Where's the Public Option?

by Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

Monday, 22 February 2010 17:00

A patient receives dental care at a free health care clinic in Inglewood, California, 08/12/09. (photo: John Moore/Getty)

Reader Supported News | Perspective

resident Obama presented his revamped health care plan today. It is full of many of the right prescriptions for our ailing health care system. There was, however, a glaring omission. No public option? The plan does propose: "Every member of Congress will be required to purchase their insurance from the new health insurance exchange." Wait a minute here, does the president think that this provision will make health care affordable for all Americans? The last time I checked, members of Congress didn't need new options for health care; they can afford the status quo. How does this help the millions of Americans that are priced out of the system?

The president's plan embraces the Senate proposal that would provide exchanges administered by the same agency that administers the federal employees health care plan. The idea has some merit, and I defended it when it looked like the public option was dead. But, it leaves private insurance companies in charge of negotiating rates. It will not create the level of competition that a "robust public option" would.

What qualifies as a "robust public option"?

Quite simply, a plan that is not only administered by the government, but also cuts out the private insurance companies serving as the middleman.

Medicare, for example, is a true public option; the government negotiates directly with health care providers on rates. The government does not build in profit, bonuses, and advertising costs into the rates they negotiate. So, naturally, they can provide access to the same care at a lower rate than a private insurance company can.

One problem the public option has faced, is that it was poorly sold to the American people. It was sold as a government takeover of health care. The truth is, doctors and patients would have more control under a public option. Gone would be the real death panels who ration care, gone would be an insurance company employee deciding what treatment is most cost-effective. A public option wouldn't force anyone out of their current plan. If people want to continue to pay insurance companies for acting as a middleman, they have every right to do so. If people want to continue to pay for the TV commercials from Anthem Blue Cross, go right ahead. If you are more concerned with adding to the bottom line of WellPoint, then keep overpaying for private health insurance. All we are asking is for the right to make a better deal.

Obama's Plan

While I believe the public option is needed, I still believe the Obama plan will help millions of Americans. I personally do not have health care because insurance companies see me as a risk. They would have to cover me under Obama's plan. Obama's plan would give the government the authority to regulate insurance rates. The Obama plan would fund Community health centers. The Obama plan would provide a pool for helping people with pre-existing conditions buy into a plan. The Obama plan would set up exchanges that would increase choice for those needing health care. Those are just some of the good features of the plan.

Is it the best we can do? No.

Public Option Not Dead

What happened to using reconciliation to force a vote in the Senate on a public option?

The answer may be that a robust public option is still on the table, but that we will have to fight for it. Obama's proposal is not the final bill. On Friday night, Harry Reid announced that reconciliation would be used to push a health care bill through the Senate within the next two months. If the Senate is going to pass a bill that will make it through the House, that bill may need a public option. This is a huge opening for proponents of the public option. It is time for a full-court press; time to pressure the president and the Senate to pass a public option through reconciliation. Nineteen Senators already have signed on to a letter in support of doing just that. Their effort needs our support. This might be our last chance.

Scott Galindez was formerly the co-founder of Truthout, and is now the Political Director of Reader Supported News.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

Comments

+9 # Guest 2010-02-22 21:23

Your last sentence it telling: "This might be our last chance." This IS our last chance I'm afraid. A robust public option is the key, and only key to cost containment that is durable. Without it, all is but brakes being applied to a locomotive inexorably moving closer to a spanless crevice that it ultimately cannot miss falling into unless a robust public option is put in place. Among every modern nation our health care is the worst and it costs multiples of what other people have to pay for simply better over all care. Our life expectancies are declining compared to other nations, our infant mortality rate is higher than Jamaica's, and to date, the best systemic health care in the world is in countries where decent, affordable health care is a right and not a luxury. It's so bloody simple, isn't it? If we have a "right to life", we have a right to health care. Sure, we must pay for it, but since when does need justify extortion? Single payer, please!!!

+1 # Guest 2010-02-24 05:44

The pathetic public option is hardly our last chance for cost containment. It may, however, be, for the time, our last chance nationally for cost containment.

Here in Maine our Green Party Gubernatorial candidate and a Green candidate for state legislature are both pushing for a PUBLIC NON-PROFIT INSURANCE COMPANY. We are captives to Anthem Blue Cross. but we see a non profit as the way to go to contain costs, since single payer is not realistic right now.

We have options. We just don't have them with the Democrats or Republicans. They don't want you to see options. they want you to keep opening your insurance bill.

+2 # Guest 2010-02-24 07:40

I think I know where public opinion is. Too many times when we express our opinion, we are asked to donate MONEY. We people who WANT it are POVERTY stricken and can't AFFORD to donate. That's where the "ball drops".

-3 # Guest 2010-02-22 21:49

So people still believe in Obama? The master of the bait and switch con? No public option. Shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

And most of us don't want the public option-that was the bait and switch to get single payer out of the way.

