Good Heavens, Cuomo -- How Could You?!
Part 2
In my last post, I showed that -- with respect to healthcare -- Governor Cuomo has demonstrated himself apparently indifferent to the suffering of very many New Yorkers. I based my information on an email I got from Bob Lederer MPH, who is Executive Director of the Physicians for a National Health Program - New York Metro Chapter. In the body of his email he included a link to a statement by the advocacy group Health Care For All New York -- a statement that I quoted in its entirety. This statement got me so exercised, that I dashed off my angry reaction to the failures it criticized, which was the post I published.
Only when I cooled down a little did I realize that I neglected to bring out what was the most damning indictment of all -- the attachment Bob included in his email. This attachment he described as "a compilation of research that the PNHP [Physicians for a National Health Plan] team has done."
At the very bottom of this compilation, you may read the following:
"REALITIES OF SINGLE PAYER PRAISES GOVERNOR
CUOMO’S UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE COVERAGE PROPOSAL
The Realities of Single Payer
coalition applauds the Governor’s efforts to achieve universal access to health
care for all New Yorkers. Our broad-based coalition of employers, health care
providers, labor unions, health plans and brokers fully support his approach of
building on the success of the Affordable Care Act, which has reduced the
number of uninsured in New York to historically low levels and reduced the cost
of individual coverage by 50 percent.Convening a Commission for Universal Access to Health Care to identify policy options to improve access to care and strengthen New York’s commercial insurance market is a pragmatic and progressive approach to attaining universal coverage. We look forward to contributing to the policy objectives of the Commission.”
For those who don't know, the "Realities of Single Payer" is a coalition of insurance companies who are dead set against any form of insurance that is not commercial, profit-driven insurance. Check out the link above for a sample of the lies and distortions they put out for any one who will listen. And what do you think motivates them? It's money of course, a great deal of which they stand to lose if there is only one insurer in New York State instead of many insurers, each with its CEO making many millions of dollars, and each with its bureaucracy of gate keepers dedicated to increasing profits and dividends by limiting healthcare or denying it altogether. This coalition of business-as-usual types came out with their statement at a time so closely following the issuance of Cuomo's that one might suspect (if one was a cynical type) that each was in collusion with the other!
Obamacare represented a great step forward, but it has many flaws that need remedying, of which not a few are based on the fact that it was built upon the profit-driven corporations that agreed to them -- which was why they agreed to them in the first place! It was a handout to the insurance industry!
I hold as axiomatic the view that when it comes to keeping people healthy, or healing them when they're sick, PROFITS ARE POISON! From my point of view, enriching the greedy beast is not the way to go. As I see it, Cuomo's approach to curing what ails our healthcare system is more of the same.
Dio
If you'd like to leave a comment -- which I encourage you to do -- simply click on the number of comments area and share your thoughts in the "comment rectangle" that appears. Thanks!
Well Done, informative and timely post. We also need to address that Medicare for All includes Co-Payment and is therefor not the same as NYHA. It needs to be better defined in the future and we need to demand of our representatives and candidates that they use clear language defining Universal Health Care and the NYHA going forward, solidarity
ReplyDeleteActually, in NYHA there are NO co-pays, NO deductibles, and NO pre-existing conditions. But you are quite right: The phrase "Medicare For All means a whole lot of different things to different people. It behooves us to pay attention!
DeleteThanks for sharing this useful info.. Healthcare Marketing Agency
ReplyDeletehttps://www.tarbell.org/2018/06/health-insurers-writing-big-checks-to-democrats-as-single-payer-support-grows/
ReplyDeleteHealth Insurers Writing Big Checks to Democrats as Single Payer Support Grows
As the support for a single-payer, “Medicare-for-All” health care system in U.S. grows, so do the contributions from the health insurance industry.
"Since the beginning of this year, the political action committees of the five biggest for-profit health insurers—Aetna, Anthem, Humana, Cigna and UnitedHealth—have been doling out campaign donations to members of Congress at a fast pace, and they are giving to almost as many Democrats as Republicans." (read more details at the link.
