‘Hands Off My Healthcare’ tour makes local stop
Andrew Shurtleff—The Daily Progress
Former Republican Sen. George Allen answers questions during the Hands Off My Healthcare tour stop in Charlottesville.
Published: October 15, 2009
A national group opposing government-run health care urged supporters in Charlottesville on Wednesday to do everything they can to keep Uncle Sam out of their medical decisions.
More than 50 people attended a rally hosted by the “Patients First” project of Americans for Prosperity, a national nonprofit that favors limited government. The Patients First project was formed in response to President Barack Obama’s plans for national health care reform.
Members of Americans for Prosperity are traveling across the country in two red, white and blue buses emblazoned with the phrase “Hands Off My Healthcare.”
“Americans understand what is at stake here as those in Washington try to power grab,” said Ben Marchi, state director for the group. “Our goal is to get soldiers on the streets contacting their legislators and writing letters to the editors to let their voices be heard.”
Different versions of health reform legislation are winding through Congress, with the primary point of conflict remaining whether the government should be in the business of selling health insurance.
Supporters of the “public option” say it’s needed to provide coverage to millions who can’t afford health insurance and to help contain spiraling costs overall. But business groups and others say government involvement will only cause more waste and actually drive up costs.
In Charlottesville on Wednesday, the 30-minute rally began when Marchi asked everyone to take out their cell phones and call the office of U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Ivy, and speak out against the plan. While some called Perriello’s office, others called Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Alexandria, and Sen. Jim Webb, D-Fairfax.
“I’m running a telethon here,” Marchi said. “This is how we’re going to make a difference.”
Former Republican Gov. George Allen and Albemarle County Supervisor Kenneth C. Boyd also spoke at the rally Wednesday. Boyd announced in September that he plans to challenge Perriello in the 2010 election.
“We need to keep fighting and tell Washington to ‘Keep your hands off my health care,’ and I’ll add, ‘Keep your hands out of my back pocket,’” Boyd said.
Allen, who served as governor from 1994 to 1998, said the government should promote health savings accounts, tax incentives for people who pay for their own health insurance and portability of health insurance plans when people move from one job to another.
“We don’t need the government telling us what to do, especially in Jefferson country,” Allen said.
Many in attendance Wednesday held signs and cheered as speakers talked about their concerns over health care reform. Ginger Kohr, who brought her daughter to the rally, said she was concerned what the plan will do for her daughter’s future.
Kohr said she has e-mailed and called her congressional representatives on a daily basis to speak about her fears.
“[With the national debt] she is not going to have the same standard of living that we have now and that bothers me,” Kohr said. “No matter what the [legislators’] good intentions are, the money is not there to pay for it.”
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Reader Reactions
Hey George! Maybe you would like to give up YOUR public option? You know, the Congressional healthcare my tax dollars are paying for!
Meanwhile, my insurance company keeps denying payment for my medical expenses. Get rid of the insurance middlemen leaches and save money! Now, THAT’S getting the RIGHT hands off my healthcare.
It is time to stand up to the health insurance industry. We need to stop talking about health care and instead focus on what is broken. What’s broken is the insurance industry. All that a for profit company is interested in is maximizing profits. It’s time to take profit out of health insurance. Profit and overhead (including the obscene salaries of top management) suck 30% of every dollar that we spend on health insurance out of the health care system. This is partially done through rationing services. We need pre approvals for many procedures and tests. Services are denied or limited because of some unknown factor (“people with your condition typically only need five sessions so this is all that we will approve.“) Services are denied because of pre existing conditions. This is rationing of services in the worst of ways.
The public option as currently discussed will reward this for profit industry in the worst way. People who are currently considered uninsurable will be pushed on the tax payers. The insurance industry will continue to earn obscene profits by only insuring the healthiest. The only system that makes sense is a single payer system. Doctors will be able to practice medicine instead of having huge staffs just to justify their services and defend their charges. Decisions will be made in the doctors office, not in a for profit corporate office.
Yes there will be abuse of the system, just as there is now, from all sides. I would rather police against the abusers and realize that some will take advantage of anything and still provide health care for all.
Everyone wants to know how we will pay for such a massive system. The answer is simple. We already do pay for the system but in a very inefficient way. My familys’ health insurance premium is $17,000 a year plus copays and we have to cover any service that we are denied. Since I know that 30% goes to the corporation the real cost is about $12,000. Those without insurance our preventive care can get service in a medical emergency at a hospital E.R. This is the most expensive medical treatment and, with preventative care, many of these visits would be unnecessary and WE PAY FOR THESE VISITS through our taxes and health insurance.
