President Barack Obama has decided to take a more hands on approach to healthcare reform, with plans for speeches, town hall meetings, and direct meetings with legislators, instead of sitting back and waiting for Congress to mess things up. That might be a good thing, rather than sit back and let people like Max Baucus (D-Montana) bring all the special interest groups to the table (health insurance (AHIP), hospitals (AHA), Pharma, and doctors (AMA)) and chow down while the rest of us get crumbs (see “Medical Gang of Four Cling to Table of Healthcare Reform“).

Mmmm. Supper time for medical Gang of Four: (from L) Max Baucus (D-Mont), Karen Ignagni (AHIP), Rich Umbdenstock (AHA), Billy Tauzin (PhRMA), Nancy Nielsen MD (AMA).

Don’t forget to toss some yummies to David Nexon (Medical devices, AMTA). Ruff!

The unidentified man looking away is probably a Canadian spy.

Well just in case you were feeling depressed the Medical Gang of Four all gave us a laugh last week by offering to (as I wrote before) voluntarily cut spending by two trillion over the next ten years (how they would do this is a mystery, but it surely won’t involve cutting out the 30% of medical tests, scans and screenings that are useless for the patient). Conveniently this is about what Obama would need in order to introduce a government health insurance. However Karen at the AHIP is probably flipping out about him using the “g” word since she knows that private health insurance companies in the US with their bloated 25% administrative overhead costs could never compete with a government plan that has a 2% administrative overhead cost, and that anyone in their right mind would choose the government plan, unless they had money to burn. Billy also doesn’t want a healthcare plan that would be able to negotiate lower drug costs. In fact as we speak they are lobbying to get the government plan parceled into many smaller entities or relegated to the states. In other words take the teeth out of any negotiating power that the plan would have. An alternative floated by Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is to have the government plan only come into effect if it is “triggered” by excessive healthcare costs somewhere several years down the road (i.e. never). One thing for sure is that whomever kills the healthcare plan doesn’t want to be caught with the murder weapon in their hands. It looks like all of this is going to go down pretty quick as Obama just announced that he wants to finish this during this legislative session.

Burning money to keep warm

Well as Sen Grassley said if he wants to take on healthcare reform himself he better put on his kid gloves. As I have said before he is swimming in shark infested waters taking on healthcare reform. 

Good luck.

Leaders of the American Medical Industrial complex wrote a letter to the Obama administration recently promising to bring down the costs of healthcare. You can read about it in this fluff piece in the New York Times where they claim that they will lower costs by 1.5% per year or two trillion dollars over ten years (in a two trillion dollar per year industry) which will offset the cost of implementing universal healthcare insurance, a goal of the Obama administraiton.

I don’t know about you but to me this is like asking a wolf to eat less red meat! Let’s see, who were on the list of worthies? The American Medical Association (AMA), the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association (PhaRMA), the Health Insurance Association of American, and the American Hospital Association, my favorite Gang of Four of evil ones that make up the American Medical Industrial complex and that conspire to wring profits from the American public, giving us health care that costs twice as much as any country on the planet, with second to last healthcare outcomes, and 40 million working people without health insurance. Other signers were the Advanced Medical Technology Association and the Service Employees International Union.

Gang of Four of American Medical Industrial Complex: Clockwise from Upper Left: AMA, HIAA, PhRMA, AHA

So I guess this is the latest chapter in the melodrama (or is it TV Western?) of Obama administration reforms broken American healthcare system (see “Obama Healthcare Plans Unlikely to Get Much Traction“).

I guess I have to paste on something one of my e-friends said to the effect of if you can’t defeat someone directly, adopt them and distort their message.

The letter states that healthcare savings will be achieved by efforts to prevent obesity; coordinate care, manage chronic illnesses and curtail unnecessary tests and procedures; by standardizing insurance claim forms; and by increasing the use of information technology, like electronic medical records.

LOL!

Can you say “tell them what they want to hear?”

Obama administration pushes back against bloated American healthcare system.

Well Rick Lippin MD warned us of Sen Max Baucus (D-Montana, remember the guy missing some fingers?) being a Trojan House leader of healthcare reform for the Democrats and now he is letting the Gang of Four in the door, since they are the only ones allowed to the table to discuss healthcare reform. Even though the majority of Americans are in favor of a single party system noone representing this idea is allowed to the table. Well you can show your anger by attending a Single Payer Rally at noon at the US Senate this Wednesday May 13, 2009, Upper Senate Park (Union Metro Station) or if you aren’t an unemployed person in Washington or don’t have your own lear jet and flexible schedule, you can take action here or call/write your congressman and senator.

Hat tip to Mrs. Bremner.

President Barack Obama’s administration is rolling back into universal healthcare land just like Hillary Clinton tried to way back when. We’ll see if he can survive the shark infested waters any better than she did.

Come on in, the water's fine.

In case you are Rip Van Winkle or someone dropped you on your head so you don’t remember, back in 1993 Hillary Clinton got torn to shreds by insurance lobbiests and other special interest groups. Remember the Harry and Louise ads funded by the Health Insurance Association of American (HIAA), where they sit around fretting about how to pay for their mandatory healthcare insurance?

Now the health insurance guys are whining again. They say they don’t want a “Medicare for all” plan cuz it will drive them all out of business. Or if there is an expanded healthcare they don’t want the government to have the chance to negotiate contracts with doctors and hospitals (unlike them). Oh, and if the government can negotiate with doctors and hospitals they will go out of business too. But isn’t that anti-capitalist to be against negotiating prices? What they might as well say is that they are bloated and inefficient and couldn’t compete with any alternative system. I call the organizations that represent hospitals, insurance, doctors and drug companies the evil Gang of Four.

Clockwise from upper left, AMA, HIAA, PhRMA, AHA

Did you know that Ronald Reagan made promotional videos for the American Medical Association (AMA) that they showed to their members way back in the day, about how they should fight against Medicare, because it was socialized medicine? The AMA really has a disgraceful history and I am glad that their flagship journal, JAMA, is running into rocky shores. The insurance guys and their pals the hospital lobby (American Hospital Association, AHA), the AMA, and pharma (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturer’s Association (PhRMA) are gonna do what they can to confuse and confound. But in the meantime, they have offered to not charge people more for insurance who have pre-existing medical conditions, if everyone is required to buy insurance. This looks like a crumb they are throwing out to try and avoid any new government insurance program or expansion of Medicare.

Here is a handy little chart comparing the pros and cons produced by the New York Times.

Hmmm, do we want more government control, or less of it? More government control, or less? Hmmm.
Maybe we should set up an office pool to see how long “healthcare reform” lasts this time around.