Senate healthcare compromise a corporate giveaway with hidden costs to taxpayers (Rep. Lynn Woolsey)

The Senate health care compromise is much more expensive than it appears and will leave taxpayers holding the bag for a huge give-away to the private insurance industry.

The Senate plan requires everyone to buy health insurance, creating some 30 million new customers for insurers, but it does not have a public option to control costs.

By providing low-cost competition, the public option would have forced insurers to rein in the spiraling costs of premiums.

The House bill has a public option, and unlike the Senate bill, requires review of any premium increases while also lifting the anti-trust exemptions that the health insurance companies now enjoy.

Instead, the Senate bill insists that people buy insurance that many cannot afford now, and many more will not be able to afford in the future, given that premiums are rising four times faster than wages.

So who will pay when people must buy health care insurance they can’t afford?

Taxpayers.

Federal subsidies will be forced to rise as premium costs rise. Those who can’t afford coverage because premiums are too high would be left without insurance and would likely use emergency rooms for health care, also at taxpayers’ expense.

This “hidden cost” to the Senate compromise is really a gift to the health insurers, an industry where profits at 10 of the largest publicly traded companies increased 428 percent between 2000 and 2007.

Americans cannot afford this gift to the health insurance industry, and the health insurance industry does not deserve it.

Americans deserve affordable, accessible quality health care, which will not happen without the kind of competition and choice provided through a public option.