The Health Care Cave-In (R. Reich)

[Mass]

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/robert_reich/2009/05/the-health-care-cave-in.php

The Health Care Cave-In
May 18, 2009, 10:15AM

"Don't make the perfect the enemy of the better" is a favorite slogan in Washington because compromise is necessary to get anything done. But the way things are going with health care, a better admonition would be: "Don't give away the store."

...

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama pushed a compromise -- a universal health plan that would include a "public insurance option" resembling Medicare, which individual members of the public and their families could choose if they wished. This Medicare-like option would at least be able to negotiate low rates and impose some discipline on private insurers.

But now the Medicare-like option is being taken off the table. Insurance and drug companies have thrown their weight around the Senate. And, sadly, the White House -- eager to get a bill enacted in 2009 rather than risk it during the mid-term election year of 2010 -- is signaling it's open to other approaches. What other approaches? One would create a public insurance plan run by multiple regional third-party administrators. In other words, the putative "public plan" would be broken into little pieces, none of which could exert much bargaining leverage on Big Pharma and Big Insurance. These pieces would also be so decentralized that the drug companies and private insurers could easily bully (or bribe) regional third-party administrators.

Another approach now being considered in the Senate would have states create their own insurance plans. That's even worse: Big Pharma and Big Insurance are used to buying off state legislators and officials. They'd just continue their current practices.

A third option is to create a public plan that pays for itself and, according to the office of Senator Charles Schumer, who came up with it, "adheres to private-insurance rules." But adhering to private insurance rules is exactly what the public plan is not supposed to do. How can it possibly discipline private insurers and get good deals from drug companies and medical providers if it adheres to the same rules that private insurers have wangled?
...

[QC]

1. Reich is an enemy of the people. n/t

[DJ13]

2. He's one of the few remaining good guys

[QC]

3. If he keeps talking like this he'll end up under the Hopemobile. n/t

[mod mom]

4. Reich is one of the very few Clinton folks I have any respect for. nt

[DrToast]

5. Does anyone expect to be happy with the final plan?

I wish I felt like I would, but I just don't see it.

[flpoljunkie]

6. Congress does not work for us. It's captive to special interests, lobbyists who run their campaigns

It is the special interests who own them and whose interests they put first. Check it out:

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=F09

[MisterK]

20. agreed

[Sebastian Doyle]

7. Here's an analogy to think about

If single payer = marriage equality, then "Public option" = "civil unions".

And a "public option" written by Chuck Snake in the Grass Schumer = "civil union" bill written by Fred Phelps.

[lunatica]

11. Very good analogy

It's about being seen as a second class citizen until the they want to be elected again. This is beyond sad. It's bordering on criminal negligence of the people.

[Occam Bandage]

12. Uh, no. That's a terrible analogy.

Civil unions and marriage equality are equal except in the names and therefore in the societal implications as regards the validity of the relationships involved. Single-payer and a public option are entirely different approaches to government spending and involvement in the national health-care infrastructure.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

8. He goes on to say we could get a REAL public option w/ a great deal of pressure

from the White House and the public. We should not let up for a second in demanding a REAL public option.

Schumer's plan is designed to drive the public option into insolvency almost immediately with his demand that it pay for itself through premiums. Common sense will tell you that the people who will flock first to the public option are those with serious and chronic illnesses or conditions that have been previously cherry picked and rejected out of private insurance along with the millions without any insurance at all who haven't had even their most basic medical needs met for years. Of COURSE they won't be able to sustain themselves with premiums! Without government subsidy, I would be surprised if it lasted 1 year.

[snowdays]

10. yes, Schumer is NUTS --given that it will play out that way

[Zodiak]

9. By taking single-payer off of the table, there was nothing to compromise away to get a public option

And then the public option gets compromised away because it is the most leftie thing on the table. In favor of....well, no real reform at all.

Fucking stupid strategy...

And don't tell me they did not know it was going to work out like this. They knew, and are laughing at us sick and dying American people as they put their ill-gotten lobbyist money into their pockets.

[John Q. Citizen]

17. Exactly! Worse than no real reform, it's mandate to buy private insurance That's facist health care

[Occam Bandage]

13. I don't think "somebody says it might not happen" is the same as a cave-in.

If it doesn't happen, it's a cave-in.

[jenmito]

14. Obama never pushed for "a universal health plan...

that would include a 'public insurance option' resembling Medicare."

[pnwmom]

15. He is RIGHT that a public option plan with its hands tied behind its back --

so that it adheres to private insurance rules -- is pointless.

[Dark]

16. Hey Reich. Why didn't you do this shit when you were in office?

nt

[redqueen]

18. Cause he answered to the president, and the president sets the agenda?

Just a guess.

[Dark]

21. He was sec. of labor, which directly relates to the issue at hand: insurance. He didn't push for it

especially when Hillary was trying to get her health care passed.

[redqueen]

22. What I mean is...

say neither of the Clintons wanted single payer or a public option. Wouldn't he have to keep his personal ideas to himself on that?

[John Q. Citizen]

19. This is almost exactly the same information in Donna Smith piece on Common Dreams yesterday

Basically, that all "reform" in the Senate is now being run by the health care industrial complex. So worse than no reform. it's the hell on earth scenario of laws requiring us to buy insurance from subsidized private overlords.

The only way out is a coalition between the single payer people and the public option people called:
Americans United to Convince The US Senate To Quit Whoring for the Heath Care Industrial Complex


and we march on our local Senate Constituent offices in our own states and stay there until the smell, noise , and media make the Senate , well, stop whoring.

Either that or Obama or the House of Reps will save us.