Obama Health Care "Reform" Continues to Serve the Interests of Insurers at Cost of Patients.

And so it continues--the massive transfer from average Americans to the wealthy.

The top executives at the nation's five largest for-profit health insurance companies pulled in nearly $200 million in compensation last year — while their businesses prepared to hit ratepayers with double-digit premium increases, according to a new analysis conducted by Health Care for America Now.

But that's going to change, right? After President Obama's health care reform - the "reform" that the private health insurance lobby most likely wrote - kicks in? 

No, according to the Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP). At least 23 million people will remain without health insurance after Obama's health care goes into effect after 2014. The hype surrounding the new health bill is belied by the facts:

* About 23 million people will remain uninsured nine years out. That figure translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually and an incalculable toll of suffering.

* Millions of middle-income people will be pressured to buy commercial health insurance policies costing up to 9.5 percent of their income but covering an average of only 70 percent of their medical expenses, potentially leaving them vulnerable to financial ruin if they become seriously ill. Many will find such policies too expensive to afford or, if they do buy them, too expensive to use because of the high co-pays and deductibles.

* Insurance firms will be handed at least $447 billion in taxpayer money to subsidize the purchase of their shoddy products. This money will enhance their financial and political power, and with it their ability to block future reform.

* The bill will drain about $40 billion from Medicare payments to safety-net hospitals, threatening the care of the tens of millions who will remain uninsured.

* People with employer-based coverage will be locked into their plan's limited network of providers, face ever-rising costs and erosion of their health benefits. Many, even most, will eventually face steep taxes on their benefits as the cost of insurance grows.

* Health care costs will continue to skyrocket, as the experience with the Massachusetts plan (after which this bill is patterned) amply demonstrates.

* The much-vaunted insurance regulations - e.g. ending denials on the basis of pre-existing conditions - are riddled with loopholes, thanks to the central role that insurers played in crafting the legislation. Older people can be charged up to three times more than their younger counterparts, and large companies with a predominantly female workforce can be charged higher gender-based rates at least until 2017.

* Women's reproductive rights will be further eroded, thanks to the burdensome segregation of insurance funds for abortion and for all other medical services.

U.S. citizens pay the highest out-of-pocket amounts for health care, and therefore are much more likely to reduce their use of health care in tough times. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will intensify this problem because "most of the subsidized private plans will have low actuarial values, requiring larger deductibles, higher coinsurance (percentage of costs paid by the patient), and higher copayments (dollar amount paid by the patient)."

Once again the corporations win. The insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists got their way, and the for-profit, private health insurance industry will continue to profit immensely at the expense of those who need health care most. Congress, President Obama, the insurance industry have masked their health care rationing legislation as health care reform.

The 2,000-page piece of legislation, according to figures compiled by Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), will leave at least 23 million people without insurance, a figure that translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths a year among people who cannot afford care. It will permit prices to climb so that many of us will soon be paying close to 10 percent of our annual income to buy commercial health insurance, although this coverage will only pay for about 70 percent of our medical expenses. Those who become seriously ill, lose their incomes and cannot pay skyrocketing premiums will be denied coverage. And at least $447 billion in taxpayer subsidies will now be handed to insurance firms. We will be forced by law to buy their defective products. There is no check in the new legislation to halt rising health care costs. The elderly can be charged three times the rates provided to the young. Companies with predominantly female work forces can be charged higher gender-based rates. The dizzying array of technical loopholes in the bill - written in by armies of insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists - means that these companies, which profit off human sickness, suffering and death, can continue their grim game of trading away human life for money.-- Chris Hedges