Bacus Bill: Health Reform That Isn't

[Blue State Blues]

Excellent post by Marcia Angell, MD at Huffington Post

Billions of taxpayer dollars will be thrown at the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, much of it diverted from Medicare and Medicaid (despite Obama's protestations that he would not raid Medicare to shore up the private system). We'll simply pour more money into a system that's already shown itself capable of absorbing whatever we put into it without providing anything like commensurate health care.

And

So what will happen? First, the medical-industrial complex will consume an ever greater fraction of our GDP, at the expense of other social needs, like infrastructure and education. Second, American businesses that compete in the global market, already reeling from the costs of providing health insurance to their workers, will be even less competitive. Third, we'll see the growth of huge bureaucracies to make sure everyone buys insurance and penalize those who don't, and to monitor insurance companies for violations of the regulations against creaming off the most profitable customers. Finally, health care itself -- the ostensible purpose of the exercise -- will progressively deteriorate. We'll see not only rapidly rising premiums, but shrinking benefits and higher co-payments, until even those who have insurance will not be able to use it when they're sick.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-angell-md/baucus-bill-health-reform_b_293093.html

[dhpgetsit]

1. Ever hear the expression "All Mobbed Up"?

The Baucus bill is "All Corped Up".
Like most of what comes out of Congress.