What the Media and Obama Never Understood About the Public Option (Cenk w/ #1 Diary @ Dkos)

[ihavenobias]

By Cenk Uygur

People who support the latest version of the health care reform bill can't understand why progressives have been flipping out over the public option. By the end, it was so compromised that it covered a minuscule portion of the population, its cost controls were significantly reduced and it was a tiny portion of the bill. All of that is true. So, why all the sound and fury over something so small? Well, it's the same reason that private insurance companies fought so hard to kill it (how come no one ever asks why they cared so much about it if it was so insignificant?). Because it was the one provision that addressed the cancer of the system: private insurance.

To be more accurate, there are three main cancers that are killing our health care system:

1. Fee-for-service system that encourages providing more services so that providers can charge more fees.

2. No effective competition between insurance providers to drive down costs and improve care.

3. The inalterable incentive of private insurance to lower costs by denying policy holders care and charging them more for the same or less services.

So, the Senate version of health care reform admittedly applies some mighty large band-aids to these problems. It has huge subsidies so that more people can afford the ever-increasing premiums. It has regulations meant to curb some of the worst abuses in how insurance companies deny us care. But it leaves the cancer alone; in fact, it grows it. That's the problem. Again, to be fair, the first two problems might be addressed by the bill. That's why this is not a black and white issue and why it's so hard to make definitive conclusions about the bill. Efforts at bundling, new experiments in how to pay for care and a Medicare commission to study these issues . The exchanges that are created by the bill and new program managed by the Office of Personnel Management might create real competition between providers.

But would you trade those two maybes for the definitive lack of action on the last cancer? That's a real tough question and that's why we have smart, thoughtful, caring people on both sides of the issue.

Here's why I ultimately say no to this bill. Because the last cancer is probably the most important one...

NOTE: Click the title of the article above to read the entire piece.

PS---Vote for TYT for Best News or Politics Web Series: http://tinyurl.com/ycwk6cv

[20score]

1. Thanks for that! K&R

[frazzled]

2. Saying no to the bill at this point means the insurance companies REALLY win

They get to keep turning people down, raising premiums, acting without regulation, and making even bigger profits as they bankrupt the country.

It's not like there will be another bill next year or the next if this one fails. There won't be an attempt again for at least 15-20 years, if history serves as any lesson.
If you say no to this imperfect bill (which is nonetheless a significant improvement on the status quo), we do not get something better. We get nothing. N.O.T.H.I.N.G.

I suppose some prefer to cling to their noble ideals, but for people I know who can't get any insurance even if they want it, or for people who can't afford it and need government subsidies, and for bending the curve on costs in the system, and for expanding Medicaid ... to say no to this all is to condemn people to illness and possibly death.

[ihavenobias]

4. Noble Ideals? How about well reasonged arguments against the bill instead.

The following video is a must watch (also includes an article for those with dial-up) for anyone who continues to insist that passing this bill in it's current form is better than nothing:

http://tinyurl.com/ydt636o|Healthcare Consultant RJE Debunks Pro-Bill Arguments (w/ Article)>

[frazzled]

6. Read this instead

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/jane_hamshers_10_reaons_to_kil.html#more

It's true the bill is not all that we wanted. The anti-HCR folk are mired in the delusion that a world in which we have no HCR is what they want. Because there won't be a better bill, there will be none. And that is saying fuck you to the millions of people who would be helped by this bill, and otherwise will go untreated and perhaps die.

Tell that to your "healthcare consultant," whatever that title is supposed to mean.

[ihavenobias]

7. 3 Things

1. I read that Klein piece earlier and I think many of his points are addressed and or trumped by this piece and the linked video...

2. You didn't watch the video I linked to. I know because it's 26 minutes long. Instead you tried to dismiss the source by putting quotes around his title which is insulting and not a substantive refutation of anything.

3. *I* don't have insurance and I'm not sure when I'll be able to afford it. While I don't currently have anything that might kill me (that I'm aware of), I do have sleep apnea and I am overdue for some important cancer screenings. I don't think I'm saying "fuck you" to myself by being against the bill in it's current form.

PS---I thought Cenk's piece was very well thought out and nuanced. He's clearly considered the arguments from people like Ezra Klein (notice I didn't put him or his title in quotes), and while you can disagree with his conclusion, you can't say he's not being fair or that he's being dismissive:

That's a real tough question and that's why we have smart, thoughtful, caring people on both sides of the issue...

