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
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