Wendell Potter, a former top executive at Cigna, says that the only winners in the Senate Health Care Reform bill are CEO’s and executives of the insurance industry.  So far two people that I trust, Dr. Howard Dean and Wendell Potter, says that the bill is not worth passing.  And attempting to discredit Dean who has been the biggest cheerleader in this fight misses the mark.  Dean and Potter have proven themselves trustworthy in the eyes of most supporters of health care reform and such supporters will not be persuaded to ignore their advice because Capitol Hill and the White House are upset that they are speaking truth to power instead of towing the party line.   The American people are not stupid.  We see for ourselves the ineffectiveness of this bill to reform.

Take a look of what prizes the insurance industry will receive if the bill as written is passed. 

Gets for Insurance company

• Repeal of Antitrust exemption language removed
• Inurance companies can sell insurance across state lines therefore allowing them to gravitate to states with weak consumer protection laws resulting in Americans paying higher premiums for less insurance
• Big Insurance can now charge older people four times the premiums of young people
• Consumers charged a premium rate of fifty percent more if he/she has a “preexisting condition” as defined by Big Insurance ie. high blood pressure, high cholesterol reading
• Annual limits alive and well and millions of Americans still risk bankruptcy if they hit the arbitrary health care limit set by Big Insurance
• A law that forces families, through an income tax hike, to pay 17 percent of their annual income for “noninsurance” that will enrich Big Insurance even more.  The number goes up to 22 percent if someone in the family is chronically ill.
• Big Insurance paid government subsidies to the tune of $450 billion over ten years for Americans who cannot afford the new tax or skyrocketing premium prices set by Big Insurance

Someone really needs to explain to me why this bill is a good idea as currently written.  Mr. President??  Please answer Dr. Dean’s question…is this more about getting votes to pass something than it is about reforming healthcare?  From the look of all the concessions made to Big Insurance it looks a whole lot like the former.