Loophole in Senate Bill Would Allow Insurers to Deny Care

A loophole in the Senate Healthcare bill would allow Insurance companies to place dollar limits on needed services, essentially allowing them to play the same games that they play now. It would allow insurance companies to deny coverage. Meanwhile, the insurance companies would be enjoying the benefit of all the new customers pushed onto their roles.

This is what I warned about in some of my earlier Healthcare reform posts - mainly that (if not done right) this Healthcare Reform debacle could end up being worse than the status quo.

In my comments about the public option I stated that the new Senate plan could work...and I took the position that I was willing to wait and see what the new plan would do before slamming the idea completely.... but I have to say... i've probably seen enough.

This report illustrates exactly why not having a public option is a problem... because then, insurance companies could simply game the system. Private insurers are not going to compete against themselves. The private sector can't be trusted to handle a fair Healthcare program under a co-op. These corporations are inherently incapable of providing a remedy to the current private system, because of the deep conflicts of interests involved. A for-profit insurance system is not really capable of achieving what Progressives had in mind for real Healthcare reform. It's not compatible for that role. This is something that even Michael Moore was able to point out a few years ago. This is the whole point behind the public option.