Obamacare Update#3 – The Public Option
From Wapo:
Harry Reid, shopping for reelection insurance
What Harry Reid did Monday afternoon gave new meaning to the phrase “public option.”
Hold the press!!!! I heard that somewhere else…
Pelosi: Health care ‘public option’ needs new name
SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) – A government-sponsored “public option” for health care lives, though it may be more attractive to skeptics if it goes by a different moniker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday.
Is that like calling the “War on Terror” an “Overseas Contingency Operation” or calling “Enemy Combatants” by a new name, such as “Detainees of Interest?” Is that like calling the TARP a “bailout” and then switching gears and calling it a “rescue” because it was supposed to make the bitter medicine easier to swallow? Do they think we aren’t paying attention?
No matter how much perfume they put on the pig, it’s still a pig.
Aren’t there laws protecting people against false advertising? Oh… wait. These are lawmakers.
In an appearance at a Florida senior center, the Democratic leader referred to the so-called public option as “the consumer option.” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., appeared by Pelosi’s side and used the term “competitive option.”
Both suggested new terminology might get them past any lingering doubts among the public—or consumers or competitors.
“You’ll hear everyone say, ‘There’s got to be a better name for this,’” Pelosi said. “When people think of the public option, public is being misrepresented, that this is being paid for with their public dollars.”
Well, it is. Is she going to redefine “public dollars” now too? Aren’t there laws protecting people against false advertising? Oh… wait. These are lawmakers.
Pelosi said that was a misconception and that any taxpayer money used to start up the public option would be repaid. She also said such an option would ultimately drive down government health care costs.
Have you gotten your TARP money back yet, blog reader?
Disgusting… Aren’t there laws protecting people against false advertising? Oh… wait. These are lawmakers.
Meanwhile, back to Harry.
The Senate majority leader, after haggling behind closed doors with members of his Democratic caucus, realized that he couldn’t cobble together the 60 votes he needed to pass health-care legislation with a government-run health plan. So Reid chose another option: He shut down the private talks, booked the Senate TV studio and went public with his own proposal.
“I’ve concluded,” he told the roomful of cameras and reporters, “that the best way to move forward is to include a public option.”
For Reid, it was an admission of the formidable power of liberal interest groups. He had been the target of a petition drive and other forms of pressure to bring the public option to the floor, and Monday’s move made him an instant hero on the left. Americans United for Change hailed him for refusing “to buckle in the face of withering pressure from the big insurance companies.” MoveOn.org admired his “leadership in standing up to the special interests.”
Say that again… I must have misread it.
For Reid, it was an admission of the formidable power of liberal interest groups. He had been the target of a petition drive and other forms of pressure to bring the public option to the floor, and Monday’s move made him an instant hero on the left. Americans United for Change hailed him for refusing “to buckle in the face of withering pressure from the big insurance companies.” MoveOn.org admired his “leadership in standing up to the special interests.”
Uh… OK, let’s move on.
So much for putting all healthcare negotiations on CSPAN.
This is funny:
Then there was the small matter of lacking the votes to pass the public option. “Do you feel 100 percent sure right now that you have the 60 votes?” CNN’s Dana Bash inquired. Reid looked down at the lectern. He looked up at the ceiling. He chuckled. He put his palms together as if in prayer. Then he spoke. “My caucus believes strongly there should be health-care reform” was the non sequitur he offered.
Hum-a-duh, hum-a-duh, hum-a-duh….
Reid: Yes, the Senate bill will have a public option
Nobody knows what the “Opt-out scheme” is, exactly but the “public option” in the Senate bill is supposed to have this mystery feature. My prediction: there is an option that allows states to ‘opt out” of the “public option.” However, it’s too expensive and too cumbersome to do so. States that optout will still have to send money to Washington, so they can redistribute the wealth.
What do you think?
shortlink http://wp.me/pFeEj-3O
PS.
We can’t have health care reform without tort reform.
No one can identify how the current health care bills being debated and apparently continuously modified in Congress will reduce the cost of health care. They may produce a reduction in insurance premiums for some, but just paying less for health care does not magically produce a diminution in the actual cost of health care. The latter would only occur if there were large profits in the overall health care enterprise that could be trimmed without changing the basic character of the system. But no one has identified such profits. The president points to for-profit insurance companies, but for-profit insurance companies only make up 25 percent of the system and they are not that profitable, ranking 85th among all U.S. industries. “Reform” will redistribute the money, not reduce the overall cost. This is pretty much what the American Health Insurance Plans study, so denigrated by the president, concluded. Unless the costs of health care fall, lowering insurance payments in one segment of the populace will inevitably cause an increase for some other group.
They want to redistribute the wealth, and control who gets what.
There is much that can be done to make our system more efficient. Tort reform is a great place to start.
Hello, Washington!
Howard Dean Admits the Democrats Oppose Tort Reform out of their Fear of Trial Lawyers.
A Closer Look at the Uninsured
Why the “46 million” figure is profoundly misleading.
Yet while it carries superficial appeal as a political talking point, the “46 million” statistic tells us nothing about the demographics of America’s uninsured. Economist Keith Hennessey, director of the National Economic Council under Pres. George W. Bush, has examined the 2007 data and sliced the 45.7 million uninsured into several distinct clusters, basing his estimates on an earlier government analysis, conducted in 2005. Hennessey reckons that 6.4 million were enrolled in Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program — now known just as the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — but misreported their status (a phenomenon known as the “Medicaid undercount”); 4.3 million were eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but not enrolled; 9.3 million were noncitizens; 10.1 million belonged to families earning more than 300 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL); and 5 million were childless adults aged 18 to 34. If we eliminate those individuals from the original 45.7 million, we are left with about 10.6 million.
So for that, we should let Barry, Harry and Nancy overthrow the entire healthcare industry? Aren’t there laws protecting people against false advertising? Oh… wait. These are lawmakers.
Comments welcome!
No one can identify how the current health care bills being debated and apparently continuously modified in Congress will reduce the cost of health care. They may produce a reduction in insurance premiums for some, but just paying less for health care does not magically produce a diminution in the actual cost of health care. The latter would only occur if there were large profits in the overall health care enterprise that could be trimmed without changing the basic character of the system. But no one has identified such profits. The president points to for-profit insurance companies, but for-profit insurance companies only make up 25 percent of the system and they are not that profitable, ranking 85th among all U.S. industries. “Reform” will redistribute the money, not reduce the overall cost. This is pretty much what the American Health Insurance Plans study, so denigrated by the president, concluded. Unless the costs of health
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care fall, lowering insurance payments in one segment of the populace will inevitably cause an increase for some other group.
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