Status of the health care wars

The final status of health care reform legislation coming out of Congress is still up in the air, but we can see the way things are going. One thing is clear: no substantive, money-saving reform to our health care system is going to occur this year.

Congress lost that opportunity early on when it refused to consider the only way to make major inroads on cost control, namely, establishment of a single-payer system. Putting such a system into effect would cut costs by one-third while simultaneously giving improved health care to all Americans. Of course, a minority of members in both the House and Senate valiantly tried by introducing H 676 and S 703, both calling for establishment of a single-payer system.

So if single-payer is such a good idea, why has it not received serious consideration in Congress? The answer is fairly simple: Congress is largely controlled not by the American public, but rather by the health insurance, pharmaceutical, and related industries. Single-payer would destroy the obscene profitability of these industries. They do not want single-payer, and so, by god, there shall be no single-payer legislation coming out of Congress this year. The for-profit health care industries would prefer that nothing at all happen, that we retain the status quo. However, realizing that some change is coming, their goal this year has been to guide that change along avenues that will cause minimal damage to, or perhaps even improve the climate for their private industries.

How have they gone about doing this? By applying sheer power, of which these industries have plenty. According to an Aug. 14 Bloomberg story, 1,500 interested health care organizations have hired 3,300 lobbyists to guide our 535 Congressmen in the right directions. That is six lobbyists per Congressman, and the average lobbying expenditure per Congressman during the first half of 2009 exceeded $400,000. Of that amount, more than half-$250,000 per Congressman-came from the pharmaceutical industry. The taxpayers paid each Congressman only $87,000 for his or her work during that six-month period. It seems that when money talks, enough Congressmen listen to make the expenditure well worthwhile. They get the message that if they think and vote the right way, their chances of keeping their jobs after their current terms end are much enhanced.

In their efforts to avoid health care reform detrimental to their profits, the health care insurance and pharmaceutical industries have some natural allies. The current push for health care reform is a priority of the current Democratic administration, which also controls both the House and Senate. The Republicans would like to reverse the situation, and to do that they need to make the Obama administration look bad in the eyes of the public by defeating or defusing its priority programs, including health care reform. Priority Number One for the Republicans right now is not to serve the public by enacting meaningful health care reform, but rather to try to get back control of the government. So the health care industry lobbyists don't have to twist Republican arms very hard to keep them convinced that aligning with industry is the righteous way to go.

The other natural ally of industry is that segment of the public which, for reasons it does not understand, feels disenfranchised from achieving the American Dream, the idea that in this land of opportunity everyone should have a rich, full life. This group is fearful of losing what it has, angry about what it perceives it doesn't have, and highly receptive to suggestion that since government is the enemy of the people its role in society should be minimized or even eliminated altogether. Through advertising and other means, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries have been able to play on this fear of government to suggest that legislation regulating their industries or creating a government-run insurance option would be just steps toward a complete control by government of peoples' lives.