Hillary's Heavenly Healthcare

Health care is a problem. I don't think anyone denies that. How could they when "lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deathsevery year in the United States. Although America leads the world inspending on health care, it is the only wealthy, industrialized nationthat does not ensure that all citizens have coverage." Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations, Institute of Medicine, January 2004.
http://www.iom.edu/?id=19175

Each Presidential hopeful is offering up his/her plan to make ournations healthcare 'better'. Hillary's is the topic of thisdiscussion. Why? Because I find hers most interesting.

Hillary, in the early 90's, had a revolutionary health carestrategy. She seemed to be gaining support, but her voice was suddenlysilenced. Interestingly enough, millions of dollars were spent tosilence her. I would understand an act of democracy silencing her. But money? That's not very democratic. Could it have been the factthat health care industries would lose tons of money if Hillary's planpassed? Possibly and probably so.

"Even before debate began in Congress, a powerful coalition had beencobbled together to fight Clintoncare, as opponents labeled it -congressional Republicans, the insurance industry, the pharmaceuticalindustry, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, theBusiness Roundtable, the Christian Coalition, the conservative radiotalk show network. Those groups spent between $100 million and $ 300million to defeat it. And the battle was fought like a presidentialcampaign - with a TV advertising campaign, a network of fieldoperatives and public relations experts to lobby members of Congressback in their districts." Rob Christensen, "Who killed health carereform? Answer: Everyone," News & Observer, June 19, 1996.

"In 1993-94, the Health Insurance Association of America, a tradegroup, spent about $15 million on advertising to defeat Clinton'sproposed overhaul of the nation's health care system." John MacDonald,"Proponents, Opponents Join Battle Over Drug Price Limits," Hartford Courant, June 21, 2000.

"'We spent $1.4 million to fight President Clinton's plan,' [MikeRussell of the Christian Coalition] says." Harold Cox, "Business willspearhead Health Reform II ; Old enemies of Clinton's plan in lead," Washington Times, December 27, 1994.

"According to [Citizens for a Sound Economy] spokesman Brent Bahler,the group has not bought any airtime for commercials but has 'tentativeplans' for a grassroots advocacy effort that would include anadvertising component. Last year, Bahler said, the CSE spent more than$2 million on print, radio and television advertising to defeatClinton's health care reform plan." James A. Barnes, "RNC Turns To TVAds On Budget," National Journal, 5.16.95.

Why would they fight it so hard? Because those involved in healthcare make a lot of money. Why would they want to help their country outif they would have to forfeit their big houses and fancy cars?

Michael B McAllister earned $3.33 million in compensation as CEO of Humana. "Forbes 2006 Executive Pay list," April 20, 2006.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/12/AG0Q.html.

John W Rowe earned $22.2 million in compensation as CEO of Aetna.Rowe has since left Aetna. "Forbes 2004 Executive Pay list," April 21,2005.
http://www.forbes.com/static/execpay2005/LIRS5NI.html?passListId=12
&passYear=2005&passListType=Person&uniqueId=S5NI&datatype=Person

Bill McGuire has stock options worth $1.6 billion at the end of2005, as CEO of UnitedHealth Group. Robert Simison, "SEC InvestigatesUnitedHealth Over Stock-Options Practices," Bloomberg News, December 27, 2006; Michael Regan, "Business 2006: Who Won, Who Lost," Associated Press,December 26, 2006.

And because of this extreme amount of money in the industry, theyhave to protect themselves from people like Hillary who want to maketheir product cheaper in order to help people.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org),in 2005 there were 2,084 health care lobbyists registered with thefederal government. With 535 members of Congress, that's 3.895lobbyists per member.

But something happened to Hillary. That's why I find her healthcare plan so interesting. After having this extreme campaign to createcheap, if not free, universal health care, she was shut up. What didshe do then? This article snippet tells us:

"As she runs for re-election to the Senate from New York this yearand lays the groundwork for a possible presidential bid in 2008, Mrs.Clinton is receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaigncontributions from doctors, hospitals, drug manufacturers and insurers.Nationwide, she is the No. 2 recipient of donations from the industry,trailing only Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a member of theRepublican leadership." Raymond Hernandez and Robert Pear, "Once anEnemy, Health Industry Warms to Clinton," New York Times, July 12, 2006.

