Health Care in a Sick Economy

As jobs disappear and economic anxiety spreads, the incoming Congress is showing signs of getting serious about health care reform, and the entrenched health insurers are signaling their willingness to negotiate.

Two trade groups, America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, are saying they would guarantee coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, if they can get a mandate for individual coverage by everyone, sick or well.

This "concession" comes as seven senators responsible for health legislation met yesterday and promised to work together--Democrats Max Baucus, Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy and John D. Rockefeller IV along with Republicans Michael Enzi, Charles Grassley and Orrin Hatch.

The imminent appointment of Tom Daschle as Obama's point man on the issue is another sign that the failing economy is putting more pressure on Washington to create a health care safety net for everyone just as the 1930s produced Social Security for the old.

Without limits on predatory premiums and safeguards against fraud by providers, guaranteed coverage would do nothing to solve the crisis in which one out of every three dollars spent on health is going to insurers' overhead and profits.

But at least the issue is on the table, and the Wall Street Journal is sounding the alarm about a "slow-motion catastrophe" that might "add tens of millions more people to the federal balance sheet. Because the public option will enjoy taxpayer sponsorship, it will offer generous packages to consumers that no private company could ever afford or justify. And because federal officials will run not only the new plan but also the 'market' in which it 'competes' with private programs--like playing both umpire and one of the teams on the field--they will crowd out private alternatives and gradually assume a health-care monopoly."

Sounds something like the approach of a single-payer system, which rational observers have been urging all along, but nothing could be worse than what we have now

Democrats' Sickly Approach to Health Care

Even as their presidential candidates debate differences between plans for universal coverage, Congressional Democrats are waving white flags in the coming battle to get anything done.

Leaders of the party that should gain decisive control in November, according to The Hill, are busy explaining the expected defeat of health care reform.

“We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,” says Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Finance Committee member and an Obama backer. “What they are doing is … laying out their ambitions.”

New York's Chuck Schumer, who is for Hillary Clinton, agrees, saying he is “not sure we have the big plan on healthcare...not sure that we’re ready for a major national healthcare plan.”

Translation: The health insurance corporations, the drug companies and their Harry-and-Louise lobbyists will still be draining one out of every three dollars spent to cure and heal Americans for their own profit and drowning out any voices for change with loud chants about "socialized medicine."

The lawmakers cite the Clintons' failed attempt at reform in 1993 and even George Bush's defeat in trying to privatize Social Security as precedents for going slowly or, more accurately, glacially in expanding health-care coverage.

Under a Democratic President, we will likely get the expansion of SCHIP coverage that Bush vetoed and more funding for stem cell research, but not much else.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus predicts an uphill battle on health-care reform. “If they try to solve all the problems," he says, "it’s going to be difficult." And possibly unhealthy for their campaigns in the next election cycle.