Mr. Conrad (D., N.D.) votes no, Ms. Lincoln (D., Ark.) votes no, Mr. Nelson (D., Fla.) votes no, Mr. Carper (D., Del.) votes no, and the Chair, Mr. Baucus (D., Mont.) votes no. While it is true that there will be more opportunities, as health care legislation staggers through Congress, to add some sort of government insurance plan to the package, these five Democrats certainly drove a nail deep into the coffin of the "public option" as they rejected a proposal offered by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.) before the Senate Finance Committee.
Even when Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) followed up with a proposal with payment procedures more generous to doctors and hospitals than those in Sen. Rockefeller's plan, Sens. Lincoln, Carper and Baucus still voted no; along, of course, with all the Republicans on the Committee.
This has been greeted with glee by those who oppose any change to our health care system. They read these votes as proof the Democrats will be unable to muster the 60 yeahs needed to prevent a filibuster from blocking a vote on health care reform in the full Senate.
The opposition claims Americans are happy with the health care system, and since it "ain't broke" it needn't be fixed. For them, the status quo is the only way to go. Frankly I think many of these opponents are really just against government in general, this government in particular or, more commonly, in favor of government when it bails out big business but opposed when it seeks to provide a safety net for the working class.
Be that as it may, I think their premise is fundamentally flawed. I'm not going to bore you with my resume, but before I joined PBS I worked for many years at CBS and NBC and a lot of those years were spent on the political units producing election coverage and managing surveys of public opinion. I came away from that experience with a respect for the art of market research and for the accuracy of the results. I also came away understanding how easy it is to bias the data in the first place, accidentally or by design. And how easy it is to accidentally misinterpret or purposely mislead when converting the survey numbers into a news story or a set of talking points.
So let us be clear. My "expert" read of the big tracking polls conducted by organizations without a stake in the outcome does not say Americans are happy with the health care system, it says they are happy with their doctors, which is quite different. In fact, we are not happy with the cost of our insurance, we are not happy with the co-pays, deductibles and other costs of medical services, we are not happy with the cost of the drugs we buy. And, if we have insurance, we also have horror stories about the bureaucratic mess we face every time we deal with our insurance company. I'll tell you mine another day.
But we do like our doctors and we are very concerned, scared in fact, that government mandated changes to the health care system will interfere with our relationship with them. Opponents of change have very effectively exploited those fears. As a result, we are confused and divided on the question of change.
The problem with the status quo is that there really is no such thing. We can elect not to change our health care system, but the status quo will change anyway. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation's most recent report, "Spending on health care, which is a projected to be 17.6% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009, has consistently grown faster than the economy overall since the 1960s." I urge you to read this short brief, it is frightening.
With the House of Representatives insisting on a public alternative to private insurance and the Senate just as adamantly headed toward a bill without that option, if it can pass anything at all, the prospects do not seem encouraging. Up to this point the naysayers have been making most of the noise. It's way past time for the people in favor of reform to sound off for their side.
Comments
My health insurance premiums have increased faster than the rate of inflation, yet no new benefits have been added.
The health care industry is the only sector creating new jobs because it's the sector that
can raise prices at will.
Actually, with this explanation I see better what you are saying. The question is to what extent are current expenditures for services which wouldn't be purchased absent insurance coverage or even, I suppose, for services which weren't available because they hadn't been developed many years ago. I don't know how one would quantify that and not being able to do so could create an apples and oranges comparision.
Of course we can look at short term comparisions, one or two years, which would minimize that problem. Even in short terms we see costs growing at rates far exceeding the general rate of inflation. Thanks for your comments!
Throughout the entire high cost of health care debate the dominating theme has been the selective coverage, price gouging and obscene profits by the large insurance carriers. But it was not until the mid-1980s that additional benefits and coverages crept into health plans. Once these benefits were paid for by a plan, usage dramatically increased. Now more people went to the dentist, more people went to the doctor to get prescriptions rather than the old take-2-aspirin-and-go-to-bed recovery---they used their health insurance more because it was "free.". Then in the mid to late 1990s plans started covering a number of elective procedures---procedures that weren't even dreamed of in the 60s. Consequently costs shot up again. Now health plans have the combination of more benefits, increased usage and elective procedures. So costs are alarming.
I guess if you want to say comparing the cost of basic hospitalization coverages and limited out-of-pocket usages of the 60s with the tummy tucks, botax treatments and dental implants of today is comparing apples to apples, then maybe I am wrong and confused.
Let me respond to the comment posted by "Plan Administrator", which if I understand it correctly is simply wrong and indictative of how confusing this discussion can get.
The statement about the growth of spending on health care is in quotes and comes from the Kaiser Family Foundation report which, again, I urge you all to read. It does use the same base for the comparison, specifically, spending on health care as a percent of gross domestic product. Spending on health care is counted the same if spent by an individual or spent by an insurance company and the rate of growth is alarming.
I gave money for the first time in my life to a political campaign--primary and general for Barack Obama. However, until and unless President Obama fights for a public option designed to contain costs, I doubt if I will contribute again.
"I also came away understanding how easy it is to bias the data in the first place, accidentally or by design."
In your second to the last paragraph you say "spending on health care...has consistently grown faster than the economy overall since the 1960s." What you failed to mention is that virtually all health insurance/coverage in the 1960s consisted of major medical coverage only. There was no prescription, vision or dental coverage and there was very little coverage for doctor visits. Its purpose was to cover major medical issues. In fact, it was called "hospitalization."
So to make the statement about the increase in costs over a 40 year period without using like bases seems to me to "bias the data...accidentally or by design."