Marcia Angell doesn't want the current health insurance "reform" bill passed...
And this is Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine and now senior lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard University Medical School...she was interviewed by Bill Moyers in the last week...
BILL MOYERS: So, has President Obama been fighting as hard as you wished?
MARCIA ANGELL: Fighting for the wrong things and too little, too late. He gave away the store at the very beginning by compromising. Not just compromising, but caving in to the commercial insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry. And then he stood back for months while the thing just fell apart. Now he's fighting, but he's fighting for something that shouldn't pass. Won't pass and shouldn't pass.
What this bill does is not only permit the commercial insurance industry to remain in place, but it actually expands and cements their position as the lynchpin of health care reform. And these companies they profit by denying health care, not providing health care. And they will be able to charge whatever they like. ...
Not only does it keep them in place, but it pours about 500 billion dollars of public money into these companies over 10 years. And it mandates that people buy these companies' products for whatever they charge. Now that's a recipe for the growth in health care costs, not only to continue, but to skyrocket, to grow even faster.
...I think you really do have to separate the policy analysis from the political analysis and I'm looking at it as policy. And it fails as policy. Moreover, a lot of people say, "Let's hold our nose and pass it, because it's a step in the right direction." And I say it's a step in the wrong direction.
But the bill as a whole, the more I look at it, the worse it gets. It's going to increase costs, not decrease them. And it's going to increase the rate of growth. It's not going to bend the curve, except in Medicare... |
