The bait and switch that was the "public option" was simply a ruse to get activists to compromise on the only real healthcare option that can work: single payer. The "public option" ruse allowed the rallying cry to change from "healthcare, not healthinsurance" to "choice for all". However, the decision to change our rallying cry, to compromise on single payer, allowed an opening for the insurance industry to gain a solid role in forming any comprehensive plan proposal.
With single payer, we locked them completely out of the process. With a "public option" all the industry had to do was to be certain that any government option could not be an effective competitor to the private industry.
That is exactly what they have done.
But this fight isn't over. Progressives bought into the notion that the "public option" was a step towards the ultimate goal: single payer. Now we see that it is not a step at all, it is a door. A door that allows the insurance industry to slam shut any possibility of single payer and refuse to reform the healtcare mess.
In fact, they intend to use it to just keep screwing us over.
The current proposal "doesn't change the system one bit," said Leonard Rodberg, a member of Physicians for a National Health Program, who works in health policy. "These bills are requiring that people buy insurance, but there are no numbers about how much the insurance would cost. And if the cost of the insurance is still too high, you can remain uninsured."
Actually, there are numbers:
According to the Congressional Budget Office:
The new draft also includes provisions regarding a "public plan," but those provisions did not have a substantial effect on the cost or enrollment projections, largely because the public plan would pay providers of health care at rates comparable to privately negotiated rates – and thus was not projected to have premiums lower than those charged by private insurance plans. (page 3)
This complete capitulation to the insurance industry was a foregone conclusion once Single Payer was dropped and the "public option" was introduced instead. There can be no compromise with these people. Each month wasted on the public option is another 2000 Americans dead.
So the compromise must be seen as dead. If the public option won't and can't be made to work, then we must go back to square one. We must insist on the only option that will ultimately end our healthcare crisis: single payer.
To sum up, "public option" advocates must choose between continuing to promote the "public option" and seeing their hopes for cost containment and universal coverage go up in smoke for another four years, and throwing their considerable influence behind single-payer legislation. At this late date in the 2009 session, it is unlikely that a single-payer bill could be passed even if unity within the universal coverage movement could be achieved. But if the "public option" wing and the single-payer wing join together to demand that Congress enact a single-payer system, December 2009 need not constitute a deadline.
We owe it to the dead and dying.
