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US Health Care -- Good for America, Bad for the World (Gregor Peter Schmitz, 3/22/10, Der Spiegel)

Nevertheless, he cannot really celebrate the reform that he promised for so long. Since his campaign, Obama has provided two primary justifications for universal health care. First, was the moral necessity to eliminate the existential risks posed by illness or injury to more than 40 million Americans without coverage. The second justification was an economic one -- rising health care costs, so goes the argument, must be brought under control in order to reduce stress on the US budget.

The first promise has been fulfilled -- the new legislation demonstrates solidarity with those unable to afford health coverage and with those who were refused insurance. The second promise, however, has been postponed. The reform bill only half-heartedly addresses the reduction of health care costs and those measures aimed at savings can easily be skirted. Insurance companies will get millions of new customers, but no real competition. Their shares are currently skyrocketing -- they are the true winners of US health care reform.

The president, in other words, won the moral debate, but he is paying a high price. The bid to introduce social reforms of the 1960s, providing health insurance to the poor and elderly, was also deeply controversial. And back then the Republicans also made huge efforts to block the reforms. Congress, though, passed the bill with a clear majority in the end, with votes from both parties. This time Obama has failed to get a single Republican to back his health care reform and polls show that there is a deep public mistrust.

Obama's show of strength, in fact, most closely resembles the fight for greater civil rights for African-Americans in the South during the 1960s. Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act because he believed it was the right thing to do. But he did it in the clear knowledge that the Democrats would have to pay a heavy political price.

Timeline of health care reform: Things may get worse before they gets better (David Saltonstall, 3/22/10, NYDAILY NEWS)

"It is so being pitched as a cure-all, and it isn't," said Prof. Stephen Parente, a health care expert at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.

Parente has estimated that because of the ongoing recession, and no firm checks on rising premiums in the near term, as many as 8 million more Americans could join the 46 million now uninsured in the next two years.

"So, the reality is that by 2012, when Barack Obama is running for reelection, there will be millions more people who still don't have insurance," he said. [...]

Yes, the law includes many quick fixes that will be noticeable this year, from tax credits for small businesses to billions in new aid for community health centers.

But the centerpiece of the reforms - namely, a network of health care exchanges through which families and businesses can use subsidies to shop for low-cost insurance - doesn't get off the ground until 2014. Many other provisions are put off to 2015, 2016 - even 2020.

While a reform requiring private health insurance -- and treating abortion as anathema -- would be a pyrrhic victory for Democrats anyway, the best part of the proposed bill is how easy it is for a Republican majority to fix. All you need to do is add an HSA/catastrophic option and expand coverage to 100% of Americans.

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Obama's Failed Promise: To get the health-care bill passed, a pro-choice president reneged on his pledge to support reproductive rights for rich and poor alike. (Dana Goldstein, 3/22/10, Daily Beast)

The final health-care reform bill represents a huge loss for the pro-choice movement, and one largely dealt by Democrats. Just a year ago, feminist organizations were ecstatic about the election of a pro-choice president, one who had promised on the campaign trail to end the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal Medicaid dollars from contributing to the cost of poor women's abortions.

Now, in a Faustian bargain with Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan and other Democrats who oppose abortion rights, President Obama will issue an executive order enshrining the Hyde Amendment and expanding its reach into the new private insurance exchanges created by the health-care bill. Because only about 13 percent of abortions are billed directly to insurers, it is sometimes assumed that abortion is a relatively inelastic good—that women who really want one will get one, come hell or high water. But that assumption is false. A 1999 study of poor women in North Carolina found that about one-third of them had carried pregnancies to term only because Medicaid funding for abortions was unavailable during certain parts of the year.

The Health Care Hindenburg Has Landed (Chris Hedges, 3/22/10, TruthDig)

The claims made by the proponents of the bill are the usual deceptive corporate advertising. The bill will not expand coverage to 30 million uninsured, especially since government subsidies will not take effect until 2014. Families who cannot pay the high premiums, deductibles and co-payments, estimated to be between 15 and 18 percent of most family incomes, will have to default, increasing the number of uninsured. Insurance companies can unilaterally raise prices without ceilings or caps and monopolize local markets to shut out competitors. The $1.055 trillion spent over the next decade will add new layers of bureaucratic red tape to what is an unmanageable and ultimately unsustainable system.

The mendacity of the Democratic leadership in the face of this reality is staggering. Howard Dean, who is a doctor, said recently: “This is a vote about one thing: Are you for the insurance companies or are you for the American people?” Here is a man who once championed the public option and now has sold his soul. What is the point in supporting him or any of the other Democrats? How much more craven can they get?

Take a look at the health care debacle in Massachusetts, a model for what we will get nationwide. One in six people there who have the mandated insurance say they cannot afford care, and tens of thousands of people have been evicted from the state program because of budget cuts. The 45,000 Americans who die each year because they cannot afford coverage will not be saved under the federal legislation. Half of all personal bankruptcies will still be caused by an inability to pay astronomical medical bills. The only good news is that health care stocks and bonuses for the heads of these corporations are shooting upward. Chalk this up as yet another victory for our feudal overlords and a defeat for the serfs.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 22, 2010 5:36 AM