That's right. She went from attacking health care to being thenumber two seat in receiving contributions from the industry sheformally tried to attack. Interesting? I think so.

It's even more interesting that this happened at such a key time. Arepublican supported bill called Medicare Part D would supposedly helpout more Americans. What is the conservative argument against healthcare? They don't want all their money going to government then tohealth care, they want in to be privately run. It seems more efficientthat way. But what about Plan D? It's republican supported. So itmust support those conservative values? No.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, for the ten-yearperiod, 2006 through 2016, the projected spending is $848 billion. "TheBudget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2008 to 2017," CongressionalBudget Office, January 2007. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/77xx/doc7731/01-24-BudgetOutlook.pdf

That's right. We're not even getting free social health care, but800 billion dollars of our tax money is going to the health careindustry under Medicare Part D. Curious.

A side note: It's funny that the nation bordering the north hassocial health care, we deem as bad. But: The 2006 United Nations HumanDevelopment Report's human development index states the life expectancyin the United States is 77.5, and the life expectancy in Canada is80.2. Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2006 at 283.
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf.

Canadians live three years longer than we do. Curious.

As for those rumored long wait times in the ER:

According to Statistics Canada, the official government statisticalagency, "In 2005, the median waiting time was about 4 weeks forspecialist visits, 4 weeks for non-emergency surgery, and 3 weeks fordiagnostic tests. Nationally, median waiting times remained stablebetween 2003 and 2005 - but there were some differences at theprovincial level for selected specialized services.? 70 to 80 percentof Canadians find their waiting times acceptable" "Access to healthcare services in Canada, Waiting times for specialized services(January to December 2005)," Statistics Canada, http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-575-XIE/82-575-
XIE2006002.htm

A recent study of emergency care in Ontario found that overall, "50%of patients triaged as CTAS I [most acute] were seen by a physicianwithin 6 minutes and 86% were seen within 30 minutes of arriving at the[Emergency Department]. In contrast, the 50% of patients triaged asCTAS IV or V who were seen most quickly waited an hour or less, while 1in 10 waited three hours or more. Understanding Emergency Department Wait Times: How Long Do People Spend in Emergency Departments in Ontario? Canadian Institute for Health Information, January 2007.
http://www.cihi.ca/cihiweb/dispPage.jsp?cw_page=reports_
wait_times_bulletins_e

The Brits have social health care. Are they more healthy?

"The US population in late middle age is less healthy than theequivalent British population for diabetes, hypertension, heartdisease, myocardial infarction, stroke, lung disease, and cancer.Within each country, there exists a pronounced negative socioeconomicstatus (SES) gradient with self-reported disease so that healthdisparities are largest at the bottom of the education or incomevariants of the SES hierarchy. This conclusion is generally robust tocontrol for a standard set of behavioral risk factors, includingsmoking, overweight, obesity, and alcohol drinking, which explain verylittle of these health differences? Level differences between countriesare sufficiently large that individuals in the top of the education andincome strata in the United States have comparable rates of diabetesand heart disease as those in the bottom of the income and educationstrata in England." (See also Table 1 - for example, prevalence ofdiabetes among high-income Americans is 8.2 per thousand, while it's7.3 among low-income Brits.) Banks, Marmot et al., "Disease andDisadvantage in the United States and in England," Journal of the American Medical Association, 2006;295:2037-2045.

Like Canadians and Brits, even the French live longer than we do.

The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report's human developmentindex states the life expectancy in the United States is 77.5, theUnited Kingdom is 78.5, France is 79.6, and Canada is 80.2. Human Development Report 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2006 at 283.
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf.

Enough with the rambling. I've said enough about health care as a whole.

Back to Hillary. So, Hillary was an advocate of universal healthcare. She was shut up. Then, she received hundreds of thousands ofdollars from the health care industry. Now, she is running forPresident and is saying that she wants universal health care. Doescommon logic not show us a problem here? She received hundreds ofthousands of dollars from the very industry that she now claims she isgoing to attack.

Does that make sense? I can hardly put any stock in this kind of politican.