The Wrong Direction:
Expansion of Profits and
and Expansion of Government
… and/or the already scheduled next step in privatizing Medicare

Expanded Profits, along with government dictating that Americans must buy a private company’s defective product (health insurance)

Members of the U.S. Congress (publicly), their staff members (privately), and the health insurance companies have all made it clear that the plans are to have mandated health insurance in the United States by early 2010. Reference: real life stories of Americans related to Massachusetts Mandated Health Insurance, in places and hurting people badly since 2006.

Expanded Government

Members of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have stated proposals that will expand government. Here are just two examples: expanded Medicaid (Leading Democrat in the Senate: MaxBaucus in April 2009 at a public forum), a new program called Premium Assistance (Leading Republican in the U.S. House: Dave Camp April 29, 2009 at a tele-meeting with his constituents).

Conclusion

The planned laws will hurt us at least three times

1. force Americans to buy a service that most Americans do not want (80% of Baucus constituents do not want mandated health insurance).
2. cause the prices of the defective for-profit health insurance to skyrocket; See: Regulations
3. take more money out of more of our pockets and giving it to the health insurance companies
4. force us to pay unnecessary billions (yes, billions) in increased income taxes to pay for:
   • covering the poor
   • covering part of the premiums of the middle income class and lower middle income class who can’t possibly afford to pay the premiums
   • expanding government to regulate the private health insurance companies, who will, in turn, be spending money fighting the government regulations, which will, in turn, cause the health insurance premiums to be even higher

Even if those actions are not taken, Medicare is scheduled to become even more privatized than it already was, starting in 2010. That’s the next step in eliminating what was the original efficient single-payer Medicare that was in place prior to 2003.

… in six urban and 4 rural test markets by 2010 with a $14 billion encouragement to private plans to participate; read more in this web page and its links.

Background. As seen in the information about improved efficiency it is best to implement single-payer to help maximize the amount of money spent on healh care and, as two meeting participants in New Hampshire clearly indicated, get profit out of health care financing.

Scheduled: Shocking Move in the Wrong Direction by the U.S. Congress and U.S. President:

Law Enacted in 2003 That Started the Privatization of Medicare

Next jump to full privatization scheduled for 2010

Compliments of the United States Congress’ action in 2003, the U.S. is scheduled to start throwing out the financing method that is good (simple, efficient single-payer) and replace it with the bad (complex, inefficient method of using private health insurance companies).

• The United States has been experiencing the efficiency of single-payer health insurance, because that’s what our Medicare system is.
• But the United States Congress and the U.S. President made a law in 2003 that schedules us to go to a higher use of private companies by the year 2010 in a trial of 6 cities and 4 rural areas in a “partly-privatized” Medicare system.
• The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 not only gave us the so-called prescription drug benefit (private health insurance company prescription policies subsidized by the government … corporate welfare), but also, the scheduled dismantling of our efficient single-payer Medicare system, as indicated by the six-city trial.
• This situation is, in a word, outrageous. We need single-payer!

Further information about the Medicare Modernization Act:

• Privatize Medicare? NO WAY! gives a summary of concerns about the Medicare Modernization Act plus a 14:30 minute video,
• The Medicare Modernization Act Threatens Medicare Recipients and Medicare Itself
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
  • The Troubling Medicare Legislation
  • Congress to Consider Repeal of Medicare Demonstration Project … 7-23-2007