Keep public option
6/12/09 | 8 comments
Editorial

Keep public option


As Congress tackles the difficult and contentious matter of rebuilding the way Americans pay for health care, a skirmish has broken out over the role the so-called public option will have in the final product. How this conflict is resolved is critical to the form the final product will take. And if the public option — that is, a government-run health care payment system — is off the table or consigned to the back row of the room, private insurance companies have won and small businesses and families have lost.

Last month, as the Senate’s Finance Committee began to dig into the president’s health care proposal with stakeholders, a protester disrupted the meeting to demand that the single-payer option be represented. The protester, it turned out, was Jerry Call of South Thomaston. Before being arrested, Mr. Call told Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., that 60 percent of Americans favor the single-payer option, yet no one before the committee represented that approach.

Senate Republicans on the committee have written a letter to President Obama outlining their opposition to the public option. “Washington-run programs undermine market-based competition through their ability to impose price controls and shift costs to other purchasers,” the Republicans wrote. “Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition.”

The statement betrays a bias for the profitable insurance industry and against “price controls,” which one would assume would be a desired outcome. Describing the result as an “unlevel playing field” misses the point; when a small group of corporations controls a market, government is the only means by which consumers are protected. It is the same approach the Public Utilities Commission uses in protecting consumers from steep rate hikes from privately owned electric and telephone companies.

Sen. Olympia Snowe is the only Republican on the committee to not sign the letter to the president. She advocates keeping the public option as a “trigger” that would be pulled if private insurance rates do not decline sufficiently. Such a move neuters the public option by painting it as a threat rather than a viable fix and quarantines it in the future so it does not become part of a hybrid solution now. This is the wrong move.

The public option must remain on the table if only because it already plays a large role in the health care portfolio. Now, 81.6 million Americans, 27 percent, have public health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs, SCHIP, Indian programs or state-specific programs. Those Americans are well served, for the most part, by those public plans, and removing them from the private insurance market has not put any of those companies out of business. In Maine, 475,000 or 36 percent are on publicly funded insurance.

There are many approaches Congress can take to turn the tide on the crippling cost of health care, from government-run single payer to the Massachusetts plan in which everyone must own health care insurance. As the debate begins, every component of a fix must remain on the table, especially the public option.

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Comments
8 comments on this item
On 6/13/09 at 6:33 AM, pontesisto wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

If you would like to help pressure Congress to pass single payer health care please join our voting bloc at:

http://www.votingbloc.org/Health_Bloc.php

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On 6/13/09 at 6:50 AM, GeraldWeinand wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Over her Senate career, Olympia Snowe has received over a million dollars in campaign contributions from the health care industry, over 10% of all such donations.

You tell me who she represents.

Source: http://tiny.cc/FDc2K

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On 6/13/09 at 10:23 AM, demsuk64 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Good Lord, how much can we pay for before it all comes to an end? Health care is not a right! Go to school, get a job, and earn your benefits. And save me the sob story. If you do not have health insurance you have one person to blame....you (unless you are a child, then you can blame your parent(s)) I don't remember "providing healthcare" as an emunerated power of Congress.

Lack of health care is Darwinism it its best.

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On 6/13/09 at 12:41 PM, CeeBlue wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

'demsuk64' : you must be trained to appreciate that there those who know what is best. Please no more use of terms such as 'get a job' or 'earn' ; it will be provided comrade.

Simply remain unwavering in your support for 'The Chosen O ne'---: messy issues like private banks/giant corporations/executive pat/tobacco have all been brought i line with the party--health care is simply a matter of deciding who should live - for the good of all.

Silly concepts such as capitalism and choice -- or even the term republic must be recognized as a failed experiment and that the constitution is outdated.

Sen. Snowe and Collins know this--so we have nothing to worry about; do not consider something as selfish as free choice anymore.

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On 6/13/09 at 1:38 PM, baucus5 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

I am down in Philadelphia now and reminded about how our good forefathers would rush out of town before the summer plagues would strike because of the poor sanitation. Then someone came up with the "socialist" idea that the city, through taxes, should provide sanitation to prevent plagues.

Ah, the good old days before "socialism".

But now President Obama has come up with a better idea for healthcare than socialism - Public Option. He will have our taxes relieve the "poor" for-profit health insurance industry of having to provide healthcare for the very sickest and poorest people, and thus allow them to take the absolute "cream off the top" and not hurt their bottom line. And on top of that, he will make it mandatory that everyone buy insurance; which will give those poor struggling insurance companies another 47 million customers to "cherry pick" from.

Boy has he sold MPA, Moveon.org and the rest of the American people a bill of goods. I haven't seen anything this good since Nixon, in that very empathetic and impassioned speech, sell us HMO's. What will we fall for next, the Brooklyn Bridge.

If anyone out there wants real reform "for the people", go to www.MaineHealthcareReform.org and contact us to participate in civil disobedience for Single Payer Healthcare.

Jerry Call

Bausus 13

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On 6/13/09 at 1:48 PM, demsuk64 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

You know, the government already has a jobs program. It includes free travel, learning a trade skill, paid vacation, medical and dental benefits, promotions, yearly pay increases, and a great retirement. If only people would join the military. But, that requires doing something other than DEMANDING what responsible poeple have to work for. How about those of you who are living of the state just say "thank you" to those of us who provide for it, instead of demanding that we pay even more so you can live a worry free life. Sooner or later those of us who do work will decide it's better to just work off the books. What happens when everyone decides an honest days work just doesn't "fit in the schedule" anymore? I think I'll become a professional Xbox gamer. Internet access is the next human right, right?

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On 6/14/09 at 6:45 PM, bluepeter wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

How about we add a box to our IRS tax form that we can check if we want to donate to the healthcare system?

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On 6/15/09 at 10:21 AM, demsuk64 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

bluepeter,

that's funny. why not add a box to volunteer to pay higher taxes? Arkansas did that a few years ago. They had exactly 0 people do it. Not even the super liberals who want everyone (except themselves) to pay higher taxes.

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