Health Care For America Now

When it comes to health care, women really feel the pain. According the National Womens' Law Center, women are denied fair health care every day:

Being a woman is not a pre-existing condition.

But, as NWLC uncovered in our groundbreaking report, women are regularly denied coverage for "pre-existing conditions" including pregnancy, a previous C-Section or past domestic abuse. Insurance companies charge women as much as 48% more for individual health care coverage than men. And it is expensive, difficult and in some states impossible for women to find coverage for maternity care when purchasing their own health insurance plan.

The depths to which insurance companies will sink to deny women health care are almost unfathomable. Today a woman testified before the Senate because she was denied health insurance as a result of a c-section — unless she wanted to permanently sterilize herself:

Today, at Sen. Mikulski's HELP Committee hearing "What Women Want: Equal Benefits for Equal Premiums," we met Peggy Robertson. Peggy is a mother of two young boys, living in Colorado with her husband. Over the past few years, Peggy and her family have faced not one but two shocking cases of insurance company abuse. First, in 2007, Peggy was denied coverage by Golden Rule insurance, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group (the largest insurance company in the US), because of a previous c-section birth. What happened next is shocking (Sen. Mikulski called it "bone-chilling" and "morally repugnant"): Golden Rule said they would cover Peggy if she agreed to be sterilized. Watch the video of her story on the SEIU Blog.

It's time to end these outrageous practices once and for all. I am sick of it. For a clearinghouse of all things health care and women go to "Women and Health Care Reform" and take action today.

NEWS

Insurance Industry Assails Health Care Legislation - NYTImes

In a blistering new attack, the health insurance industry said Sunday that health care legislation drafted by Senate Democrats would drive up premiums, rather than making coverage more affordable, as the White House contends.

Obama Points To Health-Care Progress - Wall Street Journal

U.S. President Barack Obama used his weekly radio address to point to growing momentum to overhaul U.S. health care and to urge Congress to "finish the job" of enacting such reforms.

Senate Prospects For Healthcare Co-Ops Dim - The Hill

The prospects for setting up membership-run healthcare co-ops, an idea favored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), are growing dimmer in the Senate

Health Plan's Effect On Costs May Be Slight - Boston Globe

Despite repeated promises by President Obama and Democratic leaders that their health care overhaul would lower costs, the proposals before Congress would probably not cut overall US health care spending significantly anytime soon, health policy specialists say.

Study Finds Disconnect Between Healthcare Needs And Support For Reform - LA Times

A new study points to a political paradox in the long, wrenching debate over revamping the healthcare system: Some members of Congress whose constituents stand to gain the most are nonetheless opposing the bill, while others whose constituents will likely pay more for little reward are some of its most ardent supporters.

Deductibles Bigger Part Of Health Equation This Year - AP

Workers may need to do more homework when they evaluate their health coverage options this fall.

EDITORIAL

The Baucus Bill - NY Times

.. We remain optimistic that — with sustained attention — Congress and the executive branch can find ways to reform the delivery of medical care. It may take time. But it would be inhumane to put off covering the uninsured until we have the savings in hand.

Given that the reform effort will have to be at least deficit neutral for the next decade, there is time to experiment.

One must not forget that doing nothing — the Republicans have yet to make any serious counterproposals — virtually ensures that the cost of insurance and of medical care will continue to soar. That will place even more financial strain on policyholders and employers. And it will saddle the country, and all of us, with ever larger deficits.

Like we have been saying, if the insurance companies win, you lose.

Today they didn't like what the CBO said about the Finance Bill. So, they just bought their own study that says what they want it say. (Feel free to browse their full report here: PDF)

HCAN National Campaign Director, Richard Kirsch had this to say:

"This is a transparent attempt by the health insurance industry to sabotage reform. Of course they're coming out with guns blazing at the 11th hour. They're out to protect their money and their power, and they'll go to any lengths - including circulating fake information - to stop real change.

The health insurance industry pretending that they care that premiums will go up is like the Yankees saying they are worried about hitting too many home runs. While there are problems with the Baucus bill, the health insurance industry is only sounding alarms now that the government is backing off from placing onerous fines on people who can’t afford the industry’s sky-high premiums.

The solution isn’t to do what the industry wants – force people to buy their overpriced insurance or pay a high fine. The solution is provide enough assistance to people to make health care affordable and to force the industry to compete with a public health insurance option so that they have to face real competition and lower their premiums.

While the insurance industry’s overall analysis is both wrong and self-serving, we would agree with one point it makes: placing a 40% tax on higher cost health care plans will only serve to raise premiums and out-of-pocket costs for families. Instead of taxing health care plans, Congress should raise revenues from households that earn more than $250,000."