By Wendell Potter
http://socialistworker.org/2017/07/04/single-payer-got-close-so-the-democrats-killed-it
ReplyDeleteJuly 4, 2017
Emma Wilde Botta looks at California Democrats' excuses for why they killed their own single-payer health care bill--and argues for the fight to move outside the legislature.
AS REPUBLICANS in Washington, D.C., pursued the latest disastrous variations on Trumpcare, California Democrats were busy squashing the Healthy California Act (SB 562), a bill that would have begun the work to establish a single-payer system in the state.
On June 23,2017 Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon announced, "SB 562 will remain in the Assembly Rules Committee until further notice"--supposedly in order to make fighting Trumpcare "the top health care priority."
"The passage of SB 562 would have posed an ideological challenge to decades of neoliberal privatization and galvanized the single-payer movement at a time when deep cuts to Medicaid are on the agenda in Washington. Single-payer advocates should consider the trajectory of SB 562 and draw lessons about future efforts to win health care for all."
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/08/10/health-insurance-drug-companies-create-group-to-fight-single-payer-healthcare.html
ReplyDeletePosted on Fri, Aug 10th, 2018 by Leo Vidal
Health Insurance, Drug Companies Create Group to Fight Single Payer Healthcare
"With billions of dollars at stake, powerful healthcare companies have formed a new group to fight single payer healthcare. The entrenched and highly-profitable healthcare “establishment” is clearly worried that the movement toward single payer would cut into their obscene and unconscionable profit margins that force millions of Americans into financial ruin and bankruptcy."
"The new group has been named “The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future” which is an interesting name because the partnership’s goal is to prevent meaningful change, and to keep America mired in the past."
"The notion that the U.S., which spends about $600 billion per year to keep its military running and gave a $1.5 trillion tax cut to the wealthiest Americans as well as permanently cutting corporate taxes by 14 percent a year ago, is unable to afford a national healthcare system is familiar to advocates—but numerous recent studies from across the political spectrum have helped to debunk the claim.
ReplyDeleteIn November, as Common Dreams reported at the time, the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts released a major study showing that in its first decade, a Medicare for All system would save $5.1 trillion in overall healthcare spending. That number, the study explained, does not even account for "broader macroeconomic benefits such as increased productivity, greater income equality, and net job creation through lower operating costs for small- and medium-sized businesses."
PERI's report echoed the findings of the Mercatus Institute, a think tank that receives funding from the Koch Brothers and which reported in a study last summer that a single-payer system like the one proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would cost $32.6 trillion over the next decade—saving $2 trillion in national healthcare expenditures based on projections of how much the current system would cost over the same 10 years.
Speaking to Boston-based radio station WBUR last week, Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP) president Dr. Adam Gaffney also corrected the argument put forward by critics like Bloomberg.
"For every one dollar increase in taxes" that would help to fund the new system, Gaffney said, "we're talking about more savings through getting rid of premiums, copays, and deductibles. So overall people would do better, and more importantly they would never need to worry about not getting the care that they need."
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CITED FROM: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/29/harris-says-eliminate-profit-insurance-bloomberg-offers-fact-free-medicare-all
Common Dreams ARTICLE COVERAGE:
Published on
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
by
Common Dreams
As Harris Says 'Eliminate' For-Profit Insurance, Bloomberg Offers...
(A POISONED PILL!)
"...Sen. Kamala Harris's (D-Calif.) unequivocal statement of support for a Medicare for All system which would do away with the for-profit health insurance industry..."
"National Nurses United (NNU) executive director Bonnie Castillo was among the prominent progressives who praised Harris's statement, noting that Medicare for All advocates will demand similar commitments from other Democrats running for president and all elected officials."
READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT THIS LINK
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/01/29/harris-says-eliminate-profit-insurance-bloomberg-offers-fact-free-medicare-all