Let me take another bite at this apple. Look at this statement from a Republican.
Georgia Republican Rep. Tom Price, a medical doctor, called “simply false.” the notion that there are only two choices – between government-provided insurance and private insurance. Instead, there is a “patient-centered way” of providing health insurance, “to put patients in charge.” Price also said Sunday that creating a public health insurance option will “crowd out” individuals from the private insurance market and into the government insurance option.
Now, I think most of my readers probably share with me a certain level of aversion to comments like that. I simply do not believe that selling private health insurance is a legitimate business. In my value system, Rep. Price’s argument makes about as much sense as opposing drug legalization because it will put the crack dealers out of business. I don’t care if people drop private insurance in favor of public insurance. In fact, that’s precisely what I want them to do. So, Price isn’t remotely persuasive to me when he complains that a public option will be too popular and ‘crowd out’ corporate profits. But, he’s persuasive to a lot of Americans who have a strong belief that making a buck in health insurance is everyone’s God-given Constitutional right. We speak totally different languages from each other. The problem we have is not that their worldview outnumbers ours, but that we have a bunch of senators who care more about the jobs created in their states by the insurance industry (and the political consequences of messing with that) than they do about people getting affordable health care. It’s that simple.
Now, here’s a left-wing quote that is making the rounds:
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) told CNN on Sunday it would be “very difficult” for her and other liberals to support legislation that does not include a public option.
“The only way we can be sure that very low-income people and persons who work for companies that don’t offer insurance have access to it, is through an option that would give the private insurance companies a little competition,” she said.
Johnson added that House liberals have already told Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that she should insist on White House support for a public option.
Now, the problem with this quote is that it isn’t necessarily true. The alternative that is being floated to the public option is the non-profit co-operative. The plan has to be fleshed out, but it would be something like a non-profit private credit union. Private citizens would band together to create their own negotiating power. The potential problem with the co-ops is that, unlike with the public option, there wouldn’t be any big initial infusion of cash that would provide negotiating clout. Over a long period of time, co-ops could obtain the size of HMO’s and negotiate prices without having to make a profit. The concern is with getting up to size in a timely manner (or at all).
But, the co-ops could assure that low-income people have access to health care. If they didn’t because the price remained too high, then I suspect that the government would be forced to come back and fix the problem. Either they’d find a way to inject a sufficient cash infusion to get things up to scale or they’d scrap the system and go with the public option.
The co-ops seem to me to be a bad idea because even if they work they will work too slowly. But, if that is the only thing standing between the status quo and health care reform on rescissions and pre-existing conditions and portability and expanded coverage, then I’m confident that we can fix this later.
we have a bunch of senators who care more about the jobs created in their states by the insurance industry (and the political consequences of messing with that) than they do about people getting affordable health care. It’s that simple.
So employ them as part of the public option.
We have had co-ops; that was the solution in the 1930s that was the alternative to FDRs universal health care bill of the time. Those co-ops were called Blue Cross/Blue Shield and they were organized by states. The members were premium payers and doctors. They were private non-profits and they had boards of directors nominally answerable to the members.
What happened? In some states, boards of directors voted to convert Blue Cross/Blue Shield to private for-profit corporations and then sold to larger for-profit corporations like Anthem. In other states, Blue Cross/Blue Shield started operating like a private for-profit insurance company and instead of delivering savings to members it invested in speculative securities. In other states, the boards of directors decided to compensate the CEO with multi-million dollars compensation packages or salaries, paying the lesser executives marginally lower compensaton. And they engaged in the same network-building, exclusion of pre-existing conditions, and rescissions of other insurance companies. And in some states, Blue Cross/Blue Shield has a de facto monopoly position.
that’s important, because they have not yet marked up the bill. If you can educate Kerry or Menendez or even Rockefeller about the need for hard language to prevent slippage into for-profit, you can help improve the bill. Maybe.
It’s not just slippage into for-profit. It must include a patient’s bill of rights and limitations on executive pay.
Oh, and also some way of prohibiting investments in risky securities.
Michigan Blue Cross/Blue Shield – a supposedly “non-profit – just got a 22% increase on individual policies past the Attorney General & the Insurance Board. This despite a 2 BILLION surplus! My BC/BS Advantage plan went from about $27 a month when I signed up to over $70 a month last January – talk about bait & switch!!
Re fixing the co-ops at a later date, what makes you so confident, Booman, that this can be done without a gargantuan struggle of epic proportions? The health care combine will be more assured than ever that it can hold its protected places intact. The liberals and progressives will be pissed wondering what’s the use of any action short of electoral mayhem in trying to defeat this nefarious group of blood sucking financial vampires.
In this day of capitalism gone mad, does anyone in the republican or conservative parties care about the general welfare?
When it comes to corporate profits, America’s new motto seems to be “Damn the Constitution, full speed ahead.”
What makes me so sure? History.
Take a look at the history of Social Security. Congress hasn’t scrapped it when they discovered it was bankrupting us, they have figured out how to pay for it.
