Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest

PaperTrail Blog

POLITICS: Health Care Reform Stays in the Picture; Health Lobby Probably Does, Too

By Andrew Green | November 12, 2008, 6:04 pm

Montana Senator Max Baucus Conventional wisdom had it that the current economic morass might temporarily sideline President-Elect Obama’s push to reform health care. But today brings news that a handful of influential Washington players might not be willing to wait.

Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and the chairman of the Finance Committee, today released a 104-page position paper mapping his vision of health care reform. Meanwhile, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy is convening a spectrum of stakeholders in hopes of getting legislation together by Obama’s inauguration, according to The Washington Post.

And health care reform advocates are likely not the only ones excited by this news. The health care lobby — one of Washington’s largest — is probably already gearing up for a fight similar to that of the early ’90s, when the Clinton administration unsuccessfully attempted to overhaul the health care system. The Center spent a year documenting the millions of dollars and thousands of hours spent lobbying various players in the health care reform effort, culminating in our 1994 report, Well Healed: Inside Lobbying for Health Care Reform.

The landmark investigation ripped the lid off the special-interest hijacking of the Clinton administration’s efforts to reconstitute our country’s health care system. Among its findings: At least 80 former congressional and executive branch officials had gone through the “revolving door” to work for health care interests. Almost a hundred public relations, lobbying, and law firms were hired to influence the debate. Hundreds of special interests cumulatively spent in excess of $100 million to affect the outcome.

Now, 14 years later, is there any doubt that those numbers will do anything but go up?

Next entry: POLITICS: Governor Bobby Jindal Spins the Center’s Work
Previous entry: ELECTION ’08: Felons in Office: Ted Stevens Set to Join an Even More Elite Club

Comments (4) | Add a comment Email this Print this

Comments

Posted by: altdoc on November 25, 2008, 4:00 pm

Health care and health insurance are mutually exclusive. Good health is a response to 1) accurate knowledge, 2) proper sequencing of health services and 3) personal effort. All three are unpredictable and unmanaged in our system.

Insurance, of any kind, is a business that assesses risk and sets premiums to match risk. Even interest rates are based on risk. Health insurance fails to assess risk, Instead, it uses a blanket premium for the entire group.

Consider that in any large group, 80% of policyholders spend only 20% of the total health-care budget. A system that establishes level premiums not only fails to reward and encourage top performers, it punishes them by using their premiums to pay for the excess spending of the bottom-performing 20% who spend 80% of the budget. Under-performers need their own risk-based premiums to effect a greater effort to improve their health and achieve lower premiums. Such a plan would be well received by the 80% majority who would save money on premiums and by those in the 20% who correct their health and save.

Socialized medicine will fail and cost more. Look at any country that has it. A low health-insurance premiums is not a right. It’s an earned privilege. People who want abusive lifestyles should be prepared to pay the premium that goes with that level of risk.

Individual-policyholder risk and premiums must be determined using lab testing. There is no other way to assess risk without guessing. Until that happens, incentive to perform will only be a personal choice. It will not have the kind of financial edge found in auto, life or any other kind of insurance. Even interest rates are based on an assessment of risk.

As our world sinks deeper into this recession, shifting to a performance-based system with properly-sequenced services makes good sense.
Posted by: Ed G, MD on December 07, 2008, 11:04 pm

Integrating alternative with conventional medicine is one way to bring down costs and limit the power of large corporations for a simple reason—alternative medicine is almost all generic already and there are no large corporations involved. With good research and more clearly defined roles for alternative practitioners we could integrate these two systems. We also need more visible leadership, and I’ve suggested an alternative practitioner for Surgeon General. (http://www.buffalonews.com/149/story/508014.html) If the alternative and conventional systems are integrated, primary care docs can make rational referrals to alternative practitioners. The way it is now, patients must choose which system to use, and there is very little to tell them what is best for their particular problem.
Posted by: altdoc on December 08, 2008, 12:31 am

The real play in health care is in insurance. It not only offers the potential for running a business but also fixes health care. It offers insurance to the underserved, ie, the healthy. Think about it. Healthy people make a greater effort on their health and have to pay an “averaged premium” within their group. Not only do they not get rewarded, they get punished by having some of their premiums used to pay the premiums of the worst performers. Now that’s a market.
Further, the health-care model and sequencing of health-care skills is already operating, so the task is not trial and error. Cuts to medical expenses under the new model are averaging around 70%!
Posted by: altdoc on December 08, 2008, 12:34 am

Politicians are completely in the way of a better health-care model. They have the PAC-money needle in the arms, and health-care interets are paying more in lobbying money than any other group. But they can be beaten with a new insurance product for the healthy. It has such potential as a money maker while it corrects the system. It fuels itself with waste eliminated from the current medically-top-heavy health-care system. This market could not be better or more sweetly timed given this recession.

Add a comment

Do you have an opinion about this post?
Log in / Register to become part of the conversation!

Receive important updates by e-mail.

Forget your password?

User registration

Become a fan
Follow the Center

Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter and get the latest from our in-depth investigations, articles, interviews, blogs, videos, and more.

Your support will help us bring you more investigations, articles, interviews and news related materials relevant to U.S. politics and politics abroad.

The Center for Public Integrity is dedicated to producing original, responsible investigative journalism on issues of public concern in the USA and around the world.

More about the Center

The Center’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) is a collaboration of some of the world’s leading investigative reporters. ICIJ extends globally the Center’s style of watchdog journalism, working with 100 reporters in 50 countries to produce long-term, transnational projects.

ICIJ website

Stay Connected
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter and get the latest from our in-depth investigations, articles, interviews, blogs, videos, and more.

Support Our Work
Your support will help us bring you more investigations, articles, interviews and news related materials relevant to U.S. politics and politics abroad.