As I've said before, without the public option as a cost containment, there wouldn't be any cost controls on rising insurance premiums, and there would be no real competition in "keeping private insurers" honest as President Obama has said so many times in his stump speeches. Besides, the Third Way, tried to kill the public option as a cost containment early on, which was reported by our very own mcjoan here at Dailykos.
And as one of our FDL friends, Scarecrow, said in an e-mail to me last night:
The main Third Way argument is that the bill sans public option creates "stability" for consumers, but this is false. They ignore the Commonwealth Fund (and other reports) study that says premiums must rose 119 % in the last decade and are likely to rise another 94% in the next decade; they ignore the relentless drive towards concentration in the industry, which means even less competition and more price fixing; and ignore the reality that with these trends millions of people with lose their employer-based coverage and have to turn to the exchange, where, without any competition, private insurance rates will be steadily rising faster than inflation and subsidies can keep up. And without meaningful competition from a PO, the private insurers will evade the regulations the Third Way assumes will be self enforcing.
But not to worry, the insurers are only responsible for 65% of your health care costs, so they'll be fine, because the insurers had insider access to the Gang of Six. The bill is a protection device for the insurance industry, and does provide revenue "stability" for them, but doesn't protect consumers, let alone create "stability" in health care costs.
He's right on this. These so-called "progressives" at The Third way are anything but progressive, and they're funded by private corporate interests.
We're going to get a lot of finger-wagging and "concern-trolling" from these so-called progressives and DLC members on why we should ignore 77% of Americans that support a public option in health care reform, and instead merrily go along with a mandated bailout of the murder-by-spreadsheet industry. The pressure from that side is going to be huge on our progressives in the House of Representatives.
It's why we NEED to keep up the donations to our progressives in the House on the ActBlue page!
And here are the action items for you guys to do this week:
- Go to these townhalls to THANK our progressive Democrats for saying that the public option is a necessary cost containment on making health insurance premiums affordable! Thank them for saying that the public option is the line in the sand for them, and show as much support as you can!
Representative
|
Day |
Date |
Time |
Location |
Information |
Chaka Fattah |
Tuesday |
August 25 |
10am-2pm |
Philadelphia, PA |
Details & Signup |
Jim Moran & Howard Dean |
Tuesday |
August 25 |
7-9pm |
Reston, VA |
Details & Signup |
Eric Massa |
Wednesday |
August 26 |
5:30-7:30pm |
Fairport, NY |
Details & Signup |
Rush Holt |
Wednesday |
August 26 |
7-9pm |
Middletown, NJ |
Details & Signup |
- Also bring a print-out of this diary (just click on the link to print out), and a link to Jacob Hacker's paper explaining why regional co-operatives are an unacceptable alternative to the public option! Print out as much as you can and take them with you to the Democratic townhalls to pass out to the audience and to your Representative.
- Use the FDL Recess Event Tracker Tool to find other townhall events near you. And if you know of a townhall event that's not listed on the FDL Recