Posted by Karen Tumulty Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein has become an imporant voice in the health care debate, with President Obama at one point declaring him "
required reading" in the White House. In today's column, Pearlstein argues that the public plan has become a "a political litmus test imposed on the debate by left-wing politicians and pundits who don't want to be bothered with the real-life dynamics of the health-care market. It is the Maginot Line of health-care policy, and just like those stubborn French generals, liberal Democrats have vowed to defend it even if it means losing the war."
He also offers what he says are more effective ways of introducing real competition into the health care market. You can read his column
here.
UPDATE: Kevin Drum makes
a similar point.I never had much interest in a public option. I think the perils of government-delivered (as opposed to funded) services are obvious and immense....On the other hand, I am very much in favor of a single-payer system in which the government gives everyone a tax credit, scaled according to income, that enables people to select from an array of government approved and regulated health insurance choices.
<...>
It's worth fighting for a public option. But it's not worth sinking healthcare reform over it. That would hurt too many real flesh-and-blood people who need this, and a second chance wouldn't come along for a long time. We've failed on the healthcare front too many times to accept failure again.
link"I am very much in favor of a single-payer system...It's worth fighting for a public option. But it's not worth sinking healthcare reform over it."
That is not fighting, that's quitting.
Our guest blogger is Gov. Howard Dean, former chairman of the DNC and the author of Howard Dean’s Prescription For Real Health Care Reform.
In today’s Washington Post, Steven Pearlstein argues that Democrats should just give up on the public option. “
Enough already with the public option!,” he writes. Steven thinks we should drop one of the most popular and effective aspects of health care reform simply because the fight is too politically difficult in Congress. I think such an approach would ruin health care reform and devastate the Democratic party.
Steven is confusing health insurance reform with health care reform. If we only get reform that requires insurance companies to provide coverage to everyone who applies, charge everyone the same premiums, and end their discriminatory practices, that would be great insurance reform, but it’s not, as Steven writes, health care reform.
Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option would give Americans a real choice and not reward for-profit health insurers with 47 milllion new customers. Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option would cut out the administrative waste of private insurers and begin changing the way health care is delivered. Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option could adopt the kind of payment reforms that would start to “hold down long-term growth in health spending” and encourage providers to deliver care more efficiently. We know that premiums in the public option would be about 10 percent lower and that a real robust plan that piggy backs off of Medicare’s infrastructure could save us somewhere between
$75 billion and
$150 billion over 10 years.
Just because the public health insurance option is “new,” moreover, does not mean it’s not worth fighting for. Steven points out that I did not propose a robust public option in 2004 election. The measure of good politics and policy is the ability to accept and identify new ideas. My 2004 plan may not have included a new stand-alone program, but it did allow Americans over 55 to enroll in Medicare and everyone under 25 would have been eligible for Medicaid.
I believed that government could help expand coverage and control costs then, and the overwhelming majority of Americans believe it today. If the August recess has taught us one thing, it’s that Republicans have ended all serious conversations about reform and will oppose reform whether it includes a public option or not. They want to make the choice for the American people instead of letting Americans have their own choice of coverage. And if Democrats follow their lead, they will have to face the voters’ choice come November.
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