[frazzled]

9. You get the bill in its current form or you get nothing

You're not going to get your sleep apnea tests paid for or your cancer screenings if this bill fails. You won't get something better. That's what I don't understand about people's positions at this point in time. The choice isn't between what got hammered out in the end (and I certainly, along with everyone else, believe it's imperfect) and something better. It's between this and nothing. Nothing for at least 15-20 years, at which point it will be even more difficult. There is no universe in which this bill fails and something better gets voted on next year or the next or the next.

In the meantime, insurance will keep getting more unaffordable to you than it would be with this bill. I certainly don't know whether you will be able to afford the insurance. You could look up what kind of subsidy you would get to purchase it, at your income level. But you will not be asked to buy it if it's more than 8% of your income, and if you earn up to 350% of poverty level, you'll get a subsidy.

Last thing: if you truly have sleep apnea, and you don't currently have insurance, without this bill you will not be able to get it at all, even if you could afford it. I can assure you that you would be turned down for a pre-existing condition. So if you are happy with your status quo--no insurance at all--then go with the "smart, thoughtful" idea of saying no to this bill. I think it's self-destructive.

[ihavenobias]

11. Costs will continue to increase and ultimately crash the system.

The problem is that the current bill will be painted as "liberal" and a "big government" effort. That means the next time anyone tries "reform" it will be even further right and less helpful. I'm willing to take the hit in the short run rather than taking a short term gain with disastrous results in the long run.

Passing this now is NOT building a solid foundation to improve upon. Nothing in recent history suggests that to be a likely outcome. At any rate, I'm not even sure you read the entire OP article, so this argument is too generic. And if you had watched the great video I linked to, you'd know that this bill would NOT ultimately stop rescission (please don't bother responding unless you take the time to read the article and watch the video).

[frazzled]

13. Well, nobody knows, but history suggests that it will get improved if it passes

We know this for sure: When Social Security first passed it left out lots of people--agricultural and domestic workers (which meant most African Americans in that day), and others. But because it was in place it kept getting improved, until it was universal, and very successful. It was a really rotten bill in the beginning. It took several decades, but it was something to build on and it became the norm.

I read just the other day that when Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation it was like a joke: it had so many "excepts" in it that it really didn't emancipate anyone! It was the deal he had to cut to keep certain slave-owning states in the Union. But you know what? If he hadn't passed it at all, the subsequent steps would never have been taken ... and we might even still have slavery today.

On the other hand, we know for SURE that every time a health care bill has failed--for the past sixty years--that nothing better happened. The subsequent bills just got increasingly weaker, and then still failed. So if we fail to pass something--yes, frankly, almost anything--now, it's almost certain that something weaker will be proposed in the future. And it won't be in the near future. If this fails, no politician will want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole for at least 15-20 years.

[ihavenobias]

15. I specifically wrote "nothing in *recent* history".

It's a critical distinction because of the current political climate and more importantly, the current state of the media and special interest influence.

[frazzled]

18. Fair point

I guess I'm old enough to think Social Security isn't all THAT ancient ;)
Though I was not born at the time, my parents certainly were ... and now in their 80s and 90s, they claim they don't know where they would be without it.

I hope you are right that the different political climate could lead to a quicker change if this bill is defeated. I'm not so optimistic: I think times are more partisan than ever. And there are probably as many teabaggers as there are of "us." And their megaphone is even bigger, though god knows why. The media is not our friend, as I learned back in the 90s.

Let's just hope, wherever we stand, that those who are unable to get insurance will be able to in the near future, and that Medicare won't be bankrupt, as projected, by 2017: because I'll be eligible for it then!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. Fuck that DLC talking point about Social Security!

You can't turn an apple (a mandate to buy a worthless product from private corporations) into an orange (a mandate to participate in a federal program that provides real benefits to a vulnerable section of the public).

What if FDR had said, "Everyone is going to be required to put part of their paycheck into a Wall Street investment fund"?

That's the real equivalent to what this bill is saying.

Would such a program ever have evolved into Social Security?

THINK instead of just regurgitating what the Blue Dog apologists are saying.

[ipaint]

8. No that's not the case.

"Private insurers lost an estimated 9 million customers between 2000 and 2007. In many cases, people lost coverage because they or their employers could no longer afford it as premium increases outpaced wage growth and inflation.

Recession job losses are adding to the toll. Some economists estimate that every percentage-point increase in the jobless rate adds 1 million people to the ranks of the uninsured.

The industry's real trouble begins in 2011, when 79 million baby boomers begin turning 65. Health insurers stand to lose a huge slice of their commercially insured enrollment (estimated at 162 million to 172 million people) over the next two decades to Medicare, the government-funded health insurance program for seniors.

