Health Care: ‘Public Option’ or Co-op Concept?

[Emit]

Health Care: ‘Public Option’ or Co-op Concept?
By Kathleen Silvassy, CQ Staff

President Obama’s ambitious health care overhaul proposal — alternately assailed and applauded this past week — had lawmakers Sunday parsing out predictions for its future when Congress reconvenes in September, with the fate of a proposed government-run “public option” in the balance.

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“Choice and competition” were the repeated points by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”... "...There ought to be a choice that they have. The president has thus far sided with the notion that that can best be done through a public option.”

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Sen. Richard C. Shelby , R-Ala., said public nonprofit co-ops could be a viable option. The co-ops would compete against private plans to keep costs down.

“That would be government involvement but it would be, I believe, a step in the right direction,” Shelby said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I think that’s something we should look at. We already have a lot of those, or something like them, nonprofit, basically, that seem to work. I don’t know if it will do everything people want, but we ought to look at it. I think it’s a far cry from the original proposals.”

Shelby added that it appears the administration has “read the tea leaves of America right now,” referring to the many raucous town hall meetings that have taken place. “They see that the American people are basically satisfied with their health insurance. They like their programs. They know it could be improved, but they don’t want a government-run program.”

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad , D-N.D., has been one of the leading advocates for a co-op initiative, noting they have been “a very successful business model” such as rural electric co-operatives across the country.

“This is a model that works,” he said on the Fox program. “It’s not government-run and government-controlled. It’s membership-run and membership-controlled. But it does provide a nonprofit competitor for the for-profit insurance companies, and that’s why it has appeal on both sides. It’s the only plan that has bipartisan support in the United States Senate.”

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003191959

[AlinPA]

1. Next, they will still cancel insurance for sick people and refuse insurance because of

existing conditions.

[Emit]

2. Please, let's not get overly dramatic about this n/t

[AlinPA]

3. The republicans and MSM won. They have killed the public option and are hungry for

more. Democrats can't fight back and will go along with them. It is dramatic- unbelievable, actually that we have a big majority and act like a minority.

[JDPriestly]

4. Anything Shelby is for, I'm against.

He is not my friend. He is a creep.l

As for the co-op non-profit model. Is he thinking of something like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? There is too much cash flow in health care to allow any entity other than a government agency or a closely regulated private company handle it. The rural electric co-operatives work because a) they are in rural America where people kind of know each other (a rural co-op will not work in Los Angeles where, in many areas of the city, neighbors never speak and people don't even want to know each other); b) electricity is a commodity that can be measured by metering the amount used. There is very little opportunity for fraud and mismanagement in a rural electricity co-op. There is also less likelihood of fraud and mismanagement in co-ops in which the owners are farmers who either fail and lose their farms or manage their businesses carefully. It will not work in big cities where people can't even balance their checkbooks much less understand the bill their doctor sends them.

The co-op is a cop-out.

[AlinPA]

5. The co-op is a loss. The republicans win.

[JDPriestly]

6. The co-op is a cop-out is a better statement.