Health care reform is being totally screwed up by the party that has pushed for it for years – the Democrats. Here’s two very interesting stories that go along with the cost containment issues I have been talking about this week.
First up we have some Democrats, along with the White House and Pharma working to keep the sky-high prices of drugs:
The White House, aided by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), is working hard to crush an amendment being pushed by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to allow for the reimportation of pharmaceutical drugs from Canada, Senate sources tell the Huffington Post.
As a result, the Senate health care debate has come to a standstill: Carper has placed a “hold” on Dorgan’s amendment and in response, Dorgan tells HuffPost, he’ll object to any other amendments being considered before he gets a vote on his.
And here is the kind of savings we would see:
Within a decade, reimportation would save consumers roughly $80 billion and the federal government $19 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But that would mean $100 billion more in lost revenue than the powerful Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) lobby agreed to bear– in exchange for being supportive of the overall health reform effort.
So $99 billion in loss is $100 billion more than Pharm would take? Sounds like they were promised profit in exchange for healthcare.
Americans pay up to 10 times the price that other developed nations do for prescription drugs, and all the money goes straight to Big Pharma. They claim it’s for research, but why doesn’t Canada, the UK or any other developing nation help carry that bill? I guess the Democrats think its fine for the struggling people of this country to suffer so others can benefit.
This also goes to the heart of the matter of the “commerce clause” I mentioned the other day. Democrats say they can force you and me to buy insurance because of this, yet they can’t tell Pharma “hey – you’re products are causing financial havoc throughout the health care world and your sky high profits need to pay the price”? Bullshit. This is nothing but the Democrats playing whore to big money and screwing over the people. They are no better than the Republicans.
And with the cost of drugs being so high you would think that would have an effect on insurance costs – right? Right, and that leads us to the second item – the ability for insurance companies to deny coverage:
“A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer,” reports the AP. The Senate Finance Committee barred annual caps altogether. The merged Senate bill only erases “unreasonable” annual caps. What’s “unreasonable?” Hard to say.
Hill sources explain that this was inserted because CBO said premiums would “go through the roof” if insurers couldn’t cap benefits. The official quote from Jim Manley, Harry Reid’s spokesperson, says much the same thing. “We are concerned that banning all annual limits, regardless of whether services are voluntary, could lead to higher premiums,” he explained. “We continue to work with experts on how best to accomplish our goals of preventing insurance companies from imposing arbitrary coverage limits while providing the premium relief American families need and deserve.”
So we are still at the position where insurance companies can just say “hey – no more coverage for you” and send Americans into financial ruin. Imagine how much in drugs is spent on a cancer patient. Here i’ll help you:
Drug prices are a growing issue for every disease, especially for people who are uninsured. But cancer sticker shock is hitting hard now, as a list of more advanced biotech drugs have made treatment rounds costing $100,000, or even more, no longer a rarity. Also, patients are living longer, good news but meaning they need treatment for longer periods. The cost of cancer care is rising 15 percent a year, Lichter notes.
So get cancer and chances are you’ll get dropped.
Again – the Democrats have done very little to contain costs in health care. Costs should be at the heart of the issue, because if we can get the high price of health care down then the government can easily afford to cover more people. If anything our costs should be comparable to those of Canadian health care, not 10 times more.
What I can see happening is the Democrats pass this crap bill, then American realize that they are on the short end of the stick with it. That will sweep the Republicans back into power and they will most likely work to change the bill, but in the end that will probably be even worse. We have one chance to get this right and that chance is now, but it will never happen with the total lack of leadership coming from the White House and assholes like Harry Reid.