Question: Since health care opponents are mutating the public option, could our side mutate co-ops?

[backscatter712]

Yeah, some of you might think that I'm committing blasphemy. Hear me out.

We all know what the insurance lobbyists and their sockpuppets in Congress are trying to do to the public option - assuming they can't strip it entirely, they're trying things like reducing the number of people eligible to participate, pushing back the enactment date, neutering its negotiating power with pharmcos and providers, etc.

What if we can do the same thing to co-ops. We know how co-ops are engineered to be pretend-reform - they're state-by-state, so as to break up their bargaining power, they have no protections from the predations of insurance companies, and the insurers are anticipating doing things like buying them out, crushing them in the markets, that sort of thing.

Let's change that. What if we took Kent Conrad's co-ops and made them useful.

First, make them one big nation-wide co-op, not 50 state co-ops. Solves the problem with broken-up bargaining power.

Two. To make the anti-government idiots happy, we structure the co-op a certain way - we make it a non-profit corporation under Title 36, just like the American Red Cross. It's chartered by Congress, and there should be legislation in there forbidding private insurers or any other corporations from having ownership of this co-op, ever - the ownership is split among all the participants who pay premiums, which by definition are individuals and families. The bonus of structuring the ownership this way is that it will be impossible for big corporations to buy up the co-op and fuck with it.

Also, coded in the corporate charter (the term corporate is misleading in that I intend this to be an old-school corporation chartered by the government to do a specific job, rather than a modern-day money-making corporation.) is that the board shall be composed of volunteers, and there will be strictly enforced conflict-of-interest provisions that prevent the Rick Scotts and other insurance mobsters from getting on the board and pulling shenanigans.

Third, the new co-op will be STRICTLY non-profit.

So now, you have a "co-op" that more closely resembles a public-option.

Can it be done? Well, you know whether it's a good idea or not by how much the insurance lobby screams and moans when we propose it...

[Demoiselle]

1. Well, I like it! Of course, a national co-op IS a public option. GOOD! nt

[TheCoxwain]

2. works for me !

[Cleita]

3. I was thinking kind of along the same lines that the coops if non-profit

could be an option for people to dump their Blue Cross, etc. until lack of revenue drives those parasites out of business. The pitfall would be that the insurance companies might go to the coop trough and set up their own coops until they buy everyone out. If Baucu$ and the others who favor the parasites write the bill, you can be sure the loopholes will be there to allow them into it.

[backscatter712]

6. That's why I was suggesting a Title 36 corporation.

Like I said, it's an old-school corporation, like the American Red Cross, charted by Congress. It's old-school in that it's how corporations used to be back in the 19th century before they became money-making entities with the SCOTUS bestowing upon them the rights of people.

And Congress could impose rules when it issues the corporate charter - for example, shares of the co-op would not be allowed to be sold to corporations, especially insurance companies, and that ownership could only be bestowed upon customers paying premiums to join the co-op. And like I said, I'd suggest some conflict-of-interest provisions in the charter so insurance and medical industry thugs like Rick Scott can't get on the board and fuck with the co-op that way.

[Cleita]

7. But if they don't write it that way, it won't happen. I don't trust those

DLC Blue Woofwoofs to do anything that could be a Trojan horse into the for profit health care industry.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. We should just demand single payer and stick with it. I'm tired of the soup de jour diversion. I

know what I want. I want Medicare, now.

I also know what I oppose.

I oppose corporate welfare. I'm against subsidizing private insurance companies with public dollars. That's just plain wrong.

[Autumn]

5. They probably could, but I

don't think they would. As for making them. How?

[gravity]

8. I think that is what is going to happen as a compromise

It will be a co-op but structured as in a way to make it will act just like a public option

[Blasphemer]

9. If it works as a defacto public option...

I think it would encounter the same problems in Congress. I think a co-op system of some sort is what will be left after the conference process but anything that would give the co-op meaningful bargaining power won't survive. From what I have seen, opponents of healthcare reform (and I'm talking within the Democratic party) have looked for anything within the proposals that will make for a system that truly competes with private insurance and gutted it citing "unfairness" to the insurance industry. It's possible that if they create a weakened national co-op system now that the system could be strengthened down the road but I'm pretty pessimistic about anything created as an "end around" because they have jumped on ANYTHING that really presses the insurance industry.

[backscatter712]

10. That's the thing.

If it actually works at keeping the insurance companies honest, they'll oppose it.

[MissMarple]

11. Jonathan Alter mentioned this on Rachel last week.

Blue Cross used to be a non profit, he also mentioned. I think looking at other ways to give everyone health care is a good idea. If Obama thinks the Canadian model isn't best for us, he has a point. We have one of the largest, most diverse populations in the world, what works for much smaller countries like Great Britain or Germany may not translate well here. We may not need to recreate the wheel, but we do need to figure out what kind of wheel works best for us. The only thing I'm invested in is the goal, affordable health care for all. How we decide to achieve that is providing an interesting ride.

Today's Denver Post has an editorial on how they're not out to kill granny. http://www.denverpost.com/opinion

And,...gasp!...the Colorado Springs Gazette has in the PRINT edition, I didn't see it online, an article from the Washington Post headlined "Often Misinformed, Seniors Afraid" by Ceci Connolly. It quotes an AARP spokesperson, "They are very concerned about the myths they keep hearing that care will be rationed and they won't have access to doctors." This was right on the front page, albeit under the fold. But the main headline was "SOME IN GOP SAY RIGHT IS ALL WRONG FOR PARTY, in an article about a fiscal conservative running against one of our Focus, Phyllis Schlafley (sp?)groupies. Hummm...I wonder if either of them wants to kill granny. Anyone who supports what came out of the Bush years in cuts for Medicare puts granny in dire straits, indeed.