So-Called Healthcare Reform

The Healthcare reform promised was a far cry from the
health insurance reform passed by the congress...

The watered-down reform is a gift to the insurance industry.
They still call the shots, set the prices, and have retained
their exemption from laws which prohibit monopolies.
We, the richest nation on the planet, still will have
18 million Americans with no access to healthcare.
The bill also contains inappropriate language that
may restrict a woman’s access to reproductive health services.
Federally funded abortion coverage for people purchasing
insurance through the exchanges will be banned under the
bill now passed by Congress.

The public option was stripped out at the demand of insurers,
and the provision that the president wanted to establish a federal
board to oversee premium hikes was also stripped by insurance
companies. Now there is nothing to control costs. This president
and Congress "settled" for a privately run, for-profit system
through which insurers can’t wait to gain 31 million new customers.
And they will set whatever price the market will bear.

We still need single payer to make real headway.
Kucinich is one of the co-authors of H.R. 676, which would create a
single-payer, Medicare-for-all health care system. It currently has 78
co-sponsors. We must continue to advocate for such a system. The
profiteering must end. The bill which was just passed will not make
that happen.

Here is what the doctors say:

"...the president's proposal would ship hundreds of billions of
taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry in the
form of subsidies," Young said. "And to help finance this, it
would impose a new tax on health benefits of workers,
especially those in high-cost states. Its individual mandate
would force millions of  middle-income uninsured Americans
to buy insurers' skimpy products - insurance policies full of gaps
like ever-rising co-pays, deductibles and premiums. Such policies
already leave middle-class American families vulnerable to
economic hardship and medical bankruptcy in the event of a
serious illness like cancer...Even so, at least 23 million people
would remain uninsured. We know that being uninsured raises
your chance of dying by about 40 percent," he continued,
citing another recent study. "That translates into about 23,000
unnecessary deaths each year. As physicians, we find this
completely unacceptable...In short, this proposal is an
insurance company bonanza, not good, evidence-based
health reform. The president would do better by abandoning
the insurance and drug companies and instead taking up
the single-payer approach."
http://pnhp.org/