What Health Care Reform Protesters Should be Yelling About

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 | 3

By Joe Paduda


I've been taking flak this week from several sources about inserting my 'political' views into this blog.

Guilty.

I'm also wondering why I didn't hear similar complaints a few weeks ago when I was pillorying the Democrats for failing to include anything remotely resembling real cost containment in either the House or Senate Finance bills. Which is exactly what the "Town Hall Protesters" should be yelling about.

The problem with the Dems' health reform efforts to date have nothing to do with death panels, rationing, government control of health care or any other right wing myth. We can't afford to expand coverage unless we control costs. Covering another 35-45 million folks without controlling cost will devastate the budget, force large tax increases, and take funds away from infrastructure, energy, education, defense, and other critical needs.

That's where the Dems are vulnerable — another entitlement expansion we can't afford. Yet for some reason the protesters aren't screaming at the top of their lungs about cost.

Are they not concerned about cost? Do they think a big new entitlement program is less of a problem than funding abortions or so-called death panels? Is the fate of Trig Palin more of an issue than the potential for vastly increased deficits? Are protesters OK with massive cost increases, as long as there aren't death panels or comparative effectiveness research?

Of course not.

If they stopped for even a moment and thought about the Democrats' proposed reform initiatives, the trillion dollar cost would become the front-and-center issue. Why haven't they?

Perhaps it is because the opponents of health care reform don't want anyone to start thinking about cost — after all, controlling cost means lower revenues and profits for hospitals, doctors, medical device companies, insurers, pharma, and other stakeholders. Sure, some will come out just fine, but the majority are terrified that meaningful, real cost controls will take big bites out of their top lines. But they can't say this in public, even if they're chewing their nails to the elbow in boardrooms.

So instead they are funding these fake 'grassroots' movements using made-up and patently false claims to scare the bejesus out of regular folks who will then (hopefully) kill any hope of health reform, thereby preserving the industry stakeholders' business models.

I don't have the resources to find out who the funders are behind Americans for Prosperity, Patients United Now (PUN - get it?) and many of the other groups. But there is ample evidence that one of the primary anti-reform groups is headed by Rick Scott, former CEO of hospital company HCA. The founder of Conservatives for Patients' Rights, Scott has hired the same PR group responsible for the Swift Boat campaign to gin up resistance to reform.

Scott is a sleazeball. While he headed up HCA, the company was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare and Medicaid fraud; the company grew by buying up as many hospitals as possible in a market then shut down selected facilities while jacking up prices at the remaining hospitals. Great for his investors, not great for patients, employers, or taxpayers in HCA-dominated markets.

He's also an investor in a Florida walk-in clinic operation, Solantic.

I'm sure there are other Rick Scotts out there, using their ill-gotten gains to encourage ignorant folks to rally against health care reform. I just wish I had the time to track them all down.


======
Joseph Paduda's blog, managedcarematters.com, focuses on managed care for group health, workers compensation, auto insurance, cost containment, health policy, health research, and medical news for insurers, employers, and health care providers. Paduda is the principal of Health Strategy Associates.
======