The Associated Press article on yesterday’s committee vote on a proposed version of a public option in one of the health care bills going through Congress seems awfully misleading for a reader who hasn’t been paying close attention.
The headline reads “Government Run Plan Nixed.” The first couple of paragraphs:
WASHINGTON — In a long-anticipated showdown, liberal Democrats twice failed on Tuesday to inject a government-run insurance option into sweeping health care legislation taking shape in the Senate, despite bipartisan agreement that private insurers must change their ways.
The two votes marked a victory for Montana Democrat Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, who is hoping to push his middle-of-the-road measure through the panel by week’s end. It also kept alive the possibility that at least one Republican may yet swing behind the overhaul, a key goal of both Baucus and the White House.
From the article, you would not guess that all three committees in the House of Representatives and three other Senate committees – Health, Education, and Labor & Pensions had approved a public option. Then there is the nonsense about needing 60 votes. You need 60 votes against filibuster. You only need 51 votes for the public option. How many Democrats are actually going to stand with the Republicans to filibuster an up or down vote on health care reform? I can see them voting against a public option. I can’t see them standing against a majority vote on health care reform.
For the record, I see voting against a public insurance option as a death sentence for Democrats. Opposing it in such a way that it still gets through probably makes political sense for some Democrats. If you are one of the hand full of Democrats who causes a crappy health reform bill with no public option or the demise of health care reform entirely, you will lose the support of your base, you will get primaried. It enjoys broad public support, and the public isn’t too interested in protecting the profits of health insurance companies who haven’t been acting responsibly over the past 20 years.
Update It’s probably just a coincidence, but apparently the Senate Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee who voted against the public option were also the ones who received the most money from the health care and insurance industries.
The two largest industries in terms of contributions to Finance Committee are the Health, and Insurance industries. According to Open Secrets, the healthcare industry gave $7 million in PAC contributions to committee members. Not to be outdone, the finance, insurance, and real estate industries also gave $7 million to the committee.
Committee chairman Max Baucus has taken $1.1 million each from the health and insurance industries. The two largest contributors to Tom Carper of Delaware for 2010 have been the health and insurance sectors. The same holds true for Kent Conrad. The top donor for 2010 to Blanche Lincoln was the healthcare industry. The insurance industry has given $1.5 million to Bill Nelson for the 2010 cycle.
Since the public option is the source of all of the outcry, why not just drop it for now? I still have not heard a good reason why we can’t pass everything else that would gather 70+ votes and debate public option right after the “easy” bill is passed.
The fact that lawmakers refuse to pass bills one at a time convinces me that they really don’t care about doing good work, it is more of an ego thing.
For me, it is because I think the public option is the ingredient that makes the rest of it work. Without a big, non-profit competitor to keep insurers honest, it sounds to me like people will simply have a mandate to purchase crappy insurance from the same private insurers who have shown their stripes over the past 20 years with increased premiums, less benefits, and increased profits for them. They have a track record, and it’s not good. There is no reason to believe they will improve on their own.
I could not agree more- the public option is what will make it work.
I found this interesting as well:
“why are free-market capitalists—people who presumably believe government agencies should have to compete with private companies to deliver public services (read: privatization)—so afraid of private health insurers having to compete with a government alternative (read: public option)?”
Read the whole thing here:
http://02a8865.netsolhost.com/blog/2009/09/28/no-mabel-government-is-not-a-four-letter-word/
I like to pound free marketers with that one too, because they don’t want a government competitor, no matter how level the playing field is structured. The more honest answer, however, is that a government competitor potentially has advantages not available to private competitors – use of tax dollars, special legal proceedings, etc.
But, as I say, private insurers don’t want to compete against even an honest competitor that doesn’t have to worry about its share price or driving its “medical loss” ratio down. And, it’s not as if the government has never used tax dollars or special legal status to benefit private industry. See, e.g., the railroads.
Heck with ACORN. I say we defund the Senate.
Would changing the insurance companies to non-profits with required loss ratios greater than 70% by 2011 and 90% by 2014 get us to the same place without “government run healthcare”?
I think there are other options beside the “single payer” system that we could come up with that would get us the same or better results for less taxpayer money. However, right now both sides have tunnel vision on this one issue, so it has devolved into a pissing match.
It’s possible. How many Republicans do you figure would commit to voting for a plan like that?
Howard Dean has insisted several times in interviews that should there be no public option , all the money going to insurance companies should be stripped out of the bill..Im not sure if he means new money or if he’s referring to the already established flow of public money going to private insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. And how much is that,and what are the rules?
This Healthcare debate is so easy to manipulate because almost nobody understands specifically how anything works.Its so easy to be a Republican these days,do nothing, and get by with it.
If it’s just a pissing match, then perhaps the ones in opposition should vote the way their constituents want, rather than the way the insurance companies want.
Nothing with 60+% public approval, a large house majority, and a senate majority should fail because it only has 59% approval in the Senate. Make the opposition actually filibuster. Do it right through planned recesses. See how long they can talk, and how stupid they can sound doing it.
The “public option” (with its staggeringly heavy subsidy) has worked really well for elementary and secondary education…
(Some of) the questions are: What is the extent of the subsidy for the public option? Why is a single, grand, federal experiment preferable to 50 attempts at state-based reform? Why is more govt going to help costs (without an appreciable increase in rationing)– when more govt has increased (or at least, failed to control) costs over the last 40 years?
T, I do agree that you should make the other side actually filibuster rather that give up.
The ones in opposition are voting the way their constituents want, most of the polls I have seen show less than 50% approval for public option.
Eric, I do agree with Doug that there are many advantages in doing things in 1 way rather than 50. Economy of scale, and not having 50 different methods that increase processing paperwork and costs 50 times as much.
Doug, I’d say that more Republicans would vote for making the non-profit insurance companies because they are also seen as evil. The Federal Government is *more* evil to most people, so the public option is easy to compare to any bad thing you think the Federal Gov has done. However, I don’t think the view of health insurance companies is much more favorable, so doing something to “punish” them would sell well.
Re: Public Option polling – most recent polls I’ve heard about show something like 55 – 70% support.
6/17/08 – 76%
6/20/08 – 62% – 82% (with one outlier at 41%)
9/11/09 – 68% (up from 57% the week before)
9/29/09 – More people believe in UFOs than oppose the public option. (34% versus 26%).
9/25/09 65% in favor.
There are, typically, many more advantages to doing things 50 different ways– especially with something so complex, where people’s preferences differ so much, and so on.
We’ve already covered economies of scale on this blog. There’s no appreciable merit to that.
We already have 50 different ways to do things, given govt regulation of and for insurance. And insurance covers far too much– from its usual domain of rare catastrophic events to coverage for everything from hair transplants to allergy shots. That, too, is a function of govt regulation– the subsidy of insurance through of employers. Take care of that one thing and the bulk of these problems go away.
The politics of this are interesting and complex. I think the Dems are likely to take a hit whatever happens. Their best “hope” is to get modest “reform”– to take credit for something, without pushing something vast and undesirable on the public.
Here is proof of the public “option” being a trojan horse to create a single payer system. Joey Panto calls advocacy groups and uses one of his many alter egos to pose as supporters of their statist causes, and draws out their hidden agendas without much prompting. Here he gets a prominent universal healthcare advocacy group’s director (I wish he would reveal her name and her organization) to admit that their hidden agenda is a single payer system, elimination of fee for service, and public health benefits for illegal aliens.
http://02e56fa.netsolhost.com/blog1/index.php/2009/09/21/first-post-of-the-new-era-pickle-1-advoc
Karl,
I hardly consider that “proof”. First, they called an undisclosed health care advocacy group. It is reasonable to assume that people who want a universal health care system to see a public option as an incremental step. But you make the logical fallacy of assuming that since A & B support a public option and that A supports single payer, then B must support single payer. Not true.
Second, a Trojan Horse isn’t possible in Congress. A Trojan Horse hides an object to be revealed later. The bills on health care are public and pored over by both sides. Legislative bills are the original Open Source (save for the blacklined national security budget items).
The point is that representatives of the electorate would have to pass a single payer system openly – it is impossible to do it any other way.
As for illegals, the legislation is clear that doctors are not reimbursed for treatment of illegals. Let’s assume that an illegal is treated. What is your moral justification for denying help to someone in need? When a fire breaks out, the fire department doesn’t ask if you are a citizen before responding – why should the ambulance driver?
I have no problem with them not including a public option. Let’s just get RID of insurance companies instead and go for a single payor and remove ALL profit from the healthcare system.
Oh, right we’re insane.
At this point my only mission is to remove every damned incumbant from their post, regardless of party. Then we need REAL campaign finance reform and term limits. Then in another 100 years maybe we’ll have out country back again.