Friday, August 15, 2003

So who do you trust? Your doctor or the Bush administration?

Dave Zweifel of the Capitol Times writes:

The announcement earlier this week that thousands of doctors across the United States and more than 60 right here in Dane County feel that we need a single-payer universal health care plan was a refreshing development.

Doctors more than anyone see firsthand the escalating cost of medical care coupled with the suffering and heartbreak that millions of working American families must endure simply because they are not covered by health insurance.

It's a huge scandal for a nation that prides itself as the most powerful and most generous in the world.

Advocates of universal health care have pointed out for years that all U.S. citizens could be insured if we simply pooled the money now spent on the hodgepodge of managed care and insurance plans that have become wasteful subsidies for the insurance companies and drug companies.

In a strongly worded article in the new issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the physicians argue that the time has come to start a national discussion about health care and how to administer and pay for it.

Ida Hellander, executive director of the Chicago-based Physicians for a National Health Program, estimated that more than $200 billion a year, or about 25 percent of every dollar now spent on U.S. health insurance, is wasted on paperwork alone.

What was particularly interesting about the doctors' proposal is that it was published in JAMA, signaling that the country's huge association of doctors at least deems the topic worthy of debate.

Of course, if health insurance wasn't employer-based, increased labor mobility would be the result; employees would find it easier to say "Take this job and shove it," since they wouldn't lose their insurance.

And if you haven't noticed it, this administration is not really into making employees safer, better paid, more empowered, or anything like that, so it's a cinch they'd be against universal health care.

UPDATE Meanwhile, in the Happy World of Private Health Insurance:

In a 15-page subpoena dated Aug. 1 and addressed to CareFirst's "custodian of records," a federal grand jury in Baltimore requested dozens of documents going back several years, sources close to CareFirst said.

The investigation appears to flow out of a 300-page report released March 5 by Maryland's previous insurance commissioner, Steven B. Larsen.

The report alleged that, in 2001, CareFirst sought to sell itself to WellPoint Health Networks Inc. for $1.37 billion in an effort to enrich its top officials, including chief executive William L. Jews and Executive Vice President David D. Wolf. The report also accused a personal lawyer of Jews', Isaac M. Neuberger, of conflicts of interest: Neuberger worked for CareFirst as well.

CareFirst, in a statement yesterday, said it did not break any laws.

Maybe not. As usual, the scandal is what's legal. (thanks to alert reader david riley)