So we've gone from commitments to eventualities, targets, and non-specific understandings.

I always felt something was strange in taking the word of the private sector.  When your job is to maximize profits, one would wonder how seriously a commitment to voluntarily harm those profits could be.

 

Well it turns out that all the positive talk from Obama... was merely spin.

 

The private sector is already backtracking--

 

That Didn't Take Long: Insurance Industry Breaks Promise To President Obama

This just proves what the American people have known all along: You can't trust the insurance industry with health care reform.

 

Why have these commitments gone soft? It's about profits. Every dollar of health care "waste" in the system, every dollar that goes somewhere other than to your health, that's a dollar more in the pockets of a rich hospital administrator or insurance industry CEO. For health care costs to come down, somebody's profits have to come down as well.

Now, in a good reform plan, every player in the system would be squeezed a little bit to help alleviate the crushing cost on the patient. Doctors, hospitals, and other providers would charge a bit less for care and be paid based on quality, not quantity. Drug and medical device makers would be forced to sell their products at a discount in volume. And the insurance industry would trim overhead and profits to keep costs in line. Then, employers and government would pitch in to cover all individuals. It would be a system of shared responsibility.

Clearly, the insurance industry, hospitals, and drug makers aren't interested in shared responsibility. They don't want to be squeezed a bit. The want to protect their profits so much that they show their two-faced nature: Standing next to the President of the United States, promising responsibility, and then backpeddling as fast as they can four days later.

That's why we need to make them do it. Voluntary agreements are not enough. We need regulation and we need real cost control, and that means a public health insurance option that will force these awful companies to earn their keep through stiff competition, something they've avoided for far too long.

The reality is that the only thing that will help bring down health care costs is competition in the marketplace.  Its a fundamental principle of market systems. 

 

Without giving citizens the choice to buy into a public plan--which medicare has proven, is more efficient, cost effective, and far less bureaucratic--there will be no competitive pressure to force the private sector to cut costs and provide better service.

 

 

 

 

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