"Moneyed Politicians" blogging about Public Options

By John Ballard

This blog came to my attention as I collected resources doing homework about health care reform. Jack Lohman doesn't post often but when he does it's worth reading.

...I�m a center-right Republican that voted for McCain/Palin, though right-wingers call me left wing and left-wingers call me right wing. I like it that way. You can call me what you want. I�m pragmatic rather than ideological.

I also voted for Bush twice, though now I want a do-over. He will go down in history as the most inept president ever. His policies have been both self-serving and anti-public interest.

I spent 40 years in the healthcare industry, the last 25 as a health care provider. I provided cardiac monitoring services to hospitals and clinics, and billed both private insurers and Medicare. And I will take the latter any day. I�m on Medicare, and it�s not perfect but is the better of the two.

Here's a sample from today's reading.

Private is better than public when dealing with commercial products or non-critical infrastructure and community services. Otherwise the overpaid for-profit insurance executives cannot be trusted with public needs and lives. Trusting politicians is only slightly better, because we can at least vote them out (though we don�t do it often enough).

Politicians like to privatize everything because private companies can give campaign contributions and public entities can�t. And they often have personal investments in the companies they favor when writing legislation or voting on laws. How�s that for �fair and balanced?�

Politicians have a serious conflict of interest that is costing the nation its resources and democracy, and they refuse to correct it. If the voters knew why things are as bad as they are, there�d be a complete turnover every election.

Could anything be more clear? Those of us who have been arguing in favor of a "public option" really only have one argument: It's one of those cases where a public responsibility is clear and can only be met with a public response. The reasoning isn't hard to grasp. It's a repeat of the same principle that muddies arguments about Social Security. In the case of retirement security a long menu of private arrangements is a wonderful resource. But for that great portion of the population who do not for whatever reason have access to any of those private arrangements, a public responsibility is evident, which is why we have Social Security.
Individual security is not the same as social security.
The same is true in the case of health care. Private insurance arrangements are great, but there is a large and growing need for a public alternative for those for whom private arrangements are out of the question. 

Jack Lohman in June...

This is not a pretty sight. In 2008 members of congress received $46 million from the insurance industry and $400 million from the complete health care complex. You might ask, Why would this money be given if it didn�t buy or block policy? Aren�t these patient dollars to begin with?

The last thing in the world the insurers want is a good public system competing with a good private system. Neither do the politicians. The private system cannot come close on price because of excessive costs not seen in the public plan. Like broker commissions, high CEO salaries, high shareholder profits, marketing and actuarial costs, and even their lobbying and campaign contributions that must be passed on to the patient.

The privates want to do away with the public option and so do the politicians. Not just because of the $46 million in bribes that they�ve already received from the industry, but because going forward private entities can continue loading up their campaign coffers, and public entities like Medicare cannot give political cash.

Politicians will always prefer private over public for this reason. And this is why they prefer mandates to buy �private� insurance, even if some is taxpayer subsidized. But �mandates� are just more of the same waste we�ve been trying to get rid of.

Why else would they block more efficient health care? In this case the politicians get a share of the private system but zero from the public system. They even get a piece of the taxpayer-subsidized dollars, and they get some patient dollars as a sweetener.

Aren�t politicians great?

And of course even if we win this the insurers will continue bribing the politicians to weaken whatever efficiencies we achieve, just as they are doing in Canada to destroy their system. A weak system gives both parties another shot at the prize, and that�s also why they seek to preserve the right to make campaign bribes.

As long as we keep playing with the words we give them wiggle room. Public option or not, single payer or not, mandated insurance or not� they can keep dancing around the real issue. Money. They are getting paid campaign bribes to cannibalize the system to the benefit of the insurers and to the detriment of the public.

We MUST start calling this what it is� political corruption. It may be an �issue,� but its one that generates loads of campaign cash.

Until we achieve full public funding of campaigns, it is what it is. Live with it, or change it.