Robert Parry: Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:



Published on Tuesday, June 23, 2009 by Consortium News

Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex
by Robert Parry


The usual knock on government programs is that they're not as efficient as the private sector, which we're told can provide the same product for less money and with higher quality. Thus, it should be no big deal when the public and private collide because the private sector should prevail.

However, in providing health insurance, those rules clearly don't apply, which is why congressional Republicans and so-called "centrist" Democrats are going to such lengths to deny the American people access to a public option on health insurance.

Indeed, if a public option were to be piggybacked onto the existing Medicare bureaucracy, the chances for savings could be impressive for average Americans and the overall American economy.

Insurance middlemen could be eliminated; investigators who ferret out "preexisting conditions" wouldn't be needed; doctors could save on administrative costs; the burden on U.S. industry providing health benefits could be reduced; and more money could be freed to cover the nearly 50 million uninsured or for actual doctoring.

For a nation facing multiple fiscal crises - all complicated by the costs of health care - one might think that the most sure thing in the health care debate would be to allow a cost-saving public option, which as President Barack Obama says would help keep private health insurers "honest" regarding their promises to trim waste and control premiums. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/23-0

[valerief]

1. Yeah, but the handful of folks benefitting from the money-laundering machine,

I mean, the insurance industry, would be the real losers. And they're PWCs--people who count! Why shouldn't an entire nation sacrifice the security of health care for these PWCs?