The more I see of some Dems and Obama's lackluster efforts on health care the more I'm increasingly questioning their true intentions. The co-op thing is a perfect example.
Only the rich can pay entry costs for co-ops. Buying a slot in a good co-op would be in essence, buying a "medical home" for one. Like real estate. A huge cost. Unless they were HUGE, co-ops could not allow-sick people to join them.
They are negotiating in bad faith. I feel that they have a fiduciary duty to address affordability in a substantial way and not try to deceive Americans into going against their own best interests, ignoring single payer and its inherent cost savings in order to have the luxury we CAN'T afford of preserving private insurers and their ability to discriminate against those unfortunate enough to be unhealthy, often through no fault of their own.
The 450,000 people who work for health insurers are around one sixth of one percent of the American workforce.
Yes, 300 million people's health and equity, are being sacrificed for 450,000 jobs. By the way, studies have shown that at least several times that number of jobs would be created by increased consumer confidence and a renewed, rejuvenated economy.
Why the lies? They have been hyping up the public option in order to build it up to fail - They hope to use the failure of public option to push single payer out of the picture.
Today Obama suggested co-ops.. The name and idea at fist sounds good, except, when you think about it, its the same set of problems as public option, with the additional disadvantage of a much smaller risk pool.
And of course, a co-op apartment building credit checks applicants..
They give applicants the third degree. The reason is similar to health insurance, if they don't have a LOT of tenants, an expense with ONE tenant can cost a disproportionately large amount of money, raising rates for everybody.
That happens - suppose a tenant has a pipe burst while they are out of the country.. then, they don't come back, get the picture?
lets face it, society needs to absorb the cost of health care differently. We already pay far more than anybody in the world, but we get far less than we should.
We're never going to get away from the basic reality that sick people are expensive to cover. These politicians seem to have planned the approach they have been taking long ago.
Part of their plan was lying about the viability of public option.
They couldn't admit that they were spending a lot of money TO BUY NOTHING OF VALUE TO MOST OF US..
What are they paying all that extra for? We don't know, but we can guess.. THE ABILITY TO REJECT THE SICK? Maybe..
The ability to control Americans lives with health care? Maybe?
The ability to claim to the rest of the world that "our way" which s to say, the money is more important than life itself way- is "the" right way, and then CHARGE THEM MORE MONEY FOR DRUGS THERE? Maybe?
But, whatever their reasons, they misled Americans about the COST of the public option luxury from the start.
How? Cost control could make single payer such a winner that universal healthcare could be offered to all Americans for free, for less in taxes than we currently already pay in premiums.
Single payer remains the only presented solution to date that holds any hope of actually making health care affordable for all.
That's why these particular politicians and the vague public option is in a bind.
But back to the co op.
Without those big savings that would come from single payer's LEVERAGE a co-op insurer may well have to reject the sick.
How could Obama and Baucus pretend that this isn't obvious to them. We all should be looking at them and how they are routinely lying about stuff like this, and pretending these issues dont exist and learning something about the sad state of American politics and politicians.
Risk pools are the meat and potatoes of insurance. Any public option that has been misrepresented as being "self sustaining" is being set up to fail- Customers are in a potentially dangerous situation if it doesn't have an assurance that its losses are going to get covered.
Move to single payer and suddenly a number of new, big cost control "options" open up. For example, negotiating prices of drugs down.
Only single payer can save enough to balance that cost of covering the sick in any public interest plan out.
Again, any "option" wont have the leverage. Thats what the insurance companies are counting on. A"medicare-like" plan that isn't medicare (the only game in town in that age space) can't say to providers "justify this charge" - it just has to pay it.
They claim that their plans will improve affordability- but we recently heard that "everything is negotiable". Its not enough to focus on only a program for the very poor, or only on reducing the number uninsured, millions of Americans are underinsured, and millions more are insured, but are paying FAR more than they should and spending far more of their income on uncovered medical expenses than citizens of other nations, unable to save. This has to end.
Its not enough to create another high risk pool, with the same problems with inability to control costs, affordability, sustainability, high premiums, adverse selection, and death spiral effect as the state high risk pools. Also, as the workplace and jobs are changing, we need to decouple health care from jobs and provide affordable health care and affordable prescription drugs for all with very low or no barriers to accessing them.
Like most other developed nations do. The devil is really in the details of these plans and anybody would be crazy to endorse any of them when single payer presents a far more fiscally responsible and time proven, sustainable option.
The cost of failure would be huge, as each year, as many as 100,000 Americans die due to lack of access to health care services that would be free right across the border in Canada. But the Democratic and Republican politicians seem to be torn between the insurance companies' interests and those of the American people.
The next election is in 2010, and its conceivable that health care could be the biggest issue of the election season. Even the Obama administration's uber-professional spin doctors would have a hard time putting a positive spin on an unaffordable betrayal, or even an obviously pre-crippled plan designed to sour the public on single payer, which would presumably be linked by the media to "public option" - Many claim that a campaign of deliberately confusing public option with single payer particularly Medicare, has been going on for a long time.
Meanwhile, some very positive dialogue continues on several single payer bills, which represent the truly progressive Democratic, affordable healthcare for all option. We all should pressure our Senators and Congresspeople to endorse the single payer option which is currently, the ONLY path that leads to genuine, non-phony, AFFORDABLE healthcare FOR ALL AMERICANS.
Here is a recap of links to some recent and some key older news stories that speak to the history of the "public option", Obama's connections to the so called "Blue Dog Democrats", Jim Cooper, prominent Blue Dog from Tennessee, and his authorship of various private/public efforts to keep costs down and prevent new healthcare entitlements.
The frustrating history of efforts on healthcare reform, and the media blockade on single payer news, and shameless obfuscation of the differences between various "options" as they efect families and individuals, and their promotion of so caled "consumer driven healthcare" even though it is clearly inadequate in shielding Americans from risk, make this story VERY hard to ascertain from media coverage alone..
What are their Intentions - What Is the History? - The Background is in these Links
Blue Dogs Demand Tight Constraints on Any Public Health Plan Option
Jim Cooper, Key Conservative Democrat, Backs (unsustainable?) Public Health Care Option (Cooper is also the original author of Obama's plan, but does the media mention that? NO!)
A Cautionary Tale to David Brooks on Jim Cooper, and a Media History of Recent Health Care Reform Efforts (Excellent journalism on health care conflicts of interest and media blockade by Trudy Lieberman )
Getting the Facts Right: Why Hillarycare Failed | Physicians for a National Health Program
Health Reform Lessons from Massachusetts, Part III (Rapidly rising medical costs jeopardize the state’s "insurance miracle" The same problems that plague MA could be much worse for any public option because of its inherent "fairness disadvantage": Adverse selection is a VERY real danger for any genuine "public" option that is being downplayed to sell it as "viable". Health care for the sick SHOULD NOT BE ASKED TO BE SELF SUSTAINING, its not possible.)
The Case for a National Health Program (Physicians for a National Health Care Program)
Everything Is Negotiable! (Even, apparently, affordability! HOW can they get away with this!?)
The Weekend Interview With Jim Cooper (Settling the matter once and for all, Is Obama a "Blue Dog Democrat"?)
Obama gives nod to Jim Cooper in debate (The roots of Public Option in 1993's Clinton-lite)
Open Left:: Jim Cooper Scares Me
Media Quarantine on Single Payer Continues
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Read More about Single Payer Health Care for All
Single Payer Action
Physicians for a National Health Plan
Healthcare-Now.org