Below the fold is the text of Section 1002 of the 1993-1994 Clinton health care plan:
SEC. 1002. INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITIES.
(a) IN GENERAL- In accordance with this Act, each eligible
individual (other than a medicare-eligible individual)--
(1) must enroll in an applicable health plan for the
individual, and
(2) must pay any premium required, consistent with this Act,
with respect to such enrollment.
(b) LIMITATION ON DISENROLLMENT- No eligible individual shall be
disenrolled from an applicable health plan until the individual--
(1) is enrolled under another applicable health plan, or
(2) becomes a medicare-eligible individual.
That sounds like an individual mandate to me. Now I don't recall their being a public option in that plan. There were "regional alliances," but no public plan. Was that plan "a gift to insurance companies," as many on this blog believe?
Fast forward to 2004. Did John Kerry's health care plan have a public option? No. Did Dick Gephardt's (who was the House sponsor of the Clinton health care plan) plan have a public option? No. How about Howard Dean's health care plan? Um, no. Did anybody here think any of these people were proposing a gift to insurance companies?
Consider the public option in the House bill. Only 29 million Americans, the CBO estimates, will have access to the public option. Everyone else, in order to keep the overall costs of the bill to a minimum, will be imprisoned to their current coverage -- like it or not. Does anyone here think that if only 29 million Americans have access to the public option, that will significantly bend the cost curve?
Now people here say that if there are individual mandates, only the public option can lower costs. Well, Sen. Wyden's plan has an individual mandate but no public option, yet the CBO scores his plan as lowering health care costs. How? By replacing the employer exclusion (taxing all employer-provided health benefits) for a tax deduction to purchase health insurance on the Exchange, Sen. Wyden's plan forces people to recognize the true costs of health insurance, which encourages people to make wiser choices (i.e., a family could pocket $3,000-$4,000/yr. by switching from a PPO to an HMO with similar cost-sharing arrangements). There are other ways to bend the cost curve besides a strong public option.
So people here say that without a public option, the bill is worthless. I disagree. The public option isn't what Democrats have fought for the last 60 years. Harris Wofford in 1991 didn't say that "if a criminal has a right to a lawyer, you should have a right to ... the public option." What we've fought for the last 60 years is that every American -- regardless of circumstances -- should have some basic form of health care coverage. That is what I and many other Democrats are continue to fighting for. [I wrote an earlier diary on progressive lines in the sand.] That is what I and many others will fight for in the future.
Sorry, just had to rant. I'd love to be convinced why the public option is the end-all-be-all.