This episode of Bill Moyers Journal is NOT going to make you happy, but miss it at your peril. The punchline is that unless and until we move to Single Payer, any so called reform will be yet more giveaways to special interests.
Bill Moyers sits down with Trudy Lieberman, director of the health and medical reporting program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and Marcia Angell, senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School and former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Watch the VIDEO(approx 25 mins)
Read Full Transcript
Excerpts
Apparently, what we are about to receive will not be reform. It will be a banquet for the health care industry with the taxpayer paying the bill.
MARCIA ANGELL: ... Our problem is that we spend two and a half times as much per person on health care as other advanced countries, the average of other advanced countries. And we don't get our money's worth. So, now he [Obama] says, okay, this is a terribly inefficient, wasteful system. Let's throw some money into it.
And the Obama administration has been very vague about what reforms it wants. It is being left up to congress for decide what to propose, and we all know where congress loyalties lie.
TRUDY LIEBERMAN: ...
And so basically, it's my belief that this whole discussion about health care reform is flying over the heads of the American people. They know about reform, but they don't know-- they know the words reform, but they don't know what they mean at all.
Next if everyone is mandated to buy insurance, and the 'reform' turns out to be a rearranging of the current deck chairs, it will be a huge windfall to Big Insurance.
BILL MOYERS: The President, as you were saying a moment ago, is saying to everybody who's not covered, we're going to mandate that you exercise that right. We're going to mandate that you buy some form--
MARCIA ANGELL: We're going to deliver the private insurance companies a captive market. That's right. And they love that.
And why is Big Pharma suddenly onboard? Apparently the deal with perscription drug discounts is that only brand names will be covered -- no generic drugs are included. So Big Pharma can charge whatever they want and with the taxpayer subsidy, they can compete with generics. Sweet deal if you can get it. No wonder Harry and Louise (pharma advertisement) are suddenly for the reform.
MARCIA ANGELL: First this is $8 billion a year for the pharmaceutical industry. This is chump change. And second, it's only for brand-name drugs. So, in a sense, it's a subsidy for the most expensive drugs.
And despite the obligatory whining, the industries have had their way with congress on writing the current bills. We know this can't be good news.
TRUDY LIEBERMAN: What's happened now is that the industries have gotten pretty much what they want out of the bills that are going forward.
And as for our beloved Public Option, our watered down compromise from Single Payer?
BILL MOYERS: The President says there will be a public option in my bill that will compete with the private insurance. To bring the cost down.
TRUDY LIEBERMAN: That's what he says. Again, we get back to the detail question and the particulars, which are so absent in this whole discussion. We don't know what a public plan will look like. And even if there's going to be a public plan. The insurers don't want it. It's not clear that the doctors want it. And the pharmaceutical companies don't want it.
MARCIA ANGELL: I'm skeptical of that, because the power of the insurance industry is so great that I believe that they would use their clout in Congress to hobble the public option in some way. And have it become a dumping ground for the sickest patients, and then cream off the profitable ones for themselves. And then what people would decide is that the public option was no good. That the public couldn't do any-- the government couldn't do anything right. And that would be the wrong lesson to dwell on.
So what do these experts recommend?
MARCIA ANGELL: I think we have to start all over on this. I really do. I think we have to go for a single payer system. You could institute that gradually. You could do it state by state. You could do it decade by decade. You could improve Medicare. That is, make it nonprofit. But extend it down to age 55 and age 45 and age 35. It would give the private insurance industry a chance to go into hurricanes, earthquakes or something. To get out of the health business. It could be done gradually. I think that has to be done. And it's the only thing that can be done.
There's lots more in the video. Do yourself a favor and watch it.