At a press conference this afternoon sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter, Wendell Potter – former insurance executive turned whistleblower– explained how he observed  the industry engage in “duplicitous” PR campaigns to stop health reform while keeping their own noses clean. He carefully described a campaign where PR  professionals were hired to blunt the effect of Michael Moore’s documentary, “Sicko” and discredit the claims of the film. “They spent millions on a movie,” he exclaimed, “You can only imagine what they are spending now.”

Potter describes in detail the campaigns that he personally witnessed from the 1993-94 debates until he left the industry. A clear pattern emerged. Here he describes a specific PR firm, APCO and their involvement in the health care debate:

The insurance industry has funded several other front groups since [1993] whenever the industry was under attack. It formed the Coalition for Affordable Quality Healthcare to try to improve the image of managed care in response to a constant stream of negative stories that appeared in the media in the late ‘90s and the first years of this decade.

It funded another group with a different name about the same time when lawyers began filing class action lawsuits on behalf of doctors and patients. Like the Health Benefits Coalition, this one, called America’s Health Insurers, was created by and run out of a powerful Washington-based PR firm, APCO Worldwide.

APCO is perhaps best known for setting up a front group for the tobacco industry in the early ‘90s. Philip Morris reportedly hired APCO to organize a front group called The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition in 1993 to help fight public health efforts following the ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency that secondhand tobacco smoke was a carcinogen.

. . .

APCO . . . also activated conservative allies and enlisted the support of conservative talk show hosts, writers and editorial page editors to warn against a “government-takeover” of the U.S. care system. That is a term the industry uses often to scare people away from any additional involvement of the government in health care.

Health Care America also placed ads in newspapers. One such ad, which appeared in Capitol Hill newspapers, carried this message, “In America, you wait in line to see a movie. In government-run health care systems, you wait to see a doctor.”

APCO’s work on behalf of the industry included feeding talking points to conservatives in the media and in Congress and to place columns and op-eds written for the industry’s friends in conservative and free-market think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage, CATO, the Manhattan Institute and the Galen Institute.

By the way, you will not find America’s Health Insurers among the clients APCO lists on its web site. That’s because the work it does for AHIP is largely covert.

After Potter carefully described this pattern in detail, several reporters asked him to give specific examples of how that is happening now in the current debate. Since he has been out of the industry for a year now, of course, he cannot say—but he had a good idea for the reporters in the room. Potter, who worked as a journalist early in his career suggested, “Why don’t you do some investigative reporting?”

I think that is a great idea. Hey reporters! Rachel Maddow got the ball rolling for you. Take a quick look: Here, here and here.

I don’t think it is fair to blame people for being fooled and scared about something that is complicated yet very important in their lives, but I have no problem calling out the Wall Street profiteers who benefit from their hysteria. They know exactly what they are doing when they spread lies and fear and I say: Shame on them.

(Cross posted from the Huffington Post)

By Robert Creamer

Today it would be hard to find one member of Congress who openly advocates the abolition of Medicare or Social Security. It's true that during the Bush Presidency, right-wing Republicans tried to weaken, dilute and privatize both. But their proposals were always passed off as attempts to "strengthen" these programs that have become two of the most popular and widely respected institutions of government.

Of course it wasn't always so. Both Social Security and Medicare were incredibly controversial when they were passed - the first in 1937 and the second in 1964. In fact, their opponents sounded very much like today's Republicans as they denounced them for being "big government takeovers" - or, in the case of Medicare, "socialized medicine."

But it wasn't long after they were enacted that Social Security and Medicare became "third rails" in American politics. Former Senator Bob Dole once made a speech where he said: "I was there, fighting against Medicare." The TV spot reprising that speech during his 1996 campaign against Bill Clinton helped seal Dole's defeat.

The view shared by most Americans - and all senior citizens - was summed up in the slogan for the 2005 campaign to defeat Bush's privatization program: "Hands off my Social Security."

No one brags that their father or grandfather lead the fight to oppose Social Security or Medicare - any more than they brag that their forbearer lead the fight against civil rights. But of course in the 1960's, civil rights did not have the universal acclaim it has today.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had many detractors who thought his agitation for justice was downright subversive. Others thought that he wanted to move too fast. That extended to the Pastors - many men of good will - who asked him to call off his protests in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. It was to those Pastors that he wrote his famous letter from the Birmingham jail: "Why We Can't Wait."

In 1963 most people would not have dreamed that just a few decades hence, a national holiday would be named after the young organizer and agitator, Martin Luther King.

