All posts by randyshannon

Economy

Glenn Greenwald on Goldman Sachs “Blowout Profits”

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Monday July 13, 2009 06:14 EDT
from Salon.com

The events preceding Goldman Sachs’ new “blowout profits”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/13/goldman/index.html

Remember all of this — the $700 billion bank bailout, the AIG scandal, dark and scary threats of imminent global meltdown if there wasn’t full-scale capitulation by the citizenry to the immense transfer of public wealth to the private investment banking sector?  Such distant, hazy memories:  so many exciting celebrity deaths and riveting celebrity resignations ago.  If sequences of events like these don’t cause mass citizen outrage, then it’s hard to imagine what will:

Continue reading Glenn Greenwald on Goldman Sachs “Blowout Profits” →

elections, health care

PA 12th CD Congressman John Murtha Endorses HR 676 – the National Healthcare Act

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Labor Delegation Persuades Cong. John Murtha To Co-Sponsor HR 676

Johnstown, Pennsylvania.   After meeting with western Pennsylvania labor leaders on June 29,  Representative John Murtha agreed to sign on as a co-sponsor of HR 676, national single payer health care legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).  Eighty-five House members, in addition to Conyers, now have their names on HR 676.

Murtha, who has represented Pennsylvania’s 12th CD since 1974, is the eighth most senior member of the House of Representatives, and chairs the Defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. He joins PA 14th CD Congressman Mike Doyle as the second co-sponsor of HR 676 from western Pennsylvania.

Those who met with Murtha came from the Greater Westmoreland County Labor Council in Greensburg and the Johnstown Regional Central Labor Council.  The group included Ed Grystar, Harriet Ellenberger and Rosemary Trump, all Executive Board members of the Westmoreland Council, and Terry Havener of the Johnstown Council.  Also in the delegation was Father Bernard Survil, a Catholic priest active in labor affairs.

Ed Grystar said, after learning that Murtha has signed on as a co-sponsor, “The fact that Murtha, from a relatively conservative middle of the road district, signed on as a co-sponsor signifies that the grass roots movement for single payer is growing and opportunities exist to get others from similar districts to sign on.”

In addition to Murtha, Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) also signed on to HR 676 on July 9.  Weiner is a member of the Energy & Commerce Committee which is one of three committees writing the House bill.

health care

CMD’s Wendell Potter Featured on Bill Moyers Journal, Friday, July 10th

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The Center for Media and Democracy’s Wendell Potter will be interviewed on the PBS TV program Bill Moyers Journal this Friday, July 10th, at 9PM Eastern time. (For exact times in your area check online).

Wendell Potter, CMD’s Senior Fellow on Health Care, spent more than 20 years as a public relations executive for two large health insurers – Cigna and Humana – but left the industry after witnessing practices he felt harmed American health care consumers. In his own words:

“I am speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the health care reform legislation members of Congress are now writing. I was in a unique position to see not only how Wall Street analysts and investors influence decisions insurance company executives make but also how the industry has carried out behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying campaigns to kill or weaken any health care reform efforts that threatened insurers’ profitability.”

Wendell first went public as an advocate for health care reform as the lead witness at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on June 24th. Since then he has been much in the news media. His TV interview with Bill Moyers will be his first extensive television interview in his new role as journalist and analyst on health care issues for CMD.

health care

Dr. David Himmelstein & Dr. Steffie Woolhandler of PNHP Discuss the “Public Option” and Health Policy

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Should Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) support a public Medicare-like option in a market of private plans?

 

PNHP should tell the truth: The “public plan option” won’t work to fix the health care system for two reasons:

1. It foregoes at least 84% of the administrative savings available through single payer. The public plan option would do nothing to streamline the administrative tasks (and costs) of hospitals, physicians offices, and nursing homes. They would still contend with multiple payers, and hence still need the complex cost tracking and billing apparatus that drives administrative costs. These unnecessary provider administrative costs account for the vast majority of bureaucratic waste. Hence, even if 95% of Americans who are currently privately insured were to join a public plan (and it had overhead costs at current Medicare levels), the savings on insurance overhead would amount to only 16% of the roughly $400 billion annually achievable through single payer.

 

2. A quarter century of experience with public/private competition in the Medicare program demonstrates that the private plans will not allow a level playing field. Despite strict regulation, private insurers have successfully cherry picked healthier seniors, and have exploited regional health spending differences to their advantage. They have progressively undermined the public plan – which started as the single payer for seniors and has now become a funding mechanism for HMOs, and a place for them to dump the unprofitably ill. A public plan option does not lead toward single payer, but toward the segregation of patients; with profitable ones in private plans and unprofitable ones in the public plan.

 

Would a public plan option stabilize the health care system, or even be a major step forward?

 

The evidence is strong that such reform would have at best a modest and temporary positive impact
– a view that is widely shared within PNHP. Indeed, we remain concerned that a public plan option as an element of reform might well be shaped in a manner to effectively subsidize private insurers by requiring patients to purchase coverage while relieving private insurance of the highest risk individuals, stabilizing private insurers for some time and reinforcing their control of the health care system.

 

Given the above, is it advisable to spend significant effort advocating for inclusion of such reform?

 

1. We are doctors, not politicians. We are obligated to tell the truth, and must answer for the veracity of our stance to our patients and colleagues over many years. Ours is a very different time horizon and set of responsibilities than politicians’. Falling in line with a consensus that attempts to mislead the public may gain us a seat at the debate table, but abdicates our ethical obligations.

2. The best way to gain a half a pie is to demand the whole thing.

 

Is fundamental reform possible?  
We remain optimistic that real reform is quite possible, but only if we and our many allies continue to insist on it.
elections

Cong. Barbara Lee: “Happy 5th Birthday to PDA”

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Please consider making a donation to support PDA.

https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/donate.asp?formid=donate

health care

The “Public Plan Option”: Myths and Facts

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Physicians for a National Health Program
29 E. Madison St., Suite 602
Chicago, IL 60602-4404
http://www.pnhp.org

Myth: A public option will increase choice for patients. Fact: A public plan option will not increase choice of what matters for our health: choice of caregivers and choice in location of care. Patients will still have a limited choice of provider restricted by networks and will pay more to see providers outside of their network. Patients will still have to seek authorization for treatment. The public option will add one more plan to the hundreds of plans that already exist.

Myth: A public option will enable patients to keep their own doctor, regardless of changes in employment or health. Fact: A public plan option does not guarantee patients can keep their doctor regardless of employment or health because it leaves the employer based system of health care provision intact. If an employer chooses to change to a new plan, patients may have to change their doctor or pay higher fees to stay with their doctor. Insurers have strong financial incentives to enroll the healthy while avoiding the sick patients; thus if a patient becomes ill, they still risk losing their employer based insurance.

Continue reading The “Public Plan Option”: Myths and Facts →

Economy, health care

The Democrats “Public Option” Is Designed to Protect Insurance Companies

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Health Care Reform: Congress Needs to Protect Americans, Not Insurance Companies

By Mark Dunlea, Executive Director

Hunger Action Network of NYS

Co-Chair, Single Payer New York (www.singlepayernewyork.org)

As Congress negotiates health care reform, Democratic leaders have put the interests of insurance companies ahead of the needs of American citizens. If Americans want an affordable, quality health care system that enables consumers to choose whom they receive health care services from, private for-profit insurance companies must be eliminated.

Michael Moore’s movie SICKO correctly highlighted the problems with insurance companies rather than the problem of the uninsured. While the lack of health insurance is estimated to kill 18,000 Americans annually, for-profit insurance companies kill far more with their unreasonable denial and delay in approving treatment as they seek to maximize their profits.

Continue reading The Democrats “Public Option” Is Designed to Protect Insurance Companies →