Smell the coffee brewing?

+15 # Guest 2010-02-22 22:26

I fully support a robust public option. I have lived in Europe for 15 years. They love their health care and cannot understand why Americans permit their inefficient, overly costly health system to continue. US doctors average $386,000 net (not gross) per year. European doctors average $187,000. There is a difference in cost, but not a difference in care.

+1 # Guest 2010-02-22 22:36

Thank you for a clear description of the Obama plan. While many of us would like the public option, this plan would certainly make a difference and provide some regulation on insurance companies. Perhaps the goal is to go for a public option dow the road (if we get a greater majority....)
If we are going to keep insurance companies, I think, at least they should be non-profits! That would avoid the major pitfalls of huge bonuses and paying stockholders.
Thanks for starting this new Reader Supported News. I will be signing up for some monthly donations in the next couple of weeks.

+6 # Guest 2010-02-22 23:14

What could possibly be the reason that our president ignores the needs of the people? We not only need a public option, we need expanded Medicare-universal health care-single payer.
We need it now, not a year, or two or three years hence! People are really hurting N-O-W!!! Presidents and politicians are really part of the 'upper financial class'. What would possibly compel them to look down and see what's going on...

Kind of useless, all this ranting and raving. There's just nobody in power compassionate enough to overcome the largesse of big corporations in this, our new country, The United Corporations of America!

+4 # Guest 2010-02-23 00:01

The federal government should regulate all insurance, including auto. But I don't think that would go far enough in Health Care. Whatever money Anthem saved, they'd keep. Look at the recent increases in California of 39% on individual plans. Currently Anthem pays 20% commission when you write someone healthy and 10% on renewals. If you write someone who is level 1 or above, and that's not really all that sick, the commission is 6% on new business and 3% on renewals. Greed is key for the last example. Agents simply won't want to waste their time for 3% of a very large premium. Single payer is the only way to avoid greed.

+3 # Guest 2010-02-23 00:15

We need to quit playing silly, playground games - like we are children at recess. If all people in America are required to PURCHASE a health plan (this is not insurance, just a reserve fund to maybe pay for some health care IF the trustee allows.) We will NEVER get the cost of health care down until we admit that the largest cost driver is the premium charged. Without expenditures for premiums included in the "cost" of healthcare, we spend less money for each individual on their care. The situation is similar to the money changers in the Temple where Christ lost it and through the changers (crooks) out. Lets get on the case of every Representative and Senator, let them know that WE THE PEOPLE ELECTED THEM and that if they want another term, then, please represent OUR interests, not those of a for profit company, (Have you ever seen a Blue Cross/Blue Shield building in need of repair? It seems that the sales force of the insurance company have unlimited expense accounts.

0 # Guest 2010-02-23 17:02

You can please some of the people some of the time and all of the people none of the time!

+3 # Guest 2010-02-23 00:45

Please, everyone, call and write to your senators immediately, and get everyone you know to do so... we do have a chance at that which the majority wants, and if the minority doesn't want it, they don't have to have it.

+1 # Guest 2010-02-23 01:38

There ought to be a law against riling up people so they take to the streets and shout down the very public option that would make their health care secure and affordable. But in its infinite perversity our legal system has decreed that lying to the public is an untouchable bulwark of our democracy. That's where half of the problem lies. The other half comes from lack of good citizenship, due in part to the individual's failure to value thinking for him- or herself, and in part to the predatory practices of powerful interests that put profits ahead of country.

+8 # Guest 2010-02-23 02:56

Ditto Mr. Deaton! I've worked in Austria for 25 yrs, have FULL health and pension bennies and can retire at 60 (w/ more money if I stay until 63). But instead of presenting the facts about the European health care systems upon which the most beneficial health bills were based, our U.S. media has willfully misled ‘We the Sheeple’ in supporting a system that works against us.

So, while I'll retire in comfort under the o-so-terrible "socialist" system, none of my 3 sibs in the States can afford to retire EVER (provided they can find & keep jobs in our dumbed down society, where overworked, underpaid young employees are “better" than experienced help).

Things aren't perfect in Europe, but after comparing both systems for so long, I can understand why Europeans think we're dumb egotists, waving flags and screaming "We're Number 1!" while our ship is sinking. We could be bailing like mad, but no. That'd mean admitting we’re NOT "Number 1" & getting *involved*!

+6 # Guest 2010-02-23 03:11

Well, at least he won the election fair and square and did not steal 2 elections like the former crook did.
European doctors also receive their education free and they do not have high malpractice insurance premiums. Most are not required to have malpractice insc. at all. It's time that we offer our population free or low cost health care.
After all we are giving I$real 30 billion dollars between 2008 and 2018. And the high cost of military contractors sucks the life out of our counry. All courtasy of King Go. Bush the II.

+1 # Guest 2010-02-23 03:48

I'm starting to really not like this Obama fellow.

