The Non-Public Option - NYTimes editorial

[Mass]

AN editorial that makes sense and is honest, recognizing the potential downfalls of the plan, and recognizing we know little about it at this point. (as always, read the full editorial)

The Non-Public Option

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We won’t know if this compromise does that until the Congressional Budget Office has evaluated it. But we admire the senators’ desire to try to move reform legislation forward.
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As currently embodied in the Senate bill, the public plan would be sold only on new insurance exchanges that would be open just to people who buy their own insurance policies and to certain small businesses. And instead of imposing rates based on Medicare’s relative low reimbursements, it would have to negotiate how much to pay health care providers (just as private plans do). The C.B.O. believes the public plan’s premiums would be higher than the average private plan’s.

We still believe that a weak public option is better than none. Here are the details, as of now, of the possible alternative:

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Whether people would find Medicare attractive at this price is not clear. Expanding Medicare to cover even a few million people strikes us as promising. Medicare, which pays low rates to providers, might actually offer stiffer competition to private plans than the current weak version of the public option in the Senate bill.

REGULATED NONPROFIT INSURANCE For people below age 55 who are not enrolled in group coverage, the insurance industry would have to create an array of nonprofit insurance plans to compete with for-profit plans on the exchanges in every state. (If industry fails to do this, the government would create them.) The plans would be approved and supervised by the government’s Office of Personnel Management, which administers the health insurance plans offered to members of Congress and federal employees
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At this point, even the 10 Senate negotiators have not fully agreed to all elements of the deal. They have simply agreed to have the budget office evaluate it. Until that is in, it is impossible to know whether this nonpublic option is an acceptable alternative.

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. "If the industry fails to do this..."

This is kind of like telling America that Congress is going to bet with the lives of tens of thousands of citizens that the insurance industry is going to compete with itself earnestly and faithfully. Really? So Congress is bascially offering that the insurance companies are going to recommit and refocus their businesses to making less money. LOL! Not a chance!

[kenny blankenship]

6. But Vinnie - When Has Self-Regulation of Financial Corporations Ever Failed????

When in history? Just name one time when trusting financial corporations to regulate their own affairs has gone awry for us as a society! Just name one time.

[tosh]

2. Since when....

"... it would have to negotiate how much to pay health care providers (just as private plans do)."

Since when do Inscos "negotiate" reimbursent with providers?? Perhaps "dictate" is a better word.

edit to unbold.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

3. The critical points of this editorial

*Says that "the insurance industry and Republican critics" were the ones out to kill the public option. Doesn't mention Pres Obama's tepid endorsements and the all-out work of the Senate Finance Committee to gut any public option (Schumer, Baucus, etc) - level playing fields, no public funding, etc. Also completely ignores Blue Dogs, Lieberman, etc.

* "The C.B.O. believes the public plan’s premiums would be higher than the average private plan’s." Good job, Senators! Who is going to want a public plan which costs MORE than private plans?! Your cynicism and toadying to the vested interests disgusts me. More than one way to skin a cat, eh? "We'll give a public plan that will make them weep in appreciation for the mandated, for-profit, anti-trust immune, private plans. Pass the mustache wax, mine needs more twirling. Bwahahaha!"

* Medicare Buy-in "The premium could be in the neighborhood of $7,600 a year for single coverage." Or $633 a month per person. And who know how elastic "the neighborhood" is? Once again, the ignoramus, public teat sucking Senate scumbags have NO conception of what the word "affordable" might mean to an average working stiff American, or even worse, UNEMPLOYED American.

*Regulated non-profits created by the for-profits TO COMPETE WITH THEMSELVES. Ah, yeah.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. kick!

[juno jones]

5. K&R! n/t