Again, we are confronted with the ongoing fallout from the administration's early decision to cut off at the knees all discussion of expanding Medicare to everyone.
This is what we will be fighting bitterly over for years into the future; just how much sheer profit off of Americans' illnesses that Big Health Insurance and Big Pharma can steal for themselves.
But for the lack of political will, people will continue to face hardship and suffering far into the foreseeable future.
And the real tragedy is that it did not have to be this way.
From the
NY Times:
October 6, 2010
.....
These early exemptions offer the first signs of how the administration may tackle an even more difficult hurdle: the resistance from insurers and others against proposed regulations that will determine how much insurers spend on consumers’ health care versus administrative overhead, a major cornerstone of the law.
Several leading insurers, including WellPoint, Aetna and Cigna, have also objected to new rules requiring them to cover even those children who are seriously ill, warning that they will stop selling new policies in some states because the rules do not protect them from having to cover too many sick children.
“The hardest part of health reform is always going to be the transition,” said Peter T. Harbage, a former state health official who is a policy consultant in Sacramento. He predicts more insurers and employers will lean on the government to delay or weaken the new regulations. “I think this pressure just increases until we get to 2014,” he said, referring to the year that the law will fully go into effect.
How much the administration can, or should, compromise in ways that could dilute the effect of the new law in the next few years is a subject of much debate, depending on the politics from state to state or the economic dynamics in a particular market.
.....
According to the article, McDonald's, Aetna, Cigna have received waivers; HealthMarkets is planning to apply for them. Multiple states are also seeking to obtain waivers to protect small insurance carriers in their states, to protect against their pulling out coverage in these states.
The new standards may prove a challenge to the administration in its attempt to protect the limited-benefit plans. Under the legislation, insurers are required to spend at least 85 cents of every dollar in premiums on the welfare of their customers, and many of these plans spend far less.
.....
The struggle to stop insurers from dropping child-only coverage illustrates the limited power that the administration, and some states, may have to pressure companies to participate. While federal officials have tried to address the concerns by insurers that the rules allow parents to wait until their children are sick to sign up, some insurers have remained reluctant to commit to the market.
While states like California can force their hands by passing legislation requiring any insurer who plans to sell policies in the new exchanges to also sell child-only policies, other states have little recourse other than to try to persuade insurers to stay.
.....
And politics surrounding the health care law may intrude. In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican and a potential 2012 presidential candidate who has long opposed the law, has become the target of accusations that he is stonewalling discussions over certain types of coverage. (He has already refused federal money for rate reviews and to set up the 2014 exchanges.)
.....
Medicare For All was, is, and will continue to be the solution to this cl*$*@#$&*!.
But we are saddled with politicians who are paid handsomely NOT to notice it.