Wyden: most of the public seems to have been fooled into thinking --

[eridani]

--that they will be able to enroll in a public option.

http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/10/19/%e2%80%9cpublic-option%e2%80%9d-bait-and-switch-campaign-fools-pollsters/

The New York Times reported on Saturday, October 17, that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is warning his constituents that the “public option” is not going to be available to the great majority of Americans. No one who has actually read the Senate health committee’s “reform” bill or the House “reform” bill (HR 3200) disputes this. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the “option” will be available only to about 30 million people, or about one American in ten. As the Times put it (slightly inaccurately), the “option” in the Democrats’ legislation “would be out of bounds to the approximately 160 million people already covered through employers.”

Does the public understand this? According to Wyden, they don’t. Wyden says his constituents are shocked when they are told the “option” will not be available to the vast majority of Americans. When he began informing his constituents about this truth last summer, “They nearly fell out of the bleachers,” he said (“And the public option is….,” New York Times, October 17, 2009, A10).

Democrats and “option” advocates should pay attention to Wyden’s observation. Wyden is saying, in so many words, that “option” advocates, with help from the media and the blogosphere, have fooled the public into thinking everyone will be eligible to buy insurance from the “option,” and when the public finds out this isn’t true, they’re not going to be happy.

[Selatius]

1. If that GIGANTIC problem is not corrected, the Democrats could lose control of the Senate/House.

This is the kind of thing that destroys a party majority. The Democrats were swept out of power in 1994 because quite a lot of liberal voters stopped voting after NAFTA passed and the catastrophic failure of the last health care reform effort.

[Hannah Bell]

2. it's telling that most people don't know this. you'd think the media would have time to explain the

options on the table in the midst of discussing missing blondes & the like.

or maybe the president could explain to the people a la roosevelt.

but if you actually explained the details, who would support the policies?

[whathehell]

4. a thought:

I realize that the media is full of inconsequential crap (usually celebrity gossip), but I resent the idea that missing women (blonde or otherwise) is "pap".. especially since they are usually found murdered.

[Toots]

10. Why should that be National News?

People are murdered throughout the USA every single day. Doesn't make National News...Why does your missing blonde deserve such coverage?

[whathehell]

20. Think of it as a kind of national diary

of the day to day war against women.

While "people" may be murdered every day, men are generally murdered FOR A REASON..Women and girls?...Not so much. They make up the largest number of "senseless" murders, meaning they're murdered mainly on gender grouwnds.

Tip: Congrats on that high level of empathy and awareness:eyes:

[Quantess]

23. Oh, and the most recent missing young woman in the news was Asian.

[rucky]

3. Boy do I feel like a sucker

thinking Congress would create a sane and viable healthcare solution for Americans.

Not only will this piss off the supporters, it'll give its detractors more ammo, since fewer people will see direct benefits. IMO, we're playing right into GOP hands and setting ourselves up for a loss in 2010

[FatDave]

17. "IMO, we're playing right into GOP hands"

Yeah, pretty much. Democrats never seem to learn.

[Lasher]

5. Wyden is right and it's a big problem.

Fast forward: You've got crappy insurance at your crappy job. It's catastrophic-only, high deductible, copays up the ying-yang. Wait times are long and choice of doctors is limited.

Along comes your self-employed neighbor who tells you about the new public option insurance he was able to sign up for. No wait times, he can to to any doctor, no deductible, no copays, and his premiums are much lower than yours.

You decide to sign up for the new public option too. Then you find out you can't. Are you happy?

It's hard to believe Congressional Democrats have been dicking around all year and still have such poorly thought out legislation. I guess they've been busy being all bipartisan and everything.

[eridani]

7. They are trying to make the public option more like the garbage proposed for the exchange

I'd have to pay $450/month and still have only 70% of expenses handled according to the online calculator. Needless to say, I'm not a happy camper.

[Lasher]

16. Well they need to have someplace to stick the people insurance companies don't want.

Then force everybody else to buy insurance companies' crap whether they want it or not.

Edit: Will you please share the link to the online calculator?

[eridani]

25. See below

http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx#

[DrDan]

6. no way will the insurers allow an option open to all - would cut way too far into their

well-deserved profits.

And their spokesmen (our representatives) know that and will vote accordingly.

[eridani]

8. He didn't even mention that it isn't available until 2013

That is another disaster in the making. Open Medicare to voluntary buy-in!

