I was a constituent at Con. Jim Moran's recent Health care reform town hall in Reston, VA last Tuesday. Along with the elderly and infirmed, I sadly witnessed too many mental patients who must not be covered by our health care system. Many of these were hollering inappropriate things like "baby killer" at Gov. Howard Dean when he was trying to speak and were promptly escorted out by the Fairfax County Police. I'm convinced that if we took better care of these mentally challenged patients, then we wouldn't have so many distractions and disruptions when our democracy is in action. These mental patients are the dupes the insurance lobby needs to take advantage of in order to give voice to their misinformation.
Wendell, co-ops certainly are an idea that seems doomed to failure and, for that reason, the Big Insurance companies are certain to love it.
The idea that any newly-created, public-backed co-ops can compete with Big Insurance anywhere at any time is frankly ridiculous. It's like suggesting that a small co-op fruitstand will make the market more competitive by opening across the street from a Sam's Club/Wal-Mart mega-complex. It simply won't succeed.
Initially, it's reasonable to assume that Big Insurance would oppose co-ops for the same reasons they oppose the public option. But if co-ops really cannot succeed, and if it shifts the focus away from what they're doing, the Big Insurance carriers will support it hammer and tong. Especially if it become labeled as a negative approach, the carriers are still going to love it.
In the past 20 years, Big Insurance has found a way to turn every seemingly negative approach (e.g. CDH, high-deductible plans, etc.) into profits by diverting employers' attention away from the real causes of skyrocketing health plan costs. The same will hold true of co-ops. And Cigna, Blue Cross, Aetna, United, and others will find a way to support the idea of co-ops as it becomes increasingly evident that they won't work. What's more, they'll pay lots of lip-service because co-ops will divert attention away from their "business-as-usual" efforts to dominate the markets those co-ops are meant to serve.
If such co-ops are formed and try to compete with the Big Boys, it'll play right into the hands of the carriers. When the doomed co-op fails to work in a big market currently dominated by a couple of carriers (like Blue Cross and Aetna in Philadelphia), maybe Cigna will find a way to ride in on a white horse with some cockamamie plan to save the day, or, at very least, split spoils with BC and Aetna. In the end, no matter what the outcome, Big Insurance will still win.
I remember the days in the 1980's when independent staff-model and group HMOs were failing. Carriers waltzed in with PPOs and built their (now indomitable) position by acquiring those HMOs and selling providers on participating in their so-call "less restrictive" networks. The Big Carriers found a way to turn the fear and angst most employers and providers felt toward managed care at that time into a system of healthcare delivery and finance from which few have every been able to escape.
What do they call that psychological condition when hostages fall in love with their abductors? In my 30 years in this business, I've seen medical providers and employers taken hostage by Big Insurance. As suffering, long-term hostages, they're truly scared to death to leave their abductors because the managed care companies have so completely brain-washed them that they cannot live without the Big Insurance business model.
So co-ops will only solidify Big Insurance's strangle-hold of American healthcare. If it's tried, it's bound to fail. And, sadly, all those hostages who glimpsed the co-op approach and held a brief glimmer of hope for freedom from captivity, will have to sink back into hopelessness. Never fear, though, their insurance carriers will reassure them: "Don't worry, things will get better."
An astonishing analysis and documentation of Modern Art coopted to promote US propaganda in Europe.
"How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War" by Serge Guilbaut.
<http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=3640374>
Because when the Center for Media and Democracy speaks publicly, they speak as the Center for Media and Democracy - not by placing a fake "family" on TV to "speak" about that "family's" "concerns".
And because "Americans Against Food Taxes" is not actually an organization of Americans against food taxes - it is a FRONT GROUP for the soft drink industry. When they call themselves "Soft Drink Corporations Against Soft Drink Taxes", i will agree they are not a front group. Why do they give a false name if they are not trying to finesse their identity?
And the ONLY reason you can read their actual members at their website is because "public interest scolds" have FOUGHT to get public disclosure laws passed, so that it is at least possible to find the true identity of FRONT GROUPS like "Americans Against Food Taxes". Without this legal protection in force, they would be HAPPY to leave NO TRACE of their actual identity while they spread their disinformation.
William "DOLLAR BILL" McGuire former CEO of United Health Care in 2006 walked away with a 1.1 billion dollar golden parachute and 500 million dollars in options, and people say we don't need a single payer system run by the federal government. Excuse me, but what planet do you reside on?! HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT, NOT AN OPTION and there should be a constitutional amendment stating that! Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...but how can you do that if you're sick and GET DENIED COVERAGE by these money hungry scum sucking bottom dwellers because maybe you forgot to right down you had acne as a teen or some other stupid reason? Come on people wake up and see what's really going on. You wanna talk about waste in our system? Health insurance companies are supposed to cover people who are sick, NOT FIND REASONS NOT TO PAY FOR THE SAKE OF WALL STREET. The president needs to keep his word on this, or did he use his mother's story as a tool JUST TO GET ELECTED? I voted for this man, but I'm starting to think I've been duped!
Because when the Center for Media and Democracy speaks publicly, they speak as the Center for Media and Democracy - not by placing a fake "family" on TV to "speak" about that "family's" "concerns".
And because "Americans Against Food Taxes" is not actually an organization of Americans against food taxes - it is a FRONT GROUP for the soft drink industry. When they call themselves "Soft Drink Corporations Against Soft Drink Taxes", i will agree they are not a front group. Why do they give a false name if they are not trying to finesse their identity?
And the ONLY reason you can read their actual members at their website is because "public interest scolds" have FOUGHT to get public disclosure laws passed, so that it is at least possible to find the true identity of FRONT GROUPS like "Americans Against Food Taxes". Without this legal protection in force, they would be HAPPY to leave NO TRACE of their actual identity while they spread their disinformation.
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