Health Care Lobby's Unwillingness To Confront Congress Over AHCA Speaks Volumes

David Leonhart has an important editorial in the NY Times today where he outlines how timid all the various health care groups have been in opposing the AHCA and whatever its Senate version looks like. All these groups know what a disaster this bill will be for health care in America but their unwillingness to vociferously oppose it will condemn millions of Americans to restricted access to health care and end up allowing tens or hundreds of thousands of people to needlessly die.

According to Leanohart, “…the lobbying groups for doctors, nurses and hospitals as well as advocates for patients with cancer, diabetes, lung disease, heart disease or birth defects. Each understands that the bill would deprive millions of Americans of insurance. Each has criticized the bill, and some, including AARP, have done more, like organizing phone calls. But they have not come close to the sort of public campaign that would put intense pressure on senators”.

Some of us are old enough to remember the “Harry and Louise” ads that contributed to death of the Clinton health care plan back in 1990s. At that time, there was a major PR push by the important segments of the health care industry to sink or sabotage the plan. But we see nothing like that today.

Now one might think that these industry groups are silent because, like the voters in this country, the Republicans have kept them in the dark about their plan’s details. But, of course, that is not the truth. Most of these health care groups have some inkling about what’s in the Senate bill from the legislators they lobby. And, according to Leonhart, some of these groups are quietly lobbying to make the bill “less bad”.

So the real question is why are those groups so passive when they know what a disaster this health care bill will be for themselves and for millions of Americans. The answer, Leonhart believes, is that the profits for these various health care industries are not directly effected. And that is probably true for a majority of those groups. But I’m pretty sure that hospitals are not particularly thrilled with having millions of people with no medical insurance using the emergency room as their primary care physician. And rural hospitals especially will badly effected by Medicaid’s rollback. But maybe these groups figure they can get better deals when they lobby the states directly, although I would doubt it.

Less powerful, I think, but still important, is Leonhart’s second reason for these health care groups’ timidity and that is they are afraid of the unlimited power of the Republican party and know they will be punished for opposing this plan.

But this whole scenario speaks to the utter failure of America’s health care system. The people charged with protecting Americans’ health have no interest in defending millions who will lose insurance and thousands who will die because their profits will not be effected. These groups refuse to reveal the details of how these millions of Americans will be effected to those very same millions of people because they are afraid of the raw political power of the Republican party.

If the health care lobby has no interest in the health and well-being of patients, then it’s really no health care system at all. And the obvious solution, which I see Leonhart won’t even address, is a true public option. When Democrats have their shot at health care again, and they will one day, they should never forget the cowardice and unwillingness of the health care industry to stand up for the people they allegedly claim they serve.