Senator Baucus’ Call to Action Health Reform 2009: More Déjà vu?

November 12th, 2008 · No Comments

Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has publicly announced his intention to push congress into overhauling the nation’s health care system during the first half of next year, according to his latest press release (Associated Press). He wants to force everybody to purchase health insurance once “affordable options” are available. Once all Americans are covered, the Democratic Senator for Montana wants to institute “cost-saving focus on preventive care.” There are some serious problems with this not-so-new approach. First, there is no indication that this Senator or any other public official has any clue that the health care “system” is killing more people than automobile accidents, breast cancer, aids and many of the diseases that they are attempting to treat. It is great to give everyone access to preventive medicine, but we have to have competent medical practitioners to do the preventing as well as adequate numbers of medical and nursing personnel to provide services in underserved areas, like rural and inner city communities and virtually every hospital in the country.

Second, the Baucus Plan would provide guaranteed free coverage for everyone living below the federal poverty line which includes families of three making $17,500 or less per year. The rest of us will have a federal mandate to buy a health plan in the “Insurance Exchange”. This leaves the same gap that exists today; people living somewhere between the poverty line and the point where they can afford to pay $6,000 per year for a health plan that has a $6,000 deductible (pay $6,000 in premiums and then pay out of pocket for the first $6,000 in health care costs). That group constitutes the 46 million folks who currently have no health insurance. So, what does the good senator want to do, throw 46 million people in jail for not buying into the insurance company price-gouging swindle?

Third, if the Senator wants to eliminate those crooked deductibles and lower the premiums, how will he accomplish that? We he force the insurance companies into insolvency and then bail them out like the corporate criminals at Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, AIG, Goldman Sachs and all the other failed financial firms? Where will all that new money come from?

Fourth, the idea of affordable health insurance with no deductibles is something that we all crave. However, we need leaders who intimately understand the practical every workings of how providers administer health care in this country. At least Senator Baucus et al should have better advisers to tell them that we need re-education of nurses, physicians and other personnel, re-evaluation of the utilization of diagnostic technology, new laws mandating fiscal responsibility on the part of health care management, licensing of hospital administrators and a host of other specific reforms needed to turn political rhetoric into reality.

Fifth, the Senatorial call to action for health care reform in 2009 promises that once the government puts the missing 46 million people back into the private fee-for-service health care system, they will improve quality and cut costs. Well, I have seen that same claim bandied about for the last 25 years with the introduction of managed care and prospective reimbursement. The cost cutting result was to push people out of the hospital quicker and sicker and deny approval for vital treatments.

In conclusion, I applaud any serious initiative, if indeed Senator Baucus and his colleagues are truly going to roll up their sleeves and get down to unveiling a real reform. Otherwise, this new press release becomes nothing but more political grandstanding and a lot of media fluff. The biggest hurtle to overcome is to mandate corporate executive accountability among health care organizations. However, our leaders don’t believe in command responsibility; we know that because they don’t practice it. In the face of total economic collapse, we saw nothing but a lot of finger pointing with “democans” blaming “republicrats” and vice versa and no one made any moves to bring even one of the many corporate criminals to justice. What ever happened to Harry Truman’s desk sign that says, “The buck stops here?” It got lost. No one saw it again after Nixon resigned. In the final analysis, what we really need in health care is not reform but transformation.

Other Media Sources:

The Salt Lake Tribune

The Wall Street Journal

The Washington Post

The American Prospect

The Federal News Service

Easy Bourse