5 Reasons Obama Never, Ever Should Have Trusted the Healthcare Industry

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/obama-never-should-have-trusted-health-insurers



President Obama has become the health insurance industry’s top salesperson. Yesterday, in Massachusetts, he urged Americans to take a long view on implementing Obamacare. While it may provide coverage to millions who now lack it, the evidence is mounting that Obama never should have trusted the private health insurance industry to begin with. Let us count the ways.

1. Obamacare was written by the industry for the GOP.

The template for the Affordable Care Act was the Heritage Foundation’s 1992 report for expanding the health insurance marketplace. Their plan had tax credits, while Obamacare has income-based subsidies paid directly to insurers to make it affordable to the poor, working class and middle class. As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich points out, this was the Republican’s and insurance industry’s plan, not the Democrats, who wanted to expand existing government programs. Its reliance on the private sector was flawed from the start and is at the core of its current troubles.

2. Obamacare did not have meaningful price controls.

Even though the law passed in 2010, most of Obamacare was not slated to take effect until January 2014. That gave insurers several years to ratchet up premiums—with 18 percent to 25 percent annual jumps in states like California where insurance premiums are unregulated. While the law limits the percent of administrative costs that are part of premiums and that took effect in 2012, it does not regulate overall costs. Does anybody think insurers were not going to lock in profits and gouge the public when they could?

3. All insurers didn’t have to cooperate—and didn’t.

Not every health insurance company decided to participate in the ACA, which left many small states with very few options for uninsured residents. That means Obamacare is not offering a range of plans, in which competition is supposed to lower costs, in states like Maine and New Hampshire. That’s left state legislators wondering if they will have to create interstate compacts with neighbors to create coverage pools to attract private insurers to give residents more choices. Again, insurers did what was best for their bottom lines, not for the public health.

[delrem]

1. Don't you mean "health care insurance industry"?

The health care insurance industry ought to have been ended.
Both health care and pharma-care insurance ought to be run under single payer heavily audited (independent auditors) systems. Everyone ought to participate by right of birth. This (especially) includes "the homeless", who ought to be able to cling to universal health care as a life-line.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. +1,000,000

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. *this*

[tridim]

5. What power does Obama have to "end" the insurance industry?

Or end any industry for that matter?

Should he have done that by executive order?

[Bluenorthwest]

6. As President he certainly did not have to declare that 'Insurance Companies deserve to profit'

but he did, repeatedly. Never said why he thinks they are entitled to profit from sick kids, but he said this is what he believes, they do not need to earn profit, they simply deserve it.
He also could have lived up to his word and advocated a strong public option,which as candidate he claimed was going to be in any bill he signed. He wallowed in 'I'm gunna' as candidate, then abandoned it all and shifted into his Insurance Rep mode.
He certainly could have kept his word, or held his tongue, I don't respect folks who take a language bath for jollies then forget all their promises when time to deliver arrives.
He differed from Hillary in two prime ways, he opposed Mandates for individuals and he supported the Public Option. Or at least those were claims he made at the time.

[tridim]

9. PPACA caps profits.

I have an individual policy and have received four refund checks in about six months. Shocked the hell out of me for sure.

The government has the power to cap profits, but not to shut down a legal industry. PPACA is the only legal option toward a public option or single payer.

[Doctor_J]

15. aca is not a step toward a po or sp

This claim is absurd and is never accompanied by any support

[joshcryer]

18. Erm, except due to ACA one state has gone toward single payer.

And another is about to and in 2017 any state can go full single payer.

It's happening already.

It's just a shitty way to get there because it's 10-15 years behind when it could've happened.

[Fumesucker]

20. Unless you happen to live in a red state

Of course, the DU attitude towards anyone who happens to live in a Republican controlled state is "Fuck you, it's your fault".

[joshcryer]

24. You didn't cheer the loss of the blue dogs?

If not, good for you.

A lot of people did. And claimed it was because they were too conservative. Laughably.

[Fumesucker]

26. At least I didn't cheer when Grayson and Kucinich lost their seats

Unlike the pragmatic moderate centrists around here who loathe anyone to the left of Bart Stupak.

[joshcryer]

30. Neither did I. Nor Feingold, who I wanted for President.

So let's not act as if there's a double standard here. I lamented the loss of the House and the crappy Blue Dogs even though they voted with the rest of the Democrats 80% of the time (even on this forum the Republicans got credit for the overwhelmingly Democratic repeal of DADT).

With the plurality voting system we have we have to accept the moderate / blue dog / even right wing Democrats, because we need them to vote with us on progressive issues. If we don't have them we have shitty Tea Party right wingers who clearly want to destroy the country to usher in their right wing capitalist utopia by shutting everything down, forever.

edit: and to clarify something, if we don't have the Speaker of the House position, then we're even more fucked. At least the Speaker can shut down the right wing Democrats once they're in that position of power. So their shit gets delayed for maybe pork or whatever, but we get to put legislation on the table that we prefer. And since the Congressional Progressive Caucus is the largest in the House, we can put some really good shit in there.

[magical thyme]

36. yup. It worked for Canada, and it will work here...

the red states will lag, but when they see the reality even they will eventually succomb.

Hell, a GOPer was just quoted a couple weeks ago during the shutdown as saying we need to have health care under a single entity, he didn't care private or government. And then said I know that's crazy, right?

Yes, deep down they know that single payer is the only way to go. They've just painted themselves into a corner and haven't found a way out of it.

They need to shut up for a couple years and then propose it themselves and claim it as their own idea.

[Doctor_J]

37. Canada had mandatory for profit health insurance?

Stop, my sides are hurting.

[Doctor_J]

39. Vermont was already going to sp

[joshcryer]

19. Don't you know? The US President is a dictator!

He May Rule By Decree And Just Won't Do It Because Of That Pesky Democratic Congress We Have.

Psst, who we gave the House to in 2010 because we ate our own and bought the bullshit catfood commission lie.

[Fumesucker]

21. That meme has been debunked so many times, tiresome to hear it repeated by those who know better

You're definitely smart enough and well informed enough to know better, why do you keep repeating a lie?

[joshcryer]

23. I saw it first hand.

And the numbers back me up.

[Fumesucker]

25. Yes, the left is the real impediment to progress in America

If the left would just shut up and leave everything to the the right, the far right, the far far right and the sensible pragmatic moderate centrists then America would be paradise on Earth.

[adirondacker]

27. Insurance salesmen are peddling hard, aren't they? nt

[joshcryer]

29. I'm in the same camp as Krugman.

If you want to call me an insurance salseman peddler, that's your deal. I don't take offense because you're ignorant on the issue.

[adirondacker]

32. Insurance, or the politicians they paid for? nt

[joshcryer]

28. The demoralized GOTV left is.

The left should always want to GOTV. I did. I kept Colorado blue in 2010 despite insurmountable odds. Yes, I take responsibility for 10% of the vote that made us win. It was a true challenge. I never fought so hard in my life.

It led, ultimately, to marijuana being signed into law. Hickenlooper, a moderate, arguably blue dog, signed marijuana into law while being, personally, against it. We were the first state, if not the first region on the planet to legalize marijuana consumption for personal use.

The left shouldn't fucking shut up. The left should fight.

First hand experience.

You'd be deluded if you thought Tom Tancredo, or Dan Maes would've signed marijuana legalization into law. The Democrats won there and if only we'd fight, even if we disagree on some single voter issues, we can and will win.

[Doctor_J]

38. a public option would have sunk the health insurance industry within 5 years

Obama's presidency would have been historic. Instead it will be one of the tiniest ever.

[leftstreet]

10. +1

[magical thyme]

34. This, exactly. ^^^ Why did the OP change the title of the article to make it wrong and misleading?

The article title and the clips very clearly spell out Health Care INSURANCE INDUSTRY.

To the OP, I have yet to see a single INSURANCE COMPANY deliver one iota of health care. They are NOT the same thing.

INSURANCE COMPANIES make their money by refusing to pay for HEALTH CARE.

They do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT DELIVER HEALTH CARE.

[KG]

4. ACA - as if insurance companies give a shit about providing health care.

[jsr]

7. +1.

[marmar]

8. k/r

[indepat]

11. How could anyone have possibly seen any of these five reasons coming to fruition?

[Bigmack]

12. You put the words..."trusted"...and "Healthcare industry" in the same sentence. WRONG! nt

[Doctor_J]

13. trusted them? He works for them

[liberal_at_heart]

14. K&R

[Egnever]

16. it's as if the people who write these things

weren't around when the law was put together...

[joshcryer]

17. The Heritage Foundation's "mandate" was a tax credit, not a penalty.

And Obamacare had a mandate for insurance for children. Which came with a penalty if parents didn't get it.

A lot of right wingers like peddling the narrative that Obamacare is a GOP creation, because they want to own it, and then disown it, so that the Democrats don't get credit for it.

Obamacare isn't perfect, but it's better than what we didn't have before. Particularly as it relates to the massive expansion of Medicare which is helping millions of impoverished people.

[2banon]

22. How many ways to say "We Told You So" ?

duh..it was so obvious right from the git. This was a giveaway to the Insurance Industry, as Michael Moore said simply, they have no business being in the business of Health Care. He implored Congress to simply cut them out of the entire reform process. Single Payer is the only way to make real reform.

[Orsino]

31. Who says he trusted the industry?

The ACA is performing as designed by Congress. The president didn't write the law; nor did he have a line-item veto.

[quinnox]

33. As seen, Insurance corporations are not trustworthy to run healthcare

they are jacking up rates all over, and rubbing their hands in glee at all the customers who are now captive to them, and forced to buy their product.

[magical thyme]

35. 1. Obamacare was written by the industry for the GOP. WRONG.

It was written by the industry for the industry and nobody else.