A Bad "Public Option" is Worse than No "Public Option"....

[Junkdrawer]

Here's what Dr. Paul Hochfeld of Mad As Hell Doctors had to say on DemocracyNow:

...

This public plan option, at least as it’s written in HR 3200, is a lame, failed, designed-to-fail public plan option. It’s not available until 2013. When it’s available, it’s not available to people who get insurance from their employers. Those are healthy people. It’s not available to people who are upper middle class or wealthier. Those are healthy people. So the public plan option is designed to attract the sickest, most expensive people. And when it fails in 2017 or 2018, by design, the insurance industry is going to point at it and say, “See, the government can’t do healthcare.” And it’ll be the wrong lesson. And I just—this whole thing is being manipulated by the industry with our legislators being complicit in this process.

...

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/29/as_senate_panel_debates_public_option

And the "Public Option" in HR 3200 is the best of the plans currently in discussion.

Do you get it yet? This Healthcare Reform is an Insurance Rescue plan. And you don't rescue an insurer by taking away healthy people with money. You rescue insurers by relieving them of sick people without money.

[Ruby the Liberal]

1. K&R

[babylonsister]

2. Do tell me about pre-existing conditions, because if they are

not allowed to be considered, that would save me a lot of money, and iirc, that would take effect sooner rather than later.

Also recissions.

Those two things alone would give me 'some' comfort, and I'll wait and see what else might be in the final bill, which no one knows about yet.

Yes, it won't be perfect, will suck, but it will be better than what people have been dealing with. IF the insurance industry has to deal with at least those two 'conditions'.

[Junkdrawer]

8. Here's what I think about that:

Insurers are in trouble and it's getting worse. Baby Boomers are getting older and unemployment is up. And that means they have to charge more and more for insurance.

To maintain profits and keep rate increases under 30% to 40% a year, they've been excluding "pre-existing conditions" and enforcing "recissions".

Now, they think that if they can mandate young, healthy people to buy insurance, they can ease up a bit on these practices. Maybe they will...for a while. But I think demographic trends (the average age of americans will increase for the next 20 to 30 years) and unemployment trends say that any relief will be short lived.

[eridani]

18. The shitstain insurers are allowed to charge whatever they feel like fo cover people with--

--pre-existing conditions. Recissions are still allowed in cases of "fraud." This is going to turn out to be like making patient dumping illegal --still happens, and often it's cheaper to just pay the fines.

[Writer]

3. A rusted spring mattress is better than the bare floor. n/t

[DJ13]

4. Not if it stabs you in the back, you get tetanus, then die from no insurance

[d_b]

5. lol

troof

[timeforpeace]

7. Touche.

[Writer]

16. The animated mattress...

If only Kafka were still alive...

[Dirtyhairy]

6. K&R

[slipslidingaway]

9. This time period around 2017 could be very troubling IMHO...

and is one of the main reasons I have favored a national, not for profit HC system. I do not see how we can pay for this without cutting services or raising taxes.

:shrug:

Posted here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6704866&mesg_id=6705166

"The Medicare hospital insurance trust fund will become insolvent by 2019." ....

but somehow any savings from Medicare will help fund the public option and a portion of that will subsidize private insurance policies.

Everyone needs to be in the same pool instead of government money funding the most needy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)#Costs_and_funding_challenges



Newer report states 2017 not 2019...

http://ssaonline.us/OACT/TRSUM/index.html

"...In 2017 and later for HI, and in 2037 and later for OASDI, there is no provision in current law that would enable full payment of benefits, once the trust funds are exhausted. If asset exhaustion actually occurred, benefits could be paid only up to the amount of ongoing dedicated revenues. Further general fund transfers could not be made to finance the deficits..."

And this comes at a time when Social Security will need to draw on the SS Trust fund, which was borrowed by the general budget.

[Junkdrawer]

10. I read that this *ahem* recession is moving many of those dates up....

Less coming in via FICA taxes....

More going out via "Early Retirement"...

[slipslidingaway]

13. That makes it even better :( 46 million on Medicare to 79 million over...

the next twenty years.

[inna]

11. KR. too many problems with this so-called "public" option:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8553784&mesg_id=8554047


oh wow, listening to Keith right now, some doctor is saying exactly that - this watered down mockery of a PO is DESIGNED to fail.


true PUBLIC OPTION should be open to public, otherwise it's an oxymoron and a distraction, period.

[Junkdrawer]

12. Good link. Thanks.

:hi:

[slipslidingaway]

17. That doctor was Paul Hochfeld and Anthony Weiner also said the PO...

is very weak.

Hochfeld
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_hmiLzBEFw

Weiner - at the end of the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGqA13WeAmI

[Junkdrawer]

19. More good links

:hi:

[autorank]

14. Say it again and again. Amen Junkdrawer. k*r

It sucks. It's only for those not insured and it starts in earnest when that lame insurance exchange
is ready in four years...

The only good think that will come out of this and it is really good is this. The public option is
on the table and people like it. They think it will be like Medicair and many not closely following
the debate think it will be available to them. The backdraft here is going to be huge and the
tricksters on the Hill will pay dearly at the polls or, the system will pay by huge no voting reactions.

In either case, WE NEED A SINGLE PAYER INSURANCE SYSTEM and raising the public option just wet the
appetite.

[Jakes Progress]

15. K&R For once Democrats need to take the long look.

We have always settled for crap so that we could say we did something. Then we are stuck with it.

This bill is designed to fail, designed to be worse than what we have now. We won't get it fixed for the better.

We have crap. The corporatists would pass crapiest so that they can make us happy with crappier.

Veto anything short of a decent bill. Then do it again with better communication and public education.

Where this looks to be going is much worse than what we have now. They may dangle the pre-existing issue, but it won't be real. Trust me. It won't be real.

[inna]

20. "Where this looks to be going is much worse than what we have now. "

Sadly, I agree. :(


And it's not by "accident" that "the reform" doesn't kick in until 2013. Forcing people to buy junk insurance and effectively imposing a MASSIVE, regressive, back-door tax on the struggling working/middle class (to the benefit of the rapacious, for-profit private corps) is hardly a political winner.