| By George Bailey - Feb 12, 2010 11:23:39 AM PT |
On the campus of the Washington State Capitol, I have come to expect the cavalcade of lobbyists with gold name tags working hard to promote their agendas. But when United Health Care showed up yesterday with their lobbying wagon of doom, I had to speak up.
How many millions of dollars went into this and other mobile lobbying factories around the country? This happened two days before a new report showed the top five health insurance companies made $12.2 billion in profits last year, and increase of 56 percent! (1) I think I know where some of that money is going.
We hear a lot about the health insurance lobby at the federal level, but I was shocked to see this behemoth in Olympia trying to convince me that there is nothing wrong with our healthcare system. Its very presence assures me that things are terribly, terribly wrong.
How many people could have had life-saving procedures if we as a nation had decided to spend money on reducing premiums and improving care, rather than on health insurance lobby wagons like this one?
It boggles my mind how people can believe that allowing for-profit insurance companies to spend our money on lobbying battleships is the best way to provide healthcare to Americans. If we really want to solve some of the structural problems with our healthcare system, we have to start by speaking out against lavish excess like I saw yesterday. How can we expect real change when our opposition has such deep pockets with which to influence our decision makers?
President Obama’s health reform plan is not perfect. However, it will go a long way towards restraining our insurance companies and start us on the road of getting these for-profit lobbyists out of the healthcare debate. If we really want to improve our system we have to get rid of the people who stand to profit from the inefficiencies and inequalities this lobbying wagon is working so hard to protect.
(1)http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011050573_healthprofits12.html
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By George Bailey - Feb 12th, 2010 at 11:23 am PST
I had the opportunity to tour the United Healthcare bus this morning and learn why this concept was implemented. Here is what I learned: The bus will soon be headed to New Mexico where it will be used to help people in rural areas who not have immediate access to care. United has begun setting up centers throughout the US in locations that do not have immediate access to daily physician care. The program allows for doctors who do not have a full patient schedule to help people in remote areas. These centers will have a registered nurse and equipment at hand to help. The doctor on call will be able to receive all of the patients important data electronically and assess the appropriate care needed by using a tv monitor and high definition camera's linked to a satellite. This system will eventually allow physicians across America to be on-call with remote centers and fill coverage gaps to help those who normally can not drive hours to get to a doctor. In Colorado, a center has been set-up to help when doctors can not make the commute due to hazardous snow conditions.