In a diary on the recommended list, slinkerwink says:
I'm tired of Senator Max Baucus trying to do anything he can to avoid the passage of a strong, robust Medicare-like public option in the Senate bill. He needs to be told by us TODAY that we NEED a strong, Medicare-like public option in health care reform, and that anything else, including the Conrad co-op proposal, is UNACCEPTABLE.
[Snip] STOP pursuing these Republican votes, Senator Baucus! If this is what bipartisanship is going to get us, a weak public option or a stupid Conrad co-op, then we DON'T want this kind of bipartisanship!
What is the objection to Sen. Conrad's "co-op" proposal? Why is it labeled "stupid." I don't think there should be a knee-jerk reaction against this idea. I've belonged all my life to various co-ops. I think they are progressivism in action. The central issue for me in health care has always been that it's wrong to provide health care for profit. It shouldn't be "an industry." Take the profit motive away, and you get quickly get to "good health for all members of the co-op" as the prime directive.
More thoughts below the fold.
Health care co-ops fit with Obama's emphasis on preventive care. I can envision a co-op health care organization reaching out to people to adopt healthier lifestyles, as well as providing appropriate and timely health care to those who need it, from staff who have been trained to view the patients as their "bosses" (or at least equals), not as drones to be processed through the system so some insurance executives can be paid highly enough to fly to their vacations on their private jets.
If "health co-ops" is the way to get sufficient bipartisan support in Congress so health care reform can actually pass, rather than there being a big train wreck at the end of the process, I'm also for health co-ops for this reason. The Republicans WILL NOT be able to stop health care reform if "health co-ops" are the competition to the private health plans. Health co-ops won't knock out private plans, at least not right away, but I know plenty of people who will join them and I do like the idea that me and my fellow co-op members control the organization providing health care to me and my family, PLUS me and my fellow co-op members are controlling who sits on the board of directors and thus how much the co-op executives are being paid, etc.
I repeat, the main objective in health care reform to me is to provide a viable, non-profit alternative to the private insurance plans. This will bring down health care spending, lower increases in health care rates, and cut the stranglehold the private health insurance industry has on health care in our country. Health co-ops work for me.