If awards were given for brazen corporate behavior, surely it would go to the CEOs of the major health insurance companies for raising insurance premiums for individual subscribers by shocking double digit amounts — in the middle of the debate on health care reform.
One is tempted to say that they believe the fix is in and that nothing Congress will do will end up hurting them.
This Tuesday, those very CEOs are gathering at the Ritz Carlton in Washington for one last push to kill reform. And I will be there to greet them.
Of course, I will not be alone. I will be with thousands of others. We have all called, written, emailed, texted, faxed, and met with our elected representatives. Repeatedly. And yet that is simply not enough.
These CEOs are not apologetic. They have a common story — we must raise premiums because healthy people are choosing not to be insured and doctors and hospitals are charging us more and more.
The unsaid words? We must raise premiums to maintain our profits and our munificent salaries and bonuses.
The even more important unsaid words? The health insurance market is fatally broken. These double digit rate hikes are only the beginning. There simply is no private insurance solution to the problems. Healthy people forgo insurance because they cannot afford the premiums. Doctors and hospitals charge more because they are caring for more and more uninsured, who themselves are less healthy because they only go to a doctor in an emergency.
I believe that the only sustainable health care solution — one that provides universal coverage and does not bankrupt the country — is the one adopted by almost all advanced countries — a single payer system. Available in many flavors to meet local needs, almost all of our competitors have better care at lower cost than we do. The American health care system provides some of the worst care at the highest cost.
But the White House, Congress and the insider media do not want to talk about single payer because it eliminates the very existence of insurance companies in order to improve health.
Only with persistence bordering on impoliteness have we been able to ensure that a public option even be discussed as a choice. Having forbidden even the words single payer, the public option is the competition the insurance companies fear the most.
There would be no double digit rate increases if insurance companies faced the public option in every market.
On Tuesday, I hope to confront the health insurance CEOs. They should be publicly shamed for their behavior.
But most importantly, they should get out of the way of reform. Is there any doubt that absent the swarms of self-serving former Congressional aides now serving as hired gun lobbyists that the health reform that might get a vote would be far better for our health? Of course not.
But instead, these CEOs come to Washington to demand that Congress start over. Anything but fundamentally change the system.
I might get arrested for this confrontation. I am prepared for that. Because I have done everything else, yet the insurance market is getting worse and Congress has been intimidated into not acting.
If you are in Washington tomorrow, you can join in the fun and protest with me. You can carry a sign supporting the public option. If the insurance CEOs dare show their face, you can share your stories and tell them to get out of the way.
It should be fun. If it was not so deadly serious. How do these CEOs sleep knowing that tens of thousands of their fellow Americans are dying each year because of a system they have built and defend?
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is trying to persuade a weary public and wavering Democrats to get behind his frantic, late-stage push on health care, while Republicans dig in and demand starting from scratch after a year's worth of work.
“Now, despite all the progress and improvements we've made, Republicans in Congress insist that the only acceptable course on health care is to start over. But you know what? The insurance companies aren't starting over,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.
“I just met with some of them on Thursday, and they couldn't give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums – by as much as 60 percent in states like Illinois. If we do not act, they will continue to do this.”
Republicans were not swayed.
“It's not too late: We can, and we must, stop this government takeover of health care,” said Rep. Parker Griffith, a retired physician and a first-term congressman from Alabama who switched parties in December and delivered the GOP message.
The competing addresses underscored the urgency behind Obama's last-ditch push for immediate health care reform. Without a victory – and quickly – Democrats move into a fast-approaching election season without a major, tangible accomplishment that affects voters' pocketbooks. And with a chasm remaining between the two parties, Democrats considered passing the overhaul with votes just from their party.
That process would let the 59 Senate Democrats declare victory with a simple majority instead of a 60-vote count. It also would allow Obama's team to get back to talking about the economy, which has shed more than 8 million jobs since the recession began.
Obama is pleading with Democrats to overcome divisions to seize a historic moment to remake the health care system during this election year. The White House wants to pass a health care overhaul and then campaign on it. Voters will pick candidates to serve 36 Senate seats; the entire House is up for re-election.
White House officials hope the immediate changes in the health overhaul would be enough to satisfy voters' expectations – and Democratic lawmakers who were hardly unified in support of the plan.
Travis Mayer