Every major social advance is surrounded by controversy and conflict. That's because every time there is change in the status quo there are winners and losers. The controversy over President Obama's health care reform does not center mainly on "differences in approach" or academic disagreements over the way that health care systems should be designed in some ideal world. They center instead on battles over wealth and power - just as they did when the Congress created Social Security or Medicare, or passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

That's why the 19th Century abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was right: "You can't have the rain without the thunder and lightning," he said. Of course Douglass was referring to the granddaddy of all major social change in our history - the end of slavery . That required a horrific civil war.

Health care reform involves one out of every six dollars spent in America today. It involves the jobs and livelihoods of millions of people and the fortunes of huge corporations. Of course change in the health care system is going to be controversial. Luckily it is not controversial with average Americans. On the health care issue, Democrats - and the President - have the political high ground. But that doesn't mean it isn't controversial with the insurance companies or with wealthy Americans who may be asked to pay a small increase in taxes (bringing their rates to the level they were in the Reagan Administration) in order to pay for needed reform.

Members of Congress can't avoid the controversy. If they want to, they should look for another line of work. All they can do is hope to be on the right side of history - to take positions that their grandchildren will brag about after they are long gone.

All that they can hope - or any of us can hope - is that the things we do will stand up to the test of history - that they will make future generations proud.

Forty years ago today, for the first time in history, human beings first set foot on another celestial object when Neil Armstrong planted his boot print on the moon. I was one of the millions of Americans who got up in the early morning hours to witness first-hand the historic event live on television. It was extraordinary - a phenomenal evolutionary advance for our species - brought to us live from outer space.

Less than a decade before, another young President challenged American to put that man on the moon. John Kennedy's vision put America in the forefront of the technological revolution that created the jobs of the future — for a generation of Americans.

This year, President Obama challenged us again - to create the jobs of the future for our generation: millions of clean energy jobs.

Last month, the House of Representatives voted to meet that challenge - passing an energy bill that will finally begin to break our dependence on foreign oil and make America a world leader in clean energy technologies of the future. Now, members of the Senate will have to decide which side of history they will be on when it comes to creating a clean energy economy.

In the next two weeks, Members of both the House and Senate will be called upon to decide which side of history they will be on when it comes to ending our status as the only nation in the industrial world that does not guarantee health care as a human right.

The Obama health care bill is controversial because it will control the growth of health care premiums for American families. That, in turn, will take money from the pockets of some of the most powerful special interests in the country - most notably the insurance industry.

But it is safe to say that one day, future generations will look back on this battle and wonder way it wasn't obvious to everyone that every person has a right to health care - they same way we look back today and wonder how anyone could have supported slavery. Remember we still had slavery in America just 150 years ago.

Our grandkids will wonder why anyone would balk at beginning to rationalize the bloated, inefficient American health care system that leaves us 37th in the world in health care outcomes and costs us 50% more per person than any other country on the planet.

They will look back on those who tried to stand in the way of serious health care reform, the way we look back on those who tried to block the creation of Social Security or Medicare or the Civil Rights Act.

Often, when political leaders are faced with historic choices, they are forced to choose between the next election - and the next generation. This time, with the political wind at our back, they don't have to make that choice. But they do have to choose to stand up against special interest pressure and act decisively to take the actions that are necessary to build a foundation for the long-term economic success of future generations of Americans.

So in the next few weeks, talk to your Members of Congress. Ask them each what kind of legacy they want to leave after their political career is done. Tell them to stop worrying so much what the lobbyists and big contributors think about their decisions and ask themselves how those decisions will be viewed by history.

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," available on amazon.com.

NEWS

President Is Set to 'Take the Baton'- Washington Post

Six months into his presidency, Barack Obama may have no greater test of his ability to translate personal popularity into a successful legislative agenda than the upcoming two weeks.

Alliances In Health Debate Splinter - Washington Post

Months of relative cooperation among disparate interest groups in the heath-care reform debate appear to be coming to an end, as the major political parties and their surrogates unleash dueling television advertisements, e-mail campaigns and grass-roots protests.

White House Moves To Calm Health Care Bill Fears - NPR

The White House is fighting back against accusations that the health care overhaul bills moving through Congress would actually increase health spending rather than save money over the long haul.

Rep. Ross: 'Blue Dogs' Can't Back Health Care Bills - NPR

As President Obama's health plan hits resistance in Congress, the key may be the "Blue Dog" Democrats in the House. Guy Raz speaks with one of the leading Blue Dogs, Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, about his recent statement: "We cannot support the current bill."

