Universal health care is near passing

On the universal health insurance front, the health insurance companies are feeling the heat from the recent political season. Now that Obama, who campaigned on universal health care, is President-elect the health insurance industry states that it "...would support a health care overhaul requiring insurers to accept all customers, regardless of illness or disability. But in return, the industry said, Congress should require all Americans to have coverage." So, unlike during the effort to pass Hillarycare, we are not going to see "Harry and Louise" ads from the health insurers this time. What the health care industry is now saying

In separate actions, the two trade groups, America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, announced their support for guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, in conjunction with an enforceable mandate for individual coverage.

All the government has to do in addition is set a minimum standard coverage, a single rate everyone has to pay, set standardized administrative procedures for filing claims so the every health care provider does not have to train clerks separately for each insurance company, and then offer a government insurance to compete directly with the private insurers. Since the government can administer health insurance at a substantially lower cost than private insurance companies can, this will probably either put them out of business or simply incorporate them into the same overall system.

It will eliminate the excessive costs involved in preventing uninsured individuals and already sick individuals from receiving health care.

Of course, the changes I described above are just about paying for health care. Improving the delivery of services will be more complicated, of course.

Kevin Drum, linking to Ezra Klein discusses the downside of the insurance company proposal. But he is looking at the details that are going to have to be worked out politically. I am looking at the political wind behind universal health care generally. Try though they will, the Republicans and conservatives will not be able to kill universal health care this time.

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Addendum 11:23 pm CST
Mark Kleiman of the Reality Based Community discusses the politics behind the health insurance proposal to accept the individual mandate for health insurance coverage.