> THE FOLLOWING IS FROM REP. McDERMOTT'S OFFICE, *NOT* FROM THE > WHITE HOUSE. IT IS BEING PROVIDED PER A VOTE BY LIST.HEALTHPLAN > SUBSCRIBERS TO MAKE AN EXCEPTION TO THE WHITE-HOUSE-ONLY NATURE > OF THIS LIST. TO CONTACT THE AUTHORS OF AMERICAN HEALTH SECURITY > NEWS, WRITE: PRUBIN@HR.HOUSE.GOV > > TO END YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO LIST.HEALTHPLAN, SEND *ME* A MESSAGE WITH > THE FOLLOWING SUBJECT LINE IN THE MESSAGE HEADER: > REMOVE LIST.HEALTHPLAN > > -- STEVE FREEDKIN , LIST.HEALTHPLAN MANAGER > > The American Health Security News: A weekly report on health care reform and the single payer plan Vol.II No. 26 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FOR MORE INFORMATION Friday Contact: Barry E. Piatt August 19, 1994 PHONE: 202-225-3106 FOLLOW THE MONEY: The Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) put a new round of "Harry and Louise" television ads on the air 8/16/94 in its continuing effort to block any meaningful health care reform. According to The National Journal's Congress Daily, the latest round of ads bring the HIAA's total TV ad spending to about $15 million. That $15 million, of course, didn't grow on a tree. It comes straight out of the health insurance premiums people send in each month to the HIAA's member insurance companies. The eagerness with which the private health insurance companies diverted that $15 million away from health care and to TV ads illustrates a fundamental problem with private health insurance companies: too much of each private health insurance premium winds up going for something other than health care. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the McDermott single payer plan will save up to $100 billion annually by eliminating the role of private health insurance companies, their administrative overhead, marketing, advertising, and profit. FOLLOW THE MONEY II: The HIAA isn't alone in its out-of-control spending to stop health care reform. An 8/16/94 New York Times news article by Katharine Q. Seelye reports that "at least 650 groups have spent more than $100 million from January 1993 to last March to influence the outcome of health care legislation, according to a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit Washington group that examines public issues. The spending has only intensified since then." Most of those groups -- and the spending -- are fighting to block health reform. Meanwhile, the 8/16/94 New York Times article reports, the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania "predicts that by October the amount spent by lobbyists on television advertising alone will exceed $60 million -- more than the $50 million spent on advertising in the 1992 Presidential campaign." TRUE COLORS: Former U.S. Rep. Bill Gradison left Congress to take a very well paying job as the head of the HIAA. He now appears with "Harry and Louise" in the latest round of HIAA TV spots where he bashes government involvement in health insurance and praises the virtues of private health insurance. Funny, but that wasn't exactly his view before he went on the HIAA's payroll. Newsday columnist Lars-Erik Nelson unearthed a report Gradison issued as head of the U.S. House Republican Wednesday Group just five years ago. In an 8/18/94 column Nelson quotes extensively from the 1989 report: "Canada's system of universal, tax-financed health insurance is much less costly to administer than the American market system in every phase of its operation," the report says. "`There is no need to determine coverage, eligibility or risks. There are no bad debts and no debt-collection costs. There is no multiplicity of staff and administrations, and the administrative procedures are uniform throughout each province. there are no advertising or marketing costs....In short, Canadians enjoy the benefits of less paperwork and less bureaucracy.'" Nelson writes, "That is to say, according to Gradison, Canada's tax-financed, government-run, so-called `socialized medicine' is cheaper, more efficient and less bureaucratic than the commercial health insurance industry that Gradison now represents." WHAT'S UP WITH THE DOCS?: The Colorado Medical Society is the latest organization of physicians to express a lot more than casual interest in a single payer health system. The group has endorsed a bill introduced in the Colorado legislature by State Senator Don Mares which would authorize a study to determine how a state single payer health system could be established in Colorado. -- more -- American Health Security News 8/19/94 Page -2- THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE: The Rowland-Bilirakis bill, a hollow sham of a bill masquerading as "health reform" legislation, flunks nearly every test of true health reform. It doesn't even attempt to achieve universal coverage. It would leave nearly 30 million Americans permanently without insurance. It allows cost shifting to continue, makes no effort to control health care costs, and makes health insurance more costly, not less costly, for most Americans. The Rowland-Bilirakis bill provides no prescription drug or long-term care coverage for older Americans. It does nothing to make health insurance more affordable for small businesses. People can still be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions, would still be subject to life-time benefit caps, and would still risk losing their insurance when they change jobs. It makes deep cuts in Medicare it makes no attempt to cover with revenue elsewhere. In short, everything in the present system that's broken stays broken. What is so puzzling about this bill is the silence which has greeted it from the White House. Now that President Clinton has said he'd sign the Mitchell bill -- which would leave 12 million Americans permanently without insurance -- many wonder whether he sticking with that veto threat he issued last September. The President maintains he still means it. If he does, the President needs to make clear he'd veto this mess. Maybe that would halt the downward spiral of the new, last-minute, ever more anemic health plans being floated on Capitol Hill. AVOIDING THE OBVIOUS: Congress is tying itself in knots in a furious attempt to avoid the obvious in health care reform. All the complicated and controversial and last-minute plans being floated in the House and Senate are really little more than attempts to avoid enacting the one plan we know works: the McDermott single payer plan. Single payer systems are in place, controlling costs and delivering high quality medical care in every western, industrialized country on Earth. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) determined the McDermott plan would achieve 100% universal coverage, deliver the most comprehensive benefit package, and save far more than any other plan -- up to $225 million a year -- in national health care spending. Independent analysts at Johns Hopkins University concluded that 75% of all Americans would pay less for health insurance and health care under the McDermott single payer plan than they do today. There is no employer "mandate," no tax on benefits, and no big bureaucracy required to administer a complicated subsidy scheme. As Congress moves toward a September floor debate and vote on the single payer plan, look for the American people to want to know more about this plan which political timidity and pack journalism have all too often kept on the back burner. CANARD WATCH: The 8/18/94 Newsday column by Lars-Erik Nelson also de-bunked some myths health reform opponents continue to spread about Canada's single payer health system. Specifically, they charge care in Canada is so bad no Americans ever go there for treatment while Canadians flood American hospitals, seeking quality and access they can't find at home. Nelson notes that Senator Spark Matsunaga (D-HI) "sought specialized cancer treatment in Ontario's world renowned Toronto General Hospital, and Canada developed the cancer treatment that helped save the life of former Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts. `Actually, the flow of patients is probably the other way around, Americans going to Canada for treatment,' says Dwight Angel, a spokesman for Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital, near the Canadian border. "Canada has some drugs and technology available that have not yet been approved by the U.S.! Food and Drug Administration. A spot check of Ontario border hospitals by the province in 1993 found that 5 percent of the patients were Americans. Canada is now adopting photo ID health cards to stop widespread fraud committed by Americans seeking free Canadian care." RESEARCH RESOURCES: 9/22/89 report by the House Wednesday Group: "Public Health in the Provinces - Canadian National Health Insurance Strategy; analysis of Canada's single payer system by House Republican group headed by then U.S. Rep. Bill Gradison. Many of the conclusions here are at sharp odds with Gradison's comments today as the top hired gun for private insurance companies, and with Republican rhetoric in today's politically charged health care debate. ###