Obama, Congress Ready For Overhaul Fight- NPR

President Obama is pushing hard for a consensus on health care legislation before Congress adjourns for the summer. That goal, however, has already hit a snag — a report issued Thursday by the Congressional Budget Office that says none of the health reform proposals floated so far will achieve his goal of curbing the skyrocketing rate of health care costs.

First Lady Steps Into Policy Spotlight in Debate on Health Care - NYTimes

She has become one of the Obama administration’s most visible surrogates on health care, announcing the release of $851 million in federal financing for health clinics, calling for tougher nutritional standards in the government’s school lunch program and urging Democrats to rally around the president’s efforts to revamp health care.

Governors Fear Medicaid Costs in Health Plan - NYTimes

BILOXI, Miss. — The nation’s governors, Democrats as well as Republicans, voiced deep concern Sunday about the shape of the health care plan emerging from Congress, fearing that Washington was about to hand them expensive new Medicaid obligations without money to pay for them.

OPINION

A Brief History of the R Word - The Health Care Blog

By BOB WACHTER

Joseph StalinPrinceton ethicist Peter Singer’s article in this week’s NY Times Sunday Magazine is creating lots of buzz. It is a classic utilitarian description of the case for rationing – QALYs and all – and a plea for a mature national dialogue about the dreaded R-word.

Op-Ed: Dems’ health plan will increase costs for families, small businesses - Yahoo News

By House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio)

Middle-class families are struggling every day with rising costs of housing, food, transportation, and taxes. But for many, rising costs of health care are the most devastating of all. That’s why Americans’ top priority during the ongoing health care debate is a plan that will reduce costs. Unfortunately, the government takeover of health care offered by the Washington Democrats will not reduce costs; instead, it will dramatically increase costs – for your family, America’s small businesses, and all taxpayers.

Memo to Members of Congress: Don’t Be on the Wrong Side of History - Huffington Post

Bob Creamer

Today it would be hard to find one member of Congress who openly advocates the abolition of Medicare or Social Security. It’s true that during the Bush Presidency right-wing Republicans tried to weaken, dilute and privatize both. But their proposals were always passed off as attempts to “strengthen” these programs that have become two of the most popular and widely respected institutions of government.

From Politico:

If Congress were to take a vote on a health reform bill today, Democrats and Republicans would find a surprising level of agreement — so much so that the broad outlines of a consensus plan already are taking shape.

Sick or healthy, rich or poor, all Americans would be guaranteed access to health insurance.

Read more: "Barack Obama's health plan takes shape - Carrie Budoff Brown - POLITICO.com"

NEWS

U.S. senators hope to have health bills by June - Reuters

The chairmen of two Senate committees drafting legislation to overhaul healthcare told President Barack Obama on Monday they were working together to have bills ready by early June.

Senators Set Timetable for Health Care Bills - NYTimes

The chairmen of two Senate committees told President Obama today that by early June they would finish writing legislation on health care to “provide coverage to all Americans.”

Divided committee to vote on health secretary - AP

President Barack Obama's health secretary nominee faces a vote in a divided Senate committee after revelations about her ties to a late-term abortion doctor turned some Republicans against her.

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, was expected to win approval Tuesday from the Democratic-controlled Senate Finance Committee, the final step before action by the full Senate. A Senate floor vote could come within days.

WellPoint Makes Three Million Calls In Health-Reform Survey - Wall Street Journal

How would you respond if a computer called you and asked the following question?

“Would you be willing to get involved to make your voice heard so that we can improve our nation’s health care system?”

If the computer was calling you on behalf of WellPoint, the big insurer that runs Blue Cross and Blue Shield programs in 14 states, would your answer be any different?

OPINION

Where Government Spending Should be Trimmed — And Why It's Necessary to Fast-Track Universal Health Care - Robert Reich

Obama should fast-track health care and stop trying to court Republicans. Every House Republican and all but three Senate Republicans voted against the stimulus; all Republicans in both houses voted against the budget. During the recess they hosted "tea parties" claiming that Americans are over-taxed. Over the weekend, House minority leader John Boehner called the idea of carbon-induced climate change "almost comical." Republicans are already off and running toward the midterm elections of 2010, even starting to run ads against House Democrats in close districts.

Baucus and Kennedy Set the Pace - Ezra Klein

In a letter to Obama today, Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Ted Kennedy, chair of the health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, not only outlined a timeframe for health reform but also put forward a strategy for overcoming the turf warfare of years past.

Republicans: We're Clueless on Health Care - The New Republic

So far, 2009 is shaping up rather differently. And that's good news for reformers. President Obama and key congressional leaders are working hand in hand, as they have been for months, on what is– in the broad sense–a commonly shared vision for health reform. Liberal interest groups are on board, too. Led by groups like Health Care for America Now, they have money, a ground presence, plus a coordinated strategy that dovetails perfeclty with what's happening in Washington.

