By Patti Singer
Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat And Chronicle
November 6, 2009

The day before the much-anticipated vote on health care reform in the House of Representatives, Eric Massa, D-Corning, said that the Affordable Health Care for America Act gives too much to the insurance industry, doesn’t do enough to control costs, and he can’t support it.

“At the highest level this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry,” Massa said in a telephone news conference this morning. “There’s no other way to look at it.”

Massa said that the bill “fails to address the fundamental question before the American people, and that is, how do you control the costs of health care?”

Speaking in strong, deliberate tones, Massa said that the bill also does not address ways to incorporate medical malpractice reform or ways to reduce or eliminate waste and fraud. “Since it doesn’t address those cost factors, I do not understand how it will help the American people.” He also reiterated his concerns over the constitutionality of a mandate for people to purchase insurance.

He said that H.R. 3962 may provide more access to insurance in the short-term for some Americans. “But at the end of the day, I believe we put our system in peril for the majority.” Massa said he remains committed to a government role in facilitating greater access to health care.

On Thursday, it was reported that Rep. Chris Lee, R-Clarence, Erie County would vote no, Rep. Dan Maffei, D-DeWitt, Onondaga County, was undecided and Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, would vote for the bill.

Massa said he had spent the past week studying 1,990-page H.R. 3962 (http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf) and was not aware of positions of other Democrats or how his dissenting vote would reflect on the upstate delegation. “I speak for myself. … Everybody loves an independent member of Congress, until you’re independent.”

The freshman congressman also said he would not be swayed by an expected audience on Saturday with President Barack Obama, who has put health care reform atop his domestic agenda. “I have respect for the chief executive, but I don’t work for him. I work for people of the 29th Congressional District.”

This summer, Massa stirred emotions when he said that he would vote against the interest of his district if he felt that what he was doing was helpful. At the time, he was referring to H.R. 3200.

“That’s what leadership is all about,” he said, not going in the direction of “whoever’s yelling at you. If you’re not strong in confidence, you should never get involved in representative democracy.”

By Donna Smith
November 7, 2009

So, I wake this morning to see that Speaker Pelosi lied again about why she just could not allow a single-payer amendment to survive the legislative effort in the House on healthcare reform.

Early in the week she said that she couldn’t let the Kucinich amendment survive because it broke the President’s promise that “you can keep what you have if you like it.” See my blog on Michael Moore’s Mike & Me blog for my remarks on that subject.

So, out went the amendment voted into the bill with those ever-prized bi-partisan votes that would have allowed states whose voters and lawmakers pass single-payer plans to be granted necessary federal waivers to do so (read that again, folks, lest you miss the House’s direct squelching of the right you have in our own states to determine the best policy).

Then yesterday we read that praise-worthy as Anthony Weiner’s single-payer substitute amendment was–the one promised to a vote by Speaker Pelosi last July–that it just couldn’t be offered because that would mean the Speaker would have to allow other amendments too–like the abortion funding amendment.

Sorry, she told Mr. Weiner, but I have to be fair about this. The fluttering began and they all praised one another for being so damned agreeable.

Pelosi praises Weiner.

But read it, don’t weep. She’s decided–as Gomer Pyle would say “Surprise, surprise, surprise…”–to allow right-wing crazies another shot in offering their anti-abortion funding amendment.

I say don’t weep because at some point you actually get mad enough to call them out. If an anti- reproductive rights funding amendment becomes law in this bill, it is a slap in the face to so many various groups that it isn’t to be believed. The Republicans and the Blue Dogs do their own big share of lying when they pretend to care about life. Come on, we all know that’s just not reality.

So long as they are passing laws on the federal level that allow 45,000 people to die every year in this nation because they have not been allowed to receive the healthcare that was available to those with the means to pay for it, these folks have no claim to any right to life at all. And so long as they are passing laws on the federal level that allow me and millions of others to go bankrupt even with the health insurance they are forcing us all to buy, they have no claim to protecting my hard work and effort to achieve my own American dream.

Tell the truth, at least. This is all about protecting power and re-election and the money that fuels that process. Damn the people. They’ll just plan to buy us back to the polls with the crappy campaign ads that will commence shortly after the last chorus of “Jingle Bells” in December. And the insurance companies are going to have a very happy holiday season indeed.

Donna Smith is a community organizer for California Nurses Association and national co-chair of PDA’s Healthare NOT Warfare campaign.

By Patti Singer
Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat And Chronicle
November 6, 2009

The day before the much-anticipated vote on health care reform in the House of Representatives, Eric Massa, D-Corning, said that the Affordable Health Care for America Act gives too much to the insurance industry, doesn’t do enough to control costs, and he can’t support it.

“At the highest level this bill will enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry,” Massa said in a telephone news conference this morning. “There’s no other way to look at it.”

Massa said that the bill “fails to address the fundamental question before the American people, and that is, how do you control the costs of health care?”

Speaking in strong, deliberate tones, Massa said that the bill also does not address ways to incorporate medical malpractice reform or ways to reduce or eliminate waste and fraud. “Since it doesn’t address those cost factors, I do not understand how it will help the American people.” He also reiterated his concerns over the constitutionality of a mandate for people to purchase insurance.

He said that H.R. 3962 may provide more access to insurance in the short-term for some Americans. “But at the end of the day, I believe we put our system in peril for the majority.” Massa said he remains committed to a government role in facilitating greater access to health care.

On Thursday, it was reported that Rep. Chris Lee, R-Clarence, Erie County would vote no, Rep. Dan Maffei, D-DeWitt, Onondaga County, was undecided and Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, would vote for the bill.

Massa said he had spent the past week studying 1,990-page H.R. 3962 (http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_ahcaa.pdf) and was not aware of positions of other Democrats or how his dissenting vote would reflect on the upstate delegation. “I speak for myself. … Everybody loves an independent member of Congress, until you’re independent.”

The freshman congressman also said he would not be swayed by an expected audience on Saturday with President Barack Obama, who has put health care reform atop his domestic agenda. “I have respect for the chief executive, but I don’t work for him. I work for people of the 29th Congressional District.”

This summer, Massa stirred emotions when he said that he would vote against the interest of his district if he felt that what he was doing was helpful. At the time, he was referring to H.R. 3200.

“That’s what leadership is all about,” he said, not going in the direction of “whoever’s yelling at you. If you’re not strong in confidence, you should never get involved in representative democracy.”

By Rhonda Swan
Palm Beach Post
Thursday, November 05, 2009

Perhaps “death panels” weren’t such a bad idea.

For private health insurance companies.

If ever there was a useless entity, it’s a business that earns profits for doing nothing.

Wait. I take that back. They do something. They decide who lives and who dies. Paper-pushers with no medical training choose what is and isn’t medically necessary for millions of people on whom they’ve never laid eyes. And for that, their employers rake it in.

United Health Group reported net income of nearly $3 billion in 2008; Aetna Inc. reported $1.3 billion, Humana Inc. came in at $647 million. Their CEOs had total compensation of $3.2 million, $24.3 million and $4.7 million, respectively. Their profits were down sharply compared with 2007 because of the recession. Still, it’s not a bad haul for being nothing more than middlemen.

“What product does this industry sell?” Dr. Howard A. Green, director of the dermatology division at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, asked in an interview. “They don’t do health care, they don’t do access to health care because we have so many uninsured and underinsured. They remove too much money from health care, and therefore make it inefficient and ineffective.”

In an article for On Call: The Journal of Palm Beach County Medical Society, Dr. Green maintains that shutting down private health insurance corporations is the first step to creating comprehensive quality health care. “Without the inefficiencies and burden to productivity of private insurance corporations,” he wrote, “we can deliver efficient and effective comprehensive health care with great savings and no sacrifice of jobs.”

The U.S. House is expected today to take up the 2,032-page health reform bill proposed by Democrats. A national insurance plan is a key element, though this version is far from the single-payer Medicare for All program that Dr. Green and Physicians for a National Health Program endorse.

Such a plan, which eliminates private profits, would be real reform. Yet it hasn’t even come up for discussion, not this year or in 1994 under President Clinton, the last administration to attempt reform. No one in the White House or Congress has had the guts to take on private insurers, even though they clearly are the problem.

The major reform proposals focus more on private insurers than actual health care delivery. Forcing insurers to cover sick people. Getting insurers to compete and lower costs. Doling out subsidies to insurers so we can afford their high prices.

Why not just get rid of them? All they do is take our money and then show us the hand when we expect something in return like … medical treatment.

Opponents of the so-called public option say they fear a “government takeover” of health care that would put private insurers out of business. So what!

The fact that we are the very government that would “take over” our health care system under which doctors and hospitals would remain private gets lost.

As does the fact that we are a capitalist society where businesses that can’t compete go out of business every day. And for-profit insurers just can’t compete.

A Harvard Medical School and Public Citizen study found that health insurance bureaucracy – billing, sales and marketing, profits and executive pay, which have nothing to do with health care – costs $399.4 billion a year. Money that could insure every American.

Insurers also spend millions legally bribing Congress and the White House to protect their profits. But who is protecting us from them? Harvard researchers found that medical problems caused 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies in 2007. Of those, 60 percent had private medical insurance. “It’s unethical,” said Dr. Green. “It’s a crime to bankrupt someone because they’re sick.”

It should be. Private insurance companies are too big, too inefficient and too heartless not to fail.

Rhonda Swan is an editorial writer for The Palm Beach Post. Her e-mail address is rhonda_swan@pbpost.com

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2009/11/05/a14a_swancol_1106.html

By David M. Herszenhorn
New York Times
Prescriptions Blog
November 6, 2009

Representative Anthony D. Weiner, Democrat of New York, a fierce champion in Congress of a single-payer health system that would be fully run by the government, said Friday that he had agreed not to insist on a vote on that issue, in an effort to help Democratic leaders pass their plan.

Previously, Mr. Weiner had obtained a commitment from Speaker Nancy Pelosi to allow a vote on a proposal to create a single-payer system like the one used by Canada and many countries in Europe, including England, France and Spain.

Single-payer supporters form a large bloc among liberal Democrats, although there has not been enough broader backing to make the idea politically viable. So Mr. Weiner’s proposal would almost certainly have been defeated, although it would have enabled those liberal Democrats to demonstrate their continuing support for a single-payer system.

But as House Democratic leaders struggle to round up the votes they need to pass their health care legislation, Mr. Weiner said in an interview that it was clear that forcing a vote on the single-payer issue would be counterproductive and could endanger support for the bill at a critical juncture.

Mr. Weiner’s decision to sacrifice the measure also signaled that Democratic leaders may be struggling even harder behind the scenes than they have acknowledged to win votes for the health care legislation. Another sign was a decision to postpone a visit by President Obama to Capitol Hill until Saturday, allowing his personal appeal to have maximum impact on lawmakers as close to the actual vote as possible.

The Democrats’ legislation, which is supported by Mr. Obama, relies on continuing the existing system of mostly employer-sponsored health benefits. The bill seeks to cover 36 million uninsured Americans by expanding Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, and by providing government subsidies to moderate-income Americans to help them buy insurance. The subsidies could be used for government-approved private health plans or for a new government-run insurance plan — the so-called public option — that would complete with private insurers.

“I feel very strongly that the employer-based model is not the way to go and single-payer is the better way,” Mr. Weiner said in an interview. “But I never wanted it to be the situation where we literally let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

He added, “As disappointed as I am, the higher imperative, I think, is making sure that the big bill got passed.”

While Mr. Weiner said he recognized that his decision would disappoint legions of single-payer advocates, he said the danger to the larger bill was too great.

Forcing a vote on single-payer could be particularly problematic for lawmakers who represent districts that split heavily between liberal and more moderate or conservative voters. A vote against the single-payer issue would anger constituents on the left, while emboldening opponents on the right, making it more difficult to support the larger bill. Avoiding a vote on the issue, in turn, could allow centrist Democrats to take a tough vote in favor of the larger bill.

Mr. Weiner said that the debate around the public option had helped the cause of single-payer supporters.

“There’s old saying in the single-payer movement, God supports the single payer, just not now,” he said. “I think that the public option debate has to some degree advanced the cause of single payer because, in fact, both the proponents and opponents of the public option are in a way stipulating to the point that government-run health care would be more efficient and would be chosen by citizens if it were offered.”

Mr. Obama and Congressional leaders had long ago taken the single-payer issue off the table, saying that it would be too destabilizing to completely change the nation’s health care system. Adopting a single-payer program would require a sweeping overhaul of the tax code, as well as of the compensation and benefits packages of virtually every employer in the United States.

“There is some disappointment,” Mr. Weiner said. “And I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t disappointed.”