Let’s take a look at the history of Social Security. We only got the bill through Congress in the first place because (a)a major depression was in progress, (b)FDR was president and he was one tough, charismatic leader determined to take it to the wealthy, (c) Huey Long, governor of LA, was scaring the bejeebers out of those well off with his increasing popular schemes of taxing the rich. Needless to say, present times are quite different although the “haves” are as insistent as ever in hanging on to their money. To change health care, no matter how meritorious an idea, will only occur after sustained and prolonged battle. I wonder if Obama has the stomach for such a fight.
Did you hear Daschle yesterday on Meet? He said at the end, “Who are we doing this for, the insurance companies or the American people?”
I think that’s a comment that ought to be invoked more often.
Tommy Boy sure talks fine. But he is among the people who convinced Obama not to permit Congress to pursue single-payer.
When crazy August is over we get a full debate on the floor of the House on single payer. The public option is the compromise to single payer and anything less should not pass. What we will have to fix later is the public option that will get watered down.
Maybe the pain is not enough yet and I mean the pain of these elected officials getting thrown out of office for being sold out to the insurance companies. Maybe we need to have this fight in 2010 because the public is way ahead of congress on this.
It is not giving up to keep this issue front and center on the blue dogs for the next year and a half. If they don’t want this kind of fight then just pass the public option now.
We get debate on single payer in House in the form of the Weiner amendment which substitutes the language of HR 676 for that of HR 3200 when HR 3200 comes to the floor. With 15 Blue Dogs and every other Democrat in the House, that can pass; that’s the math. It can also be a “show of strength vote” prior to voting on HR 3200, the public option before any other amendments are considered; this makes it easier to bat down amendments that water down HR 3200.
Finally, 60 Progressive Democrats in the House (per Jane Hamsher) have committed to voting down any bill in the House that does not include a strong public option.
In the Senate, the Baucus committee will fail to pass any bill, leaving the Senate HELP bill as the Senate alternative but without the part about how to pay for it. If you think Republicans are voting for co-ops, you are as gone as Kent Conrad. And there are a few Democrats who will also vote down co-ops. Stalemate in the Baucus Committee. That pretty much forces the Senate to consider whatever the House sends over.
And the bill will be settled in House-Senate conference; it is very important who is on that conference committee on both sides. We will need tough negotiators on the House side, such as Conyers, Rangel, Miller, Weiner, and Waxman.
I agree that we will need tough negotiators in the conference. This is why it is so important for the 60 Progressive Democrats to stand up on this. We need to negotiate from as strong a position as possible.
I do not think that Baucus likes the idea that he led a stalemate while serving his corporate masters. His level of selling out will not be lost on the voters. All it will take for some qualified candidate to smell blood in the water and challenge him. The same goes for the other Senators acting the same way and while we’re at it the blue dogs in the House as well. We don’t really have to defeat them all, just enough to put the fear in the rest of them that they represent the people, not their corporate masters.
I hate the phrase “the Blue Dogs in the House” mostly because it is untrue. Compromised industry hacks like Mike Ross used his Blue Dog affiliation to weaken the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee with the help of other Blue Dogs on the Committee. A couple of Blue Dogs voted against the marked-up bill in the Education and Labor Committee. They are using their Blue Dog branding as cover for what they are doing for the healthcare industry.
There are other Blue Dogs who have not said where they stand, possibly because they intend to vote for the bill.
The question is whether there are 15 Blue Dogs who will vote for the Weiner Amendment. For folks interested in seeing single-payer move forward, it’s worth a try to find out.
Jesus. I had to check the timestamp to make sure Nate Silver hadn’t plagiarized me.
Interesting that his take is identical to mine.
I didn’t read Nate. If, as you suggest, he agrees with you- so be it. Co-ops are a statement of failure. Any proposal that grant the cntinuing domination of the insurance companies in the health care of the people is a failure. As has been stated earlier by others, it is time to place on the record the names of every single congress person that votes for a bill that does not include at least a public option. If it loses, the the congress should walk away from the health issue while cleary pointing out to the voters in this country that the congress, as constituted now, has failed and it is the voters responsibility to remove those that have shown their disregard for the American citizenry!
I still think that we are going to get something that can plausibly be called a “public option,” whether or not it more closely resembles a co-op or something else.
But your diary raises an interesting question for me: is it sufficient if we emerge with something that has the potential to develop into a truly public option, based upon swaying public opinion and the marketplace?
In other words, if – as many progressives believe — a “public option” is and will be popular (notwithstanding the recalcitrance of a few powerful senators), then wouldn’t a system that permits the development of a public option presumably end up in that direction anyway? If so, that would seem a strong reason not to draw a line in the sand over the immediate inclusion of a fully-formed public option this year.
A slow-developing public option may not have the same immediate impact, but I personally would be satisfied if I believed that we were taking a first step to an inevitable path in that direction.
you know what this diary reminds me of?
that scene in that simpsons episode where lisa becomes a vegetarian and loses her temper at Homer’s BBQ, pushing the pig down a hill, forcing homer and bart to run after it. the key quote is :
I liked this comment by mph2005 over at dKos “Co-ops = death panels.”
My reaction to hints that the adminstration might abandon the “controversial” public option, was admiration for a well-executed rope-a-dope. But then I’m a hopeless dreamer.