The public option ain't what it used to be

[IndianaGreen]

DINOs and the DLCers are giving the working class a Public Option In Name Only, and they expect us to support their BOHICA!

The public option ain't what it used to be

There's almost nothing left to give away in a healthcare compromise

By Robert Reich
Salon
Thursday, Nov 19, 2009

First there was Medicare for all 300 million of us. But that was a nonstarter because private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn't hear of it, and Republicans and "centrists" thought it was too much like what they have up in Canada -- which, by the way, cost Canadians only 10 percent of their GDP and covers every Canadian. (Our current system of private for-profit insurers costs 16 percent of GDP and leaves out 45 million people.)

So the compromise was to give all Americans the option of buying into a "Medicare-like plan" that competed with private insurers. Who could be against freedom of choice? Fully 70 percent of Americans polled supported the idea. Open to all Americans, such a plan would have the scale and authority to negotiate low prices with drug companies and other providers, and force private insurers to provide better service at lower costs. But private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn't hear of it, and Republicans and "centrists" thought it would end up too much like what they have up in Canada.

So the compromise was to give the public option only to Americans who wouldn't be covered either by their employers or by Medicaid. And give them coverage pegged to Medicare rates. But private insurers and ... you know the rest.

So the compromise that ended up in the House bill is to have a mere public option, open only to the 6 million Americans not otherwise covered. The Congressional Budget Office warns this shrunken public option will have no real bargaining leverage and would attract mainly people who need lots of medical care to begin with. So it will actually cost more than it saves.

But even the House's shrunken and costly little public option is too much for private insurers, Big Pharma, Republicans and "centrists" in the Senate. So Harry Reid has proposed an even tinier public option, which states can decide not to offer their citizens. According to the CBO, it would attract no more than 4 million Americans. It's a token public option, an ersatz public option, a fleeting gesture toward the idea of a public option, so small and desiccated as to be barely worth mentioning except for the fact that it still (gasp) contains the word "public."

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/november/the-public-option-aint-what-it-used-to-be

[bvar22]

1. Coupled with MANDATORY purchurse of Health Insurance....

NOBODY is going to like this plan....
AND it only costs a TRILLION DOLLARS!

The "Democratic Party" was very smart to delay implementation until AFTER the 2012 elections.


"Health Care Reform" brought to you by the same "Democrats" who brought us NAFTA!



The DLC New Team
Progressives Need NOT Apply

(Screen Capped from the DLC Website)

"I am a New Democrat!"---Barack Obama
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=254931&kaid=85&subid=900184

[yurbud]

3. We need to write our senators and congressmen and say it is not enough

[Skittles]

2. it's a steaming pile

[bertman]

4. We wait all of these years, finally elect a President who promises to make healthcare

available to ALL Americans, and declares that this is the LAST TIME that Congress will have to deal with healthcare,

and this POS is what we get.

Thank you for exposing this trillion dollar giveaway for what it is, Mr. Reich.

Rec.

P.S. Good luck, America, on getting anything in the way of healthcare reform that doesn't fatten the bottom line of the Death for Profit industry.