[ejpoeta]

9. i saw that right away. because we have access to employer based healthcare...

no matter how crappy it is, that fact alone forces me to keep whatever my husbands employer gives us access to. And it's bullshit!! how can there be competition for private insurers if none of us have access to whatever is supposed to be their competition. it's crap!! and the dems are hurting themselves by playing this game. people want SOMETHING done... and they want a PUBLIC OPTION!! and they were promised a public option. and now it's the old bait and switch bullshit.

[Toots]

11. But but FOX News tells us this is so. Government take over will REQUIRE

everyone to have "rationed" Government run Health care. They wouldn't LIE to us now would they?

[eridani]

12. What the government will be forcing us to do is to deal with useless intermediaries

My husband likes his government Medicare. I want it too.

[Bluenorthwest]

13. Wyden is correct

The administration and the Congress keeps using the terms 'public' and 'option' as if those words do not have exact meanings. To claim that a thing which can not be selected by choice is an 'option' is to tell a lie. To claim that a private plan is public is to tell a lie.
People are not going to be happy when they find out that the Beltway means 'up' when it says 'down' that it makes up redefinitions of words at will, thinking that if the kid does not like cabbage, maybe they'll like it if we call it candy. Problem is, it is still cabbage.
Politicians who mess with redefining language for advantage are people of the very lowest order, willing to undermine the foundations of society to score a point for themselves.

[TorchTheWitch]

14. Obama made this absolutely clear in his speech

That the public option would not be available to people who got insurance through their job.

The party has totally dropped the ball on making this clear, however, for those that didn't see or read the speech. I think the Dems are purposely being mum on this because they don't want the general public to be aware of it because the general public will hate it. And now they're talking about pulling this scam of calling the public option "Medicare E" when it hasn't got squat to do with Medicare. They don't want the general public to know how shitty the bill final bill is going to be and what it will cost people or there will be an uproar that will prevent it from passing and they'll be forced to either drop reform entirely or do better.

[Generic Other]

15. Maybe most Americans are not fooled! They know they NEED a public option

I am not going to be happy with anything less than universal care as is found in other civilized nations. So yes, I am not going to be happy with the pittance they are offering. But it is a start.

[eridani]

21. Wyden's point is that they will not be allowed to GET it.

If most people are forced to continue to accept shitty insurance from privateers, they are not going to be happy about it.

[FatDave]

18. What if you are unemplyed, get on the PO, then get a job with benefits?

Are you forced to give up the public option or can you keep it once you're on?

[eridani]

22. Not clear at all. So much for "choosing your doctor"

If you've established a relationship with one through a public option, you might be forced to switch to one on your employer's list.

[ljm2002]

19. He is so right!

It pissed me off every time I heard Obama say "If you like the insurance you have, you can keep it!" Gee, nice political slogan and all, carefully crafted to allay the fears of people who have good insurance plans (well, they think they do -- but that's another rant). But not he nor any of the other Democrats ever alludes to the flip side: "If you don't like the insurance you have, you still have to keep it!" Ultimately, people will realize they've been lied to. (Hiding relevant facts amounts to lying.) No one likes being lied to. People will be pissed at Obama and the other Democrats, or at the very least will lose trust in them. At which point the Republicans will swoop in and say, "See, you just can't trust those liberals." And the worst part is, they'll have a point. The Democrats by and large have fallen into the same mealy-mouth, obfuscating, lying-by-omission habits as the worst corporate shills.

Yet again, the DC insiders are out of touch. They are incapable of seeing the peril to them of passing a bill full of half-measures that is designed to improve the situation a little bit for some of the population, but is largely another sop to the insurance companies. And the more grandstanding they do, the more let down the public will feel when the reality sets in -- that we will be mandated to buy insurance with no real controls on the costs. So people will end up with pathetic plans that do little more than cover catastrophic medical bills. For all the people who go without health care now because they don't have insurance -- do you think they'll be able to afford the "Cadillac" plans? No, the only thing they'll be able to afford is the catastrophic-with-high-deductibles. So guess what, they'll still go without health care, because if they can't afford decent insurance, and have to buy crappy insurance, they will not have anything left in the budget for, you know, actual health care.

Please, please, someone make them come to their senses and understand that the public option must be available to anyone who wants it, sooner rather than later. Just that one thing would be huge. I would prefer HR 676, but do not expect it at this late date.

[Joe the Liberal]

24. k&r n/t

[slipslidingaway]

26. knr nt

[saracat]

27. This is why no one has wanted to define the meaning of Public Option

This is why some like me have been asking for a definition.People are going to be very angry when they learn the truth.