Marcia Angell: Is the House Health Care Bill Better than Nothing?

[RufusTFirefly]

Published on Monday, November 9, 2009 by Huffington Post
Is the House Health Care Bill Better than Nothing?

by Marcia Angell

Well, the House health reform bill -- known to Republicans as the Government Takeover -- finally passed after one of Congress's longer, less enlightening debates. Two stalwarts of the single-payer movement split their votes; John Conyers voted for it; Dennis Kucinich against. Kucinich was right.

...

If a similar bill emerges from the Senate and the reconciliation process, and is ultimately passed, what will happen?

First, health costs will continue to skyrocket, even faster than they are now, as taxpayer dollars are pumped into the private sector. The response of payers -- government and employers -- will be to shrink benefits and increase deductibles and co-payments. Yes, more people will have insurance, but it will cover less and less, and be more expensive to use.

Is the House bill better than nothing? I don't think so. It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work. But the real problem will be that we didn't really try it. I would rather see us do nothing now, and have a better chance of trying again later and then doing it right.

Marcia Angell, M. D., is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She stepped down as Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine on June 30, 2000.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/09-5

[RufusTFirefly]

1. The danger is that ... people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work.

Exactly.

[nichomachus]

2. This is why the bill was designed to fail

This idiotic bill is not reform. It will fail. It was designed to fail. It will set the cause of real health-care reform back at least one generation.

[IrateCitizen]

8. It was not "designed to fail"

It was designed to be a government subsidy to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

[Jim Lane]

6. Yes and, more specifically, that government regulation and government-run insurance are useless

Not only will people find their bills going up; there's a real danger that, if they decide to check out the government's "public option" instead, they'll find that it charges more and/or offers worse coverage. That fact, taken out of context, will be repeated endlessly in all future debates.

[Bryn]

3. DUers need to read this

This is a bad, bad bill. Very! Dennis Kucinich was right.

Nice that they won't be able to use "pre-existing conditions" ... BUT ... they will RAISE premiums. They are not going to regulate that one. We've been sold out to insurance companies, big pharmas, etc. It's no longer We The People. It's The Corporation now.

[Demeter]

4. LALALALA They Aren't Listening!

Wonder if the bill will pay for surgery to remove fingers stuck in ear canals.

What does Marcia know? She's only a woman. :sarcasm:

Doesn't matter how many degrees, honors, and important positions she's occupied. Doesn't matter that this is her field, her specialty, her source of bread and butter.

Doesn't matter what any nay-sayer has to offer as rebuttal to the great Group Think. People want to believe, HAVE TO BELIEVE, that there's a tooth fairy with a wand, and that every pile of shit has a free pony attached to it.

[aaronbav]

5. K&R +1000 times if it were possible!

[zeos3]

7. I'm afraid this is true. n/t

[mzmolly]

9. The senate bill needs to address cost regulation.

I respect Dr. Angell RTF. Thanks for sharing.