People always tend to fear the unknown. The main thing with this plan is to look at who or whom will lose money if it is in fact implemented. One of the provisions is that there will be no more denial of benefits for pre-existing conditions. Obviously insurance is to insure against risk. They want to only insure healthy people and this is why in spite of all of their complaints that their profits have soared. Pharmaceutical giants fear it because it may bring about an examination of their policies and the out and out fraud that is rife within their industry. Always remember that if you are a pharmaceutical giant that there is no profit in a "cure" we want to have a "chronic but manageable" condition which will require a lifetime of expensive medications to extract the most profit. Again a carefully audited system will begin to uncover this behavior. If we are lucky it will be brought out into the open where everyone can see it for the parasite it is.
There are a number of things I want to see in this and I am hopeful that over time this will happen.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers in the United States manufacture drugs for a world wide market. Drugs manufactured in South Carolina or Georgia are sold in Mexico, Europe, Canada, South America, Africa and the Asia. The packaging and language of the packaging changes depending on the destination of the batch. However the price schedules under which these drugs are sold worldwide vary on both a wholesale and retail level. I have relatives who retired from this business and I know this to be the truth. Some American companies are now importing drugs from manufacturers in India and other third world Countries because it costs less to make them in these locations. They don't tell you because there is no law in place that says that they have to tell you where a drug was manufactured. Again, good or bad under audits in a good national health care system this will or would be uncovered and exposed.
The United States as of right now remains the only world wide health care system with few checks and balances in place.
Eventually and I would give an estimate of about 10 years we will probably springboard this into a single payer nationalized health care system. It will happen in stages and repeated audits of greedy and crooked private corporations placing outrageous profits to shareholders over patient care will over time expose this private system as a failure.
I am for private enterprise unless private enterprise proves that it is operating outside the "public interest", and this has been the case for decades.
Obama's health care plan is horrifically flawed. Democrats needed to get an alterable framework passed and conservatives wanted to deliberately sabotage this framework to turn people against universal health care it is that simple.
Right now we as a family are watching this "scamming" first hand. We are dealing with cancer of the tongue in our 23 year old. Cost of "cat scan" with a total time in the scanner of less than 20 minutes was $3,500.00. Pet scan with contrast total time in the scanner again less than 15 minutes $3,800.00. We have not even done anything about the cancer yet and we and the insurance company are already in this $7,300 and counting.
In 2001 I watched an HMO deny care entirely to my then 80 year old Mother and this resulted in her death. After a heart attack they refused to pay for CCU, they instead sent her to a convalescent home in horrific shape where she was not properly regulated on medication resulting in her death from that attack one week later. It was horrific abuse and was a direct cause of death.
Remember there are different sets of rules here. If your Mother has a heart attack and dies in your home the Coroners Office will investigate YOU for wrong doing in that death. If an Insurance or Health Care provider denies care nobody even takes a second look at it unless the denial of care is so blatant that it is offensive. Then they usually place a dollar value on the life that they knowingly and willingly took and have you as the "injured and bereaved" sign a non-disclosure statement absolving them of any wrong doing. After they pay off the people to shut them up with regards to the "truth" they simply consider these pay outs for negligent care a "cost of doing business" and pass them along to others paying insurance premiums.
If you really want to be insulted look at the salaries of the Board of Directors of these Insurance and Health Care Corporations.
Though it is unrelated to medicine, just watch what the "severance package" ends up looking like for the outgoing head of BP. I think it disgusting that Government should ever have to interfere in private industry. Yet, the whole mess has become so "one sided" that we have no choice. As disgusting as it is and I hate every moment of it, there is zero ways to reign this back in without Government participation and or regulation.
