added) WEALTH doesn't mean they don't have the GOD GIVEN AMERICAN RIGHT to make a 20 - 30% PROFIT off the backs of sick people.

Support Obama's Health Insurance Profit Enhancement Bill, because its the "New Democrat" thing to so!

All Hail the "Giant Invisible Hand"...
(that transfers wealth from the Working Class to the Ownership Class.
Reagan would soooo proud of the "New Democrats" and their Health Insurance Profit Protection Plan.



"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone