As my grandmother used to say, "I was born on a weekend
but not last weekend." The latest insult to Americans hungry for a bit of
healthcare justice for all comes from the news that the Senate health bill now
allows insurance companies to place annual limits on payments for some
catastrophic illnesses, like cancer.
Surprise, surprise, surprise. Another day. Another lie
uncovered in the process. Another piece of this reform bill that favors the
for-profit health insurance industry.
Associated
Press' Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar writes, "Health care loophole would allow
coverage limits": "A loophole in the Senate health care bill would
let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling
with costly illnesses such as cancer, prompting a rebuke from patient
advocates.
"The legislation that originally passed the Senate health committee last
summer would have banned such limits, but a tweak to that provision weakened it
in the bill now moving toward a Senate vote.
"As currently written, the Senate Democratic health care bill would permit
insurance companies to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care,
as long as those limits are not 'unreasonable.' The bill does not define what
level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration
officials."
Read that passage again folks. The bill was
"tweaked." No official or legal amendment required when the
insurance industry needs a tweak they damn well get a tweak. And this is
quite a tweak.
Just hours ago, I continued to read reports that claimed our
healthcare reformers in Congress were doing away with pre-existing condition
clauses and also ending lifetime caps on coverage. Some patients and
families were thrilled with this change alone, and most especially those people
struggling with serious illnesses.
This summer, a friend of mine in Colorado was asked to
introduce President Obama at a forum in Grand Junction. Nathan Wilkes was
selected to do so because he could speak clearly and passionately about his
family's troubles keeping enough insurance coverage for his son, Thomas,
who has a serious blood disorder. My friend has been and is a supporter
of Medicare for all, single-payer type reform, but this opportunity to
introduce the President and weigh in about eliminating lifetime benefit caps
was a powerful pull. Nathan gave an intelligent and emotional intro
for the President, and he was later invited to Washington to watch
Obama's address to Congress on healthcare reform.
Well, the joke's on you Nathan and on a lot of others who trusted the details of reform being sold by members of Congress and President Obama. Only this is not at all funny. Families like the Wilkes family will go broke trying to keep kids like Thomas alive. And kids like Thomas will die without the care they need.
Nathan responded to the latest news out of the Senate with the clarity of a father who has fought hard to support reform that would make our system better not more problematic, "Now it looks like such plans will have a floor before they start covering (beyond the deductible/out-of-pocket) and a ceiling at which they stop (no "unreasonable annual limits"). That is the sweet spot for profiteering health insurers. They avoid paying the common and the catastrophic, while soaking up premiums from all of us."
The death panels allowed by this legislation are those set up and protected by the insurance industry - and tweaked into law by Congress and the President.
You simply cannot do this sort of tweaking and not have
people notice. Did you think the Wilkes family wouldn't notice when
the annual cap is reached for Thomas and they have to start paying out of
pocket or stop treatment?
This process has been fraught with disclosures of the
misleading marketing of various details in the reform legislation from all
involved. Who can the American public trust on this? Anybody?
As we sit on the verge of 2010, we citizens have some more
political work of our own to do. We need to do some tweaking in the
streets and at the polls. Because we surely are not going to get
healthcare as a basic human right from this Congress and this
administration. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats seem to get it.
When we do the math for ourselves and when we watch you all
play a deadly game of push-me, pull-me with our healthcare reform legislation,
we know for certain you are only maneuvering for political advantage while we
are out here fighting for our lives, our health and for our financial
security. You didn't hear us loudly enough at the polls in 2008,
apparently.
Let me get this straight. You will force us to buy
private insurance products that will not guarantee approval of treatment or
payment for treatment. You will tax our insurance benefits if our
employers offer those deemed as "Cadillac coverage" regardless of
whether or not we make less than $250,000 a year. You cannot guarantee
that employers will keep our current insurance plans and provider networks or
that insurance companies will keep benefits and providers the same -
therefore we cannot keep what we've got if we like it. You've
crumbled on the notion of any real public option for coverage at all much less
a "robust" option -- whatever that squishy word ever
meant. And now insurance companies will decide when we've had
enough treatment for serious illness each year.
Wow. Sweet tweaking indeed for the profit-takers --
and without so much as a debate or airing on the floor of the Senate. It
seems only the things that would benefit real people require an appropriate
following of legal process in Congress and full debate -- amendments like
Senator Bernie Sanders' single-payer amendment aimed at strengthening
real reform haven't even gotten a hearing. We're still
fighting for that.
Please don't insult us any more by selling this
legislation as healthcare reform or even health insurance reform. This
seems more and more like health industry protection and less like anything at
all to do with providing what President Obama declared as a basic human right
during the campaign. Even he said the only way to get to full coverage is
a single-payer plan. And that's a tweak too far from profit
protection, it seems.
Hang on, fellow citizens. This healthcare mess is
about to get messier and make you wonder if anyone told us the truth at
all. Then we'll have some serious tweaking of our own to do in 2010
and 2012. We will not forget this.