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| Photo by Destiny |
If you've been paying even an ounce of attention to the health care reform debate, you know that there's a lot of misinformation being circulated out there. This blog highlighted one example by a local blogger, Trey Garrison, who distorted the White House's effort to dispel misinformation as a kind of Big Brother "Inform on Your Neighbor" policy. If you thought any effort, by anyone, to counter distortions and lies would be welcomed, you'd be wrong. Such efforts are threats to the opponents of health care reform and become targets of misinformation themselves.
Today's example is more serious. It's by north Texas' own Congressman, Pete Sessions (R-TX). Sessions held a town hall meeting last Wednesday in Richardson, covered here. Sessions made a big deal over the fact that the health care bill being debated in Congress contains a section that allegedly would do away with individual health insurance policies. He even had a Powerpoint slide displayed on a screen behind him (see photo above or Destiny's video) that shows some text from the bill. Probably very few people in the room could read the text on the screen. Sessions urged the audience to read the bill themselves. Probably even fewer bothered to take him up on the challenge. I did. And what I found was that the alleged evidence that Sessions was displaying behind him not only didn't support his claim, but in fact was 180 degrees opposite from his claim.
That section of the proposed health care bill is a grandfather clause, protecting all individual policies written before health care reform becomes law. In other words, if you have health insurance, and you like your current policy, you can keep it, just like President Obama has said all along and exactly opposite of what Pete Sessions would have you believe. The bill goes on to say that insurance companies can continue to write individual policies, with new policies required to follow the new rules being enacted as part of reform. Rules like insurance companies can't deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. Or insurance companies can't drop your coverage because your health care is costing them too much. You know, rules that protect the consumer.
That a member of Congress would so distort what's in the bill crosses the line into outright dishonesty. It displays a lack of good faith in trying to negotiate a bipartisan bill. It displays a lack of factual arguments against health care reform. Sessions' defense of the insurance industry status quo is so bankrupt that he is reduced to just making things up.
12 comments:
Pete Sessions is a liar. He is a terrible representative, and spends all of his time on GOP activities rather than his constituents. Sessions is on the right-wing gravy train, and cares nothing about the truth, integrity, or honesty. He's shown that over his entire political career.
Max Edison, thanks for the feedback. I tell you, I have a hard time believing that Sessions just has an honest disagreement over the best way to achieve health care reform. Not after his presentation Wednesday night.
I wrote Sessions recently and told him to read the actual bill and debate the facts, not just the talking points handed to him by a Republican spin doctor. I'm sure he'll ignore me. I should have mentioned the dirigibles.
Thanks, Sherri. There's an old saying about lawyers that somewhat applies to legislators, too.
"If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table."
Pete Sessions is pounding the table.
Sir, but Mr. Sessions was telling the truth. If you read the conditions of the grandfather clause it does not allow the existing policies to be changed or allow anyone new to enter them.
So, I ask you, if no one is every allow to enter a new policy, would they not be forced into the government plan if they get a new job?
As well, if the policies can't be changed, and employers can't add their new employees to their existing plan they would also have to have a government health insurance plan as well. Thus human resource departments would have to manage two distinctly different plans. At some point business would have little choice but to simply, and since the people on the government insurance can't be added to the private plan, everyone would have to go to the government insurance.
Simply put, the bill would constructively end private insurance.
I would love for you to explain how, if no new policies can ever be created, and no one can ever enter into an existing employer plan/policy, how would the private plans NOT cease to exist in a matter of a few short years.
"Anonymous" at 8/09/2009 12:00 AM, your facts are simply dead wrong. If someone changes a job, they can get private insurance through their new employer, or if their new employer doesn't offer insurance, they can buy individual insurance from a private insurance company. What the law does is add consumer protections to new private insurance policies. It does *not* eliminate private insurance. For example, the law requires that those new policies don't deny customers on the basis of pre-existing conditions. So, if anything, the law widens the number of persons who will qualify for private insurance.
Ed,
What makes that any different than it is now? I can choose to take what my company offers me, or I can buy a individual policy. The only difference I see in your post is that laws will be passed to force the insurance companies to ignore pre-existing conditions.
However, given that pre-existing conditions means the person has something that will require payout, the insurance companies will raise rates.
So in the end a individual will choose between a 'cheaper' government plan or a more expensive individual plan. I'm not an economist, but it seems to me that more people will go for the cheaper plan. That means the private insurance companies will have less customers.
So remind me again, what happens to companies when they lose their customers and cannot compete with their competitors on price?
I'm just an engineer, not an intellectual thinker like yourself. But it seems to me that in the end, we'll end up with everyone going to the public option.
Andy, the current proposals amount to a grand compact between the insurance companies and the government. The insurance companies don't like having to overlook pre-existing conditions, but what they get in return is access to a large new pool of mostly healthy customers because of the mandate for everyone to carry insurance. The result is a carefully crafted balance.
As for the insurance companies being unable to compete with the government, that's unlikely. After all, another criticism about the current proposals is that the government is incompetent and can't possibly compete with private insurance. The critics would have it both ways.
re: Andy; Private insurance companies might raise rates, but there are clauses in the bill that require private insurance companies to not exceed an established ratio of profits to payout. So, if they make beyond their ratio of profit, they actually have to reimburse enrollees. This will limit their ability to raise their rates. And remember that they'll have to remain competitive with the government option.
Robbie, thanks for citing facts. I wasn't aware of that clause in the bill.
ed, you've missed some of the more subtle nuances of the grandfather clause... one factor is that it would give private insurance companies a loophole to not include procedures and therapies discovered in the future. gotta think 30 years ahead, not 30 seconds. here's a much better blog on the issue and the author includes a link so that folks can read it for themselves
http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Truth-about-Health-Care-Reform-Part-1
annie daugherty, thanks for the feedback. I didn't miss any nuances. The grandfather clause lets you keep that old insurance policy, if you want to, but who would want to? I, for one, look forward to getting a new policy with more consumer protections. With prohibitions against the insurance company dropping me if I get sick, for instance. Or denying me coverage because they claim my illness is caused by some pre-existing condition that I never knew about.
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