+5 # Guest 2010-02-23 04:26

This "public option" talk is a cruel hoax to sugar-coat a poison pill. Those promoting this largely undefined and contradictory concept are merely providing left cover for the insurance industry. Which covertly supports the Obama bill, since they essentially dictated what was in it in the first place. They, and their conservative Republican allies, are simply using the old Brer Rabbit and Briar Patch routine to get what they want through a bogus show of opposition.

If there were a "robust public option" available to all without conditions, why would anyone in their right mind want private insurance? Existing Medicare is such an "option"; although it would be foolish to do so, you could buy private insurance instead.

Drop the Medicare eligibility age to zero and improve the system we have in place already. Pass HR-676, not the Obama bill.

David Ecklein

PS: See www.pnhp.org for the latest news on real health care system reform.

-2 # Guest 2010-02-23 04:26

In spite of its pitfalls, I still support Obama and his plan. He's a compromiser and with GOP's determined to fight him every inch of the way, this plan is a good start. GOP's rule by fear and lies. Change scares folks. Incremental change isn't a bad thing: just frustrating when the need is so great.

-1 # Guest 2010-02-23 04:39

stop the Health Care Bill at the next voting time on 2/25/2010. George Rutcho

+2 # Guest 2010-02-23 04:59

I wont go to a doctor. I have gotten very bad treatment. My dad was given a pouch of potassium, my baby was butchered in my womb and i was told, "youre not pregnant", illegal abortions. I think the doctors should be aborted. Killing our children is an act of war. My one child has nerve illness from the forced immunizations all children hav to hav or else cant go to school. I hav been given perscriptions that dont go together, toomany at the same time, incorrect diagnoses and a note on the wall said that if you dont take enough antibiotic, for the entire period , that you will then have an incurable strain of illness. I wasnt given enough of the pills to last the time period. So planning my illness that would be incurable was evident. All medicines can be illegal. and people can use good health practices not smoke or excess drink and right foods, and herbal medicines. That cuts our medical expense and drugs to zero. Next stop immediately all wars. Our country is hell-bent.

+5 # Guest 2010-02-23 05:19

I am a small business (very small)owner who is facing the very real probability that I will not make it through this year as business. Not only will I not get unemployment, I will no longer have health insurance because I cannot afford it. I may actually lose it before lose the business, my income has dropped so dramatically in the last two years. There must be many out there like me. We NEED the public option. I need the public option.

+2 # JayMagoo 2010-02-23 10:20

What in the hell is wrong with Obama? Is he more interested in respecting the stupid and corrupt shenanigans of his former colleagues in the Senate than listening to the will of the American people who overwhelmingly want the public option? That is absolutely the worst decision he could have made. I've been a supporter from the start, now I'm not so sure.

+4 # Guest 2010-02-23 10:42

I too have lived in Europe for 35 years and have had excellent health care for myself and my family. It is considered normal for governments here to provide free or low cost health care to all, including resident foreigners like myself. There are additional private group insurance options but they are inexpensive. Health is considered a right for all, not just the winners. Europeans are amazed that the US finds this an attack on Democracy, they see the function of Government to be that we all can attain good educations, decent work laws and are not afraid of big government since in a Democracy we are the Government. The problem seems to be that the people's representatives have other pressures from the interests who helped them be elected. Legal Lobbys are a grotesque US invention. In most other places the bribing is done secretly.

+4 # Guest 2010-02-23 12:08

OK. Let's be clear. No public option; no health care reform. Got that? Evidently you have not been paying attention to Blue Shield in CA raising rates 39%. Why? Because they can. And they will. After all the "investigations" and protestations they will. Why? Because they can... with a side of an army of lawyers, paid for judges, and bribed politicians. So our rates may get "subsidized". By who? The subsidy fairy? BY US! The tax payers! AND THE RATES WILL CONTINUE TO GO UP!! WHY? BECAUSE THEY CAN! What are the Feds going to do precisely? Oooh there will be laws. Oooh. Gosh golly gee they WILL BE OVERTURNED BY THE SUPREME COURT because insurance companies have armies of attorneys, paid for judges, and bribed politicians! AND WE DON'T! AND THAT'S freakin' WHY!!

0 # Guest 2010-02-23 18:59

Just to keep the record straight, it is Anthem/Blue Cross, a subsidiary of Wellpoint, a for profit corp on the stock exchange that is raising the rates and being investigated.

Blue Shield of California is an independent non-profit company and they are not the same.

-1 # Guest 2010-02-23 17:05

You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people none of the time !

0 # Guest 2010-02-24 01:23

What we really need is a Single Payer Health System, but that is still apparently a fantasy. The "Public Option" is already a HUGE COMPROMISE that still allows Health Insurance For Profit, a gross conflict of interest that stands between patients and Health Care providers. If the public option is removed there is just nothing left in it worth voting for, and we will have to Start Over.

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