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Sun Nov 01, 2009 at 10:22:05 PST
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(noon. - promoted by ek hornbeck)
The total vacuum of any principled leadership from President Obama, has inevitably produced the most directionless, anti-consumer, Insurance Monopoly boondoggle fraud imaginable -- which is now masquerading before Congress as "reform".
In fact, the Insurance Companies are silently doing cartwheels over this, and stand to jack up rates even more, and fatten their considerable death grip over the American public. The people who bother to read the fine print, like Congressman Dennis Kucinich, know this.
Who's to blame?
Well, for starters, Capitulator-in-Chief Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi (who lied to us, and promised "a robust public option"), Max Baucus, .... and the list goes on and on. In other words, The Democratic Party and it's entire leadership structure (do we have any?) created this fiasco all by themselves -- the same people who also want to keep funding and expanding the Bush Wars, Bailout Goldman Sachs and give them (crooks) your tax money for CEO profits, and who blindly support the unconstitutional Bush U.S. Patriot Act.
Some remarks from Congressman Kucinich:
Speaking to liberal MSNBC anchor Ed Schultz on Friday, Kucinich continued:
They're being mandated to buy private insurance. If you read the bill, the people are going to end up paying -- the insurance companies can raise rates 25 percent right off the bat, if you read the bill."
Schultz encouraged Kucinich to repeat himself on that point.
"It's on page 22 of the bill," he replied. "Right here, it says that rates shall be set at a level that does not exceed 125 percent of the prevailing standard rate for comparable coverage in the individual market. Now ... It's very easy to understand what that means."
"It's not reform," Schultz insisted.
"It means a 25 percent increase, they'll have the ability to execute and since insurance companies have already raised rates for the last four years by double-digits, we can expect -- based on the bill -- another rate increase by the insurance companies."
And what about the so-called "public option"?
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| FreeSociety :: Why The Democrats "Health Reform" Deserves To Be DEFEATED |
Well:
- The Public Option has been designed to only affect less than 2% of the entire population. Everyone else is totally ineligible. In total, perhaps up to 6 million people could qualify. But this accomplishes doodly-squat as far as "pressuring Insurance Companies to lower rates". Nothing of the kind will ever be acheived by this.
The numbers just aren't there to ever do that. You would need to have a public option that was on a level playing field (what a concept!) with Private Insurance policies. We don't even have 1/50th of that. Virtually everyone is now hopelessly condemned to be at the mercy of the same corrupt Private Insurance policies -- in fact they are now mandated by law to be the slaves of these corporations (no choice available), as now enforced by the I.R.S. and Homeland Security. Anyone feel free-er now?
- Furthermore, the public option will cost just as much to consumers anyway by design, (if not more) according to how the Congress set it up.
Under the revised public option, "Pelosi and her team have proposed a plan that would not make payments for care based on Medicare rates ..."
CBS News's John Nichols noted. "Rather, under the Pelosi plan, the rates will be tied to those of the big insurance companies. That's a big, big victory for the insurance industry, as it will undermine the ability of the public option to compete -- and to create pressure for reduced costs."
Now recall that the original goal (during the campaign) was to give every American, through the public option, the chance to have the same Insurance program that U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senators, and Presidents get. That was the goal. That was the whole point. So did we get anywhere remotely close to that? Instead, we just get the mere shadow of a public option, that applies to almost no one, and will cost as much or more than the private Insurance plans anyway by design -- which have now also just been licensed by Congress to now rise by an additional 25%.
Is this reform? Of course not.
Is this change we can believe in?
It's a sham from beginning to end.
But wait.....it gets even worse. Much worse!
"Representative Kucinich was livid when he found out that his provision to allow states to create a single payer system was stripped," News Junkie Post noted. "Kucinich's amendment passed the House Labor and Education Committee in July. 'No one gave me any rational reason,' Kucinich said. 'I can only assume the insurance company interests brought pressure to take it out. Otherwise I would have heard from someone.'
"The [committee] vote was 25 to 19, with support coming from an odd mix of liberal Democrats who support single-payer on its merits and conservative Republicans who want to preserve the rights of states to regulate themselves," The Washington Independent noted at the time.
"The removal of the Kucinich amendment constitutes yet another capitulation to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries who are already reaping billions of dollars from the bill," reads a statement from the congressman's office on Thursday.
Link:
So, the one single, sole component of the House Bill here that had a chance of actually allowing for any change to actually occur in our lives (if States were to decide upon that), was silently stripped right out of the bill by fiat (no vote was allowed), and with no explanation or justification provided by Nancy Pelosi (sellout) or anyone else.
Now, I know what some people, and certaintly too many politicians, still may be thinking: but haven't we heard about how this bill is still a good thing, despite primarily fattening the wallets of Insurance Companies, simply because it will end "preexisting conditions", and therefore the Insurance companies cannot deny you care anymore?
Answer: good luck with that. Not really.
All the Democrats did here, was have a small fine imposed to Insurance companies if they elected to drop coverage due to preexisting conditions. That fine is something like 10 thousand dollars. Now, consider that the cost of extensive surgeries and medical tests will cost Insurance companies hundreds of thousands of dollars, just how much of a threat then is that tiny fine over the heads of the Insurance companies -- if it is even enforceable (and by whom?) to begin with? The truth is that, this is just merely window dressing for PR purposes, that looks good, but in reality it will not prevent Insurance companies from doing what they want, whenever they want, to who they want, according their own bottom line profits, anyway. If it is cheaper to just pay the fine, then that's what they will in fact do, and the coverage will be happily denied anyway.
Business as usual we can believe in.
This is not reform.
It is a step backwards in almost every single respect for consumers.
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