National Nurses United

RAD:May 12/18/08 11:16 PM Page 9 Rose Ann DeMoro Executive Director, CNA/NNOC Health Insurance Giants Don't Need a Bailout With all the recent goodies for the financial industry, guess who's got their hand out? it's time for Congress to stop getting carried away with financial bailouts for big industries, especially when it comes to one of the least socially useful—the health insurance giants. No one knows this better than nurses who are witnesses to our broken system and who pick up the pieces. It is the RNs, not the CEOs or the claims adjustors, who every day look patients in the eye and directly experience their pain and degradation. Unlike the insurers, nurses know that every life counts and are not willing to leave anyone behind. It is why nurses are leading the demand for real reform and exposing the machinations and deceitful proposals of the insurance companies and their allies. In early December, the lobbying arm of the insurance industry, America's Health Insurance Plans, unveiled its version of a "comprehensive" reform plan following what it said were months of meetings across the country listening to what Americans want done about healthcare. Here's a guess. A Marshall plan for the insurance industry was probably not at the top of the public's wish list. But that's what AHIP came up with. When Congress can hand out billions of dollars to other financial titans, including AIG, Citigroup, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae, the health insurance corporations think they should get a share as well, especially with stock prices falling for many of them despite more than $15 billion in profits last year for the nine biggest companies. AHIP's plan would force all uninsured Americans to buy private insurance, and require every level of government to police the shakedown with various enforcement tools—producing a massive infusion of cash for the insurers in tens of millions of new, paying customers. DECEMBER 2008 The insurers' one small concession is to ing who is sick is a prelude to withdrawing stop the unconscionable discrimination of care for them), and pay for performance refusing to sell policies to people with pre- schemes, such as "merit" pay. Also on the list—curbing the ability of existing conditions. But with a huge caveat— a "reimbursement mechanism for high-risk patients harmed by HMO or hospital abuses individuals," meaning the federal govern- to seek legal redress, and expanded use of ment, not the private insurers, would assume technology that typically costs more than it the cost of providing care to the sickest saves and is often used to reduce caregiver professional judgpatients. ment. Additionally, the All the risk and government would pain here is endured provide public subsiAHIP's plan would by patients, RNs, and dies for private insurforce all uninsured other providers, and ance premiums for Americans to buy none by the insurers low-income individprivate insurance, and who are the main uals and families and require every level of source of the healthmany small businessgovernment to police care cost crisis. Irones. With the economy the shakedown with ically the 30 percent cratering, and Devarious enforcement figure is exactly the cember job loss numtools—producing a amount private inbers that are the massive infusion of surers siphon off the highest in 34 years, a cash for the insurers in top of every healthlot of people will be tens of millions of new, care dollar for their falling through those paying customers. profits, lavish execucracks. tive pay packages, In sum, the AHIP plan fully privatizes the profits while social- and paperwork, mostly needed for denying claims for care they don't want to pay for. izing the risk. As Reinhart noted in the November hearFurther, the plan does nothing to effectively reduce costs which are pricing tens of ing, "We have 900 billing clerks at Duke millions of Americans out of access to care [medical system, a 900-bed hospital]. I'm not and pushing families into bankruptcy due to sure we have a nurse per [each] bed, but we have a billing clerk per bed ... it's obscene." unpayable medical bills. Getting the insurers out of the way would In written testimony to the Senate Finance Committee in November, Princeton be a much faster, more effective, less bureauprofessor Uwe Reinhardt noted that the cur- cratic way to achieve that 30 percent cut. A rent cost of medical services for a typical growing movement to do just that is well family of four now consumes 26 percent of underway with a goal of a single-payer systhat family's gross wages. At the present rate, tem to expand and improve Medicare to cover all Americans and eliminate the insurthat will soar to 44 percent by 2018. AHIP wants everyone to rally around a ance industry bureaucracy and control over goal of slashing future costs by 30 percent. our health. I Its idea—reducing "reducing variation" (code talk, as anyone who has attended our Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of education classes will recognize, for redefin- CNA/NNOC. W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G REGISTERED NURSE 9

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