I came across this report last night while trying to write about what needs to be done with Medicare before we could consider expanding it. Like I said, it’s not about the public option. It is now, and always has been, about the pre-existing conditions. Pay attention to this report: it was written 2/10/2010 — after the summit was announced.
Here’s the key to understanding insurers’ attitudes about pre-existing conditions:
Most proposals for dealing with the problems of pre-existing conditions would completely divorce health insurance premiums from expected health care costs, requiring health plans to enroll individuals regardless of their health status. Yet a policy of trying to force health plans to take enrollees they do not want risks jeopardizing the quality of care they receive.
Got that? If we MAKE insurers insure people, they’ll screw around with the care people receive because they didn’t want them in the first place. Of course they didn’t want them! They’re in the business of profit-making, not healthy living.
This report comes from the National Center for Policy Analysis. Sounds pretty benign, doesn’t it? The NCPA claims to be a non-partisan charitable organization dedicated to research and analysis of public policy. In fact, they are a conservative think tank in business to “develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control….”
Here are some facts:
- Exxon-Mobil has donated $520,000 since 2001. In return, NCPA is perfectly willing to embrace the climate-change deniers who have been trumpeting emails they obtained by hacking into researchers’ computers late last year.
- The Chairman of the Board of Directors for NCPA is Pierre S. Dupont IV. (see relationship map). DuPont is connected to the Hudson Institute, a right-wing think tank with connections to the Sarah Scaife foundation, and our favorite liar, Betsy McCaughey.
- Other health policy papers from NCPA include the promotion of high-deductible health plans, selling across state lines, and tort reform.
Let’s take our eyes off of the public option and put them squarely on pre-existing conditions. I believe we will see a coordinated assault on the provisions in the current bill that ban insurers from denying coverage to anyone with pre-existing conditions. This has always been the heart of their resistance and the largest barrier to break. Any weakening of the current outright ban will mean that health care reform is no reform at all. Look at what they propose:
- Health Savings Accounts for the Chronically Ill – In other words, if you’re sick, you pay for your own care instead of the insurer. Diabetics, for example, would not have their diabetes covered but instead would be granted the privilege of paying for it with pre-tax dollars.
- Break up insurance so that it only covers specific conditions – You could buy heart attack insurance, or diabetes insurance, or cancer insurance, except that if you had a family history they wouldn’t have to sell it to you.
- Health Status Insurance – cheap insurance until you get sick, and then you get dumped into the “sick pool” where your rates go up at the point where you can least afford it.
- Access to mandate-free insurance – That’s where men can opt out of a policy that covers pregnancy (even for dependents and spouse), for example.
This is where conservatives might drive the discussion tomorrow. They will try to poke holes in the one provision that must be in any reform bill for it to be reform. It’s also why it’s so important we pass the damn bill. Enough of the assault on people who are unfortunate enough to become ill. It’s wrong and it’s immoral.
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