Universal, single payer health insurance would eliminate our insurance premium to the for profit company. Instead our premiums would be paid into the largest risk pool possible (everybody). Instead of companies cherry picking who they will insure and what they will cover. Yes, taxes would go up either in the form of direct insurance premiums or an increase in other taxes (such as on unhealthy food). But in the end it will cost all of us less and benefit the entire society.
It is clear to me that you who oppose this plan have been bought, or fooled, by the Insurance industry.
It appears to me that the focus of the current health care debate is on money. Maybe we should focus on something else. Is anyone who lives in America entitled to adequate health care? Is adequate health care for all a common good that benefits all in our society and makes it stronger and more productive? If some people are entitled, who is and isn’t entitled? If no one is entitled, why do some people have it and some don’t? Who should decide who gets health care and who doesn’t? How did our current system become based upon one’s having a job or being able to otherwise afford health care? If we can answer these questions, maybe we’ll be able to put together a health care system that makes sense.
Well it’s nice to talk about health care reform….but isn’t anyone (like the reporter) interested in where the money comes from for this “tour”.
cdp9m
There is a doctor in cville trying to purchase an MRI machine but cannot get a certificate of need because he would rob profits from UVA and martha jefferson. Why are we fighting competition? He says he can do them for 1/2 price and still make money and the hospitals say they need the high price to subsidize underpayments in other areas.
I could not find the link but it was an article in the progress less than 6 months ago.
My assertion is valid.
Uninsured people should not have to subsidize insurance companies.
Thery simply need to allow the free market to work.
Actually I prefer many laughs…like the ones I get when I hear the Joker/Coward in Chief, B. Hussein Obama speak! Then I’m just LMAO! By the way, know how I can tell when the Dear Leader is lying? When he opens his mouth….heh, heh, heh!
That photo with the story is a hoot. Would that be the invisible hand of the marketplace picking our pockets, or is it the red hand of communism, about to smack George Allen upside the head?
Allen, as always, is good for a laugh on his own…
Pete Deer
okay, i’ve got to stop reading this now. “allow private doctors to buy MRI machines”. Ha! they can. they get a certificate of need, and few are turned down for those. how do you think they pay for the MRI after they get it? doing lots of MRs for free? they over-utilize them. yeah, that would be good for driving down costs.
Yes, they would like you to keep “hands off their health care”, because our tax dollars pay for their health care.
First Ammendment wrote: “Why does an uninsured patient get charged more than an insured? “
Ah, medical billing. One of my favorite topics of all time…if you want to discuss something in the system that is totally screwed up!
Each insurer negotiates a contract with the hospital and physician groups to get a “discount"price for services. The amount of discount varies depending on what the insurer offers. If an insurer can bring 200,000 patients, most of whom are young and healthy, the hospital or MD group agrees to offer a bigger discount than they would to an insurer who brings 300,000 Medicare Advantage patients, who are elderly and likely to have multiple health problems. The insurance companies always have the advantage in the negotiations, because they know the true demographics and approximate number of heart transplants, breast cancer patients, premature births that their subscribers are likely to have. Insurers are the master of statistics when it comes to risks and their associated costs.
The hospitals and MD groups can’t give care away, and they only stay in business if they have a steady supply of patients. So they are more than willing to negotiate the discounts to get the patients. But the only way they can offer “big” discounts to some of the insurers is to inflate the prices to begin with. That is how you get a $9 aspirin.
Hospitals and MDs have to have only one price schedule, and charge everyone the same amount. So the private pay patients get slammed with an actual charge of $9 for the aspirin so that the insurers get their discounts.
Here’s an example: the hospital provides a medical device to a patient that costs them $100 from the supplier. How much should they charge the patient, so that they can recover the cost, plus a small amount of overhead to pay for stocking the inventory, accounting and billing? $110? $120? Not hardly.
Some insurers may have negotiated for a 30% discount. If the hospital charges $120 for the device that cost them $100, they will only see $84 after the discount, and they will lose money. If they charge $150 for the $100 device, they will only see $105, barely enough to cover the cost. If the hospital doubles the price to $200, they will see $140, which might actually pay for it, if they can keep overhead low. Some other insurance company might be able to negoitate a 50% discount (and the $100 device will need to cost at least $300 to pay for itself and overhead), and another only a 20% discount. The private pay patients don’t have any negotiating power, unless they can work through social services to have their bill reduced, and are stuck paying the entire inflated charge.
Medicare and Medicaid are equally bad. They set allowable charges for each procedure and device (which will vary by region) which may or may not cover the actual cost of delivering the device/service. It is up to the service provider to recoup those costs from patients who are private pay or have private insurance.
In summary: it is all a shell game. If congress really wanted to fix healthcare, they would stop this complicated payment system, stop the discounts and allowables. But that would probably be too simple for them to handle, and dismantle the bureaucracy.
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