Serious question about how you feel about insurance co-ops vs public option

[HamdenRice]

First, before anyone gets the wrong impression, I want a strong public option. I don't ever want to have to pay a dime to a private insurer again. In fact, I would pay MORE for a public option just so I never contribute to private health insurers, who have royally screwed me over on many occasions.

I also don't want any kind of regional co-ops simply because in the current corporate and health environment, I don't think they can work.

On the other hand, I sometimes wonder about my own feelings about this.

How much do I want public option over co-ops because I think co-ops don't work; versus how much to I want public option over coops because I think that after the election mandate, after getting a fillibuster proof majority in both houses of Congress, the Democrats should be able to deliver a public option.

To put it another way, how much am I more pissed off at the political impotence of the Democrats, the probability that there are traitors to the party in the form of Blue Dogs, and rage that Bush could get almost anything he wanted even with a slim majority and even when the Democrats had the majority?

How much is your feeling about the non-negotiability of public option based on the actual merits of public option over co-ops, and how much of it is based on how you feel about the political process?

I was thinking about how health care worked when I was a kid. Basically, much of the health care system was private, but non-profit, and it occurs to me that basically my family was indeed covered by something like non-profit co-ops. Almost all hospitals were non-profit.

During the age of greed, however, corporations bought out non-profit health insurers and HMOs, or bankrupted them through abusive business practices, decimating the non-profit health sector. That's why I don't think they'll work; the for profit sector will destroy them.

I still wonder though how much my feelings about this (and yours) are shaped by political rage and how much by the actual benefits of public option over non-profit coops.

On edit: It still pisses me off how in the 80s and 90s almost all those non-profit hospitals, insurers and HMOs were either privatized or hobbled and destroyed. Blue Cross/Blue Shield used to be all non-profit until Reagan's tax laws basically forced them to become for profit.

[lefthandedlefty]

1. I am not in favor of giving insuance companies anything

I would like to see insurance companies run out of business forever

[HamdenRice]

4. I don't think that's the issue

As I understand it, co-ops would be private non-profits, not insurance companies.

[2Design]

2. I trust DEAN and he said Public option or it is not reform - that is all I need to know n/t

[OHdem10]

7. Dean is a real Democrat and at this point about the only Democrat

to be trusted.

[Epiphany4z]

3. fueled by distrust of anything

a republican is for.

Also I want a public option I am tired of my hubs employer shopping for a new insurance co every Jan. Each year he switches to save money and ends up costing me more and getting my meds all switched around because the new insurance co formulary wont pay for what the other one did. This year if our insurance goes up I will be priced out..I will have to choose my home or my health. I have already given up my credit rating. I can't pay all my bills on time and keep our insurance.

and I hear I am one of the lucky ones.

[valerief]

5. I'm a few years away from being Medicare-aged and I want to see it robust.

That means lower health care costs. That means either a public option to drive competition among private insurers or, better yet, single payer.

I see no problem with driving for-profit insurers out of business over time via increased use of the public option. Let them die out like the horseless carriage or Betamax.

[nightrain]

9. yep!!!

[OHdem10]

6. CO-Op are the Republican answer to the Health Care Crisis.

They know this is their way to be able to destroy Medicare.

Put everybody in Insurance. Those who cannot afford it--tough
nuggies. Once everyone is theoritically out of Medicare and
in an Insurance Plan, they can either let "Medicare die of its
own accord or end it.

This illustrates that there is not that much difference between
Dems on the Hill and Repubs on the Hill.

Is there really any such thing as a Democratic Party.

Make me a bet. How long will it take the Repubs to end Medicare
once the CO-Ops.

[lib_wit_it]

8. Anything the Resmuglicans support must always be viewed with the greatest skepticism.

[valerief]

10. Yessir, they're nothing but wallet-catchers. nt

[WatchWhatISay]

11. The public option was a compromise from single-payer, now co-ops are the new compromise from public

options. Whats next? As a compromise for co-ops, do we get, maybe, new Insurance Companies Owned by Supposed Democrats?

[WeDidIt]

12. I sincerely believe ANY bill without a public option will actually make matters WORSE

Better the status quo than a piece of shit that mandates insurance and hands the monopoly over to the insurance execs in perpetuity.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. My first preference would be for insurance companies to go away as

payers of basic medical bills and perhaps exist to cover things that the public plan doesn't cover, such as facelifts or tooth whitening. I think a combination of single-payer (the Canadian system) and local public health facilities (the British system) would cover all the bases.

My second preference would be for insurance companies not only forced to become non-profit but forced to operate with strict caps on executive compensation, required to issue policies without deductibles (co-pays based on a sliding scale would be fine), and required to index premiums to the person's income.

I do NOT want private insurance co-ops, especially not with a mandate to purchase. The lousy, hypocritical company I'm "insured" with now started out as a co-op, and it's now as bad as the rest.