L.A. Times Reports Unacceptable Senate Finance Committee Health Care Deal

Slinkerwink in Daily Kos presented another excellent diary today on the fight for meaningful health care reform, this one on pending legislation in the Senate Finance Committee that would force patients to pay as much as 35 percent of their healthcare costs.
The diary quotes a section of a story that appears in the Los Angeles Times that contends that health insurance interests have "gained the upper hand" in the battle.
Here's part of what the Times reported about what's being hatched in the Senate Finance Committee:

"It's a bonanza," said Robert Laszewski, a health insurance executive for 20 years who now tracks reform legislation as president of the consulting firm Health Policy and Strategy Associates Inc.
Some insurance company leaders continue to profess concern about the unpredictable course of President Obama's massive healthcare initiative, and they vigorously oppose elements of his agenda. But Laszewski said the industry's reaction to early negotiations boiled down to a single word: "Hallelujah!"
The insurers' success so far can be explained in part by their lobbying efforts in the nation's capital and the districts of key lawmakers.

The L.A. Times piece continues:

"The insurers are going to do quite well," said Linda Blumberg, a health policy analyst at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, a Washington think tank. "They are going to have this very stable pool, they're going to have people getting subsidies to help them buy coverage and . . . they will be paid the full costs of the benefits that they provide -- plus their administrative costs."

Any bill that requires patients to pay as much as 35 percent of the bill is totally unacceptable. In fact, the bill wouldn't even be reform at all.
Slinkerwink continues:

And you know what's egregiously bad about this? Private insurance companies currently pay about 80% of insurance policy claims, and in the Senate Finance Bill, the requirement for them will be lowered to 65%! That means you'd be required to pick up 35% of your medical bills. See? You get covered, but you're forced to pay 35% of your bills.
That's why I keep saying that universal coverage does not equate affordability.

The American people can't afford to pay 35 percent of their healthbills. How can the Senate Finance Committee explain that this would be desirable legislation to those like me who struggle to make ends meet?
Maximum pressure must be applied to right-wing Democrats in name only that this bill is unacceptable and no reform would be far better than what these so-called conservatives are hatching.
And maximum publicity must be exposed on the fraud of a campaign being waged by opponents who claim that they represent the best interests of the American people but in fact really don't.
As Slinkerwink writes:

Where's the affordability really for the middle-class in this crappy Senate Finance Bill? I don't see it, especially not with a community rating of 7:1 in that bill, which means you could pay seven times what a young adult pays especially if you're an adult in your 50s or 60s.