The new revelation about fake letters to the editor from a public relations firm hired by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is nothing new in the world of health insurance. In fact, when it comes to Medicare Advantage, the insurers have engaged in much more devious schemes to take advantage of elderly people to increase their bottom line.

This profile in the Huffington Post shows how one man in Washington, DC was deceived into signing up for a plan that was more expensive than his regular Medicare plan, and didn’t cover all his medical needs:

The next time Smith went to his pharmacy, he was told he was no longer covered. When he went to Howard University Hospital for a colon cancer procedure, he was told the same thing. His wife sent him to the local Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia.

The woman who'd knocked was a sales rep from EverCare ("We care about healthcare"), a company that sells Medicare Advantage plans, which are privately run and can be more expansive - with vision and dental coverage - but have a smaller network of providers that participate. In practice, the extra vision and dental coverage is often of negligible benefit and doesn't outweigh what's lost by leaving traditional Medicare - but it looks good at first.

This was not an isolated incident. It turns out that there was a plague of deception on the part of the Medicare Advantage sales representatives with a variety of companies. In an series of stories, Avram Goldstein of Bloomberg News, reported that many incidents were uncovered in Congressional hearing last year:

June 26, 2008 (Bloomberg) Residents of Judiciary House, a residence for the elderly in Washington, testified today that Coventry agents misled them in a February sales briefing at their building. Mentally disabled residents were signed up improperly, and some are still trapped in plans that won't pay for visits to their regular doctors, they said.

. . .

Edith Williams, a multiple sclerosis patient, broke down in tears during the hearing as she described life-threatening problems after she was enrolled without her knowledge in Coventry's Advantage plan. She couldn't fill her regular prescriptions, she said.

August 9, 2008 (Bloomberg) The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services received 2,700 complaints between December and May 1 from among more than 8 million Medicare Advantage members.

[Avram Goldstein is currently heading the research department for Health Care for America Now.]

It’s not surprising that they would go to such great lengths to fool people into signing up for these plans. As the Dallas Morning News explains, “the government pays the plans an average of $1,000, or 14 percent, more per beneficiary a year than it would for someone in traditional Medicare.” Medicare Advantage is a huge source of profit for the insurers, but not necessarily a better product for the consumers. The benefits to the companies for the Medicare Advantage programs are significant. Avram Goldstein:

August 27, 2008 (Bloomberg) Medicare, the government health program for the elderly and disabled, will pay Humana and the other Advantage providers $76.3 billion this fiscal year, about $9.2 billion more than traditional coverage would cost, government figures show. . . .

Pete Stark, the California Democrat who chairs the House Ways and Means health subcommittee, last month said Humana was making "huge profits at taxpayers' expense."

While some customers are happy with their plans, there are many who are surprised by how little they cover. Dallas Morning News:

Virginia Leconti of Grand Prairie, Texas, on the other hand, joined a Medicare Advantage plan only to discover that her home health care agency wouldn't accept it. To keep her in-home care, she switched back to traditional Medicare.

"When the plan's salesman visited me, he played up the fact that the policy came with dental and vision benefits at no extra cost," she said. "I just assumed that my home health care was part of the package."

Warner says some health care providers don't take Advantage plans because they don't want to deal with more insurers.

In the end the companies were fined for their deceptive practices. Avram Goldstein:

August 27, 2008 (Bloomberg) — Humana Inc., the second-largest provider of U.S. government-sponsored health plans for the elderly, paid a record fine after Oklahoma regulators said the company used unlicensed agents to sell coverage.

At least 68 unauthorized sales people employed by the Louisville, Kentucky-based company sold Medicare plans to Oklahomans, said Marc Young, a spokesman for the state's Insurance Department. Humana paid a $500,000 fine, the state's largest for an insurance company.

With evidence like this, it is hard to believe that AHIP has the gall to say on their web site, “Join us in working toward an uniquely American solution - Affordable, high quality health care for every American.” With friends like these in health care, who needs enemies?

As part of the barrage of events organized by HCAN partners in April, Ohio HCAN is hosting a town hall with Sen. Sherrod Brown today at 10:30AM EST and you can watch the live stream. Here is the info:

WHO: Senator Sherrod Brown, health care advocates, and Ohioans
affected by the healthcare crisis
WHEN: Friday, April 17 at 10:15 AM
WHERE: Cleveland Heights, click here to watch the event LIVE online

You can also participate by telling us your health care story. We'll
make sure Senator Brown hears your voice.Click here to share your health care story.