"The rate of aging far and away exceeds the birth rate," said Sheryl Skolnick, a CRT Capital Group healthcare investment analyst. "That's got to be very scary. . . . This is the biggest fight for survival managed care has ever faced, at least since they went bankrupt in the late '80s."

The best way for the industry to preserve the private insurance market -- and derail the campaign for a single-payer system -- may be to go along with more palatable proposals on the table now, said Jeffrey Miles, a healthcare analyst and president of the Miles Organization, a Los Angeles insurance brokerage firm.

"If healthcare goes down this year, you are going to end up with single-payer care much sooner than anyone expected," he said.

But there is a limit to how much change the industry will abide. It draws the line at proposals, supported by President Obama and others, to offer consumers a public insurance alternative to private coverage."

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/07/business/fi-healthcare7?pg=2

Read the whole article. The result of this whole fiasco was pre-ordained. We didn't win anything. In fact we are losing the one bargaining chip we have left to improve reform- the mandate. We should be holding onto the mandate until the ins. companies reform their product. Then if our terms are met we will consider it.

People need to smarten up.

[ihavenobias]

21. Excellent quote.

Bookmarked.

[Uncle Joe]

3. The Media's disinterest is obvious, they have a conflict of interest,

if Medicare for everyone or a strong public option providing major competition against private for profit "health" insurance corporations had been passed, a major revenue stream of the corporate media would have been threatened, that being the loss of selling commercials and advertising.

I also believe the analogy of for profit "health" insurance to cancer is apropos, one promising treatment to shrink cancer tumors has been drugs reducing or cutting off the blood supply, this bill only serves to guarantee and increase the blood supply via mandating the purchasing of for profit "health" insurance, the cancer is being fed.

Thanks for the thread, ihavenobias.

[FiveGoodMen]

5. K&R

[MedfordTim]

10. Also on Crooks & Liars and Raw Story this weekend

Could 2010 be the Year of the Cenk??

[pleah]

12. K&R

[mmonk]

14. Recommended.

A bandaid for a failed system in order to profit a little longer.

[OhioChick]

16. K&R n/t

[KoKo]

17. Yep...prettyh much what some of us on the Left have been yapping about..and we should be..

and there are good points there as to the differences between the "DLC Go Alongs" with those friendly Repugs and the rest of us who went out and worked for and supported Obama. Obama now seems to see things differently about who elected him.

[ihavenobias]

24. DLC Go Alongs?

You mean "moderates"? ;)

[Kajsa]

19. K&R

:kick:

[snagglepuss]

20. "how come no one ever asks why the insurance industry cared

so much about PO if it was so insignificant?".


Absolutely brilliant observation.


K & R

[Turborama]

22. K&R The problem with killing the bill now would be to hand an undeserved victory to the loony right

After veering from initially hoping for reconciliation towards wanting the bill to die, Senator Whitehouse's http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x415930">speech made me (re)consider the political impact of the bill not passing and handing the RepubliCONs and their http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x415941">lunatic supporters an undeserved victory.

It seems like we're in a lose lose situation.

[ihavenobias]

23. The problem with passing the bill now would be to hand an undeserved victory to the right

and the corporations and their lobbyists.

If this bill passes, the right will STILL pretend it's a Big Government, Socialist, Radical Liberal/Progressive plan when that couldn't be further from the truth. The R's are fighting against this now for all the wrong reasons, but it's a political wet dream for them if it passes because it's such a brutal bill. Even the subsidies that some progressives are cheering about will provide amazing political fodder for Republicans to rile up their base (and even many moderates/independents).

When the "reform" inevitably fails to reduce costs (while also increasing taxes), the average American will be rightfully upset. The right will pounce (followed by the MSM as always) and blame a failure of liberalism and government. If recent history is any indication, existing Dems will feel compelled to move further right to stay in office, and progressives and progressive solutions will be even further marginalized. That means our goal of changing the underlying problem with our healthcare system will be even further away than it is now.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. I can attest to that--the right wingers who post on my local paper's website

are ALL declaring that this horrible bill is "liberalism" or "Socialism" or "Marxism." (Or even in one particularly loony case, "Maoism." I told that poster that a REAL Maoist would have sent all the insurance company executives to labor camps or shot them summarily and put the mailroom clerks in charge, but s/he just raved some more, and when another poster approved of my post, s/he accused him of wanting to murder people.)

The fact that the latter two are DEFINITELY not true, since I can't imagine a Socialist or Marxist handing corporations a captive market with no controls on the corporations, doesn't matter.

It's how the right-wing spins it and the brainwashed followers believe it.

If there are going to be cries of "Socialism!" no matter what, let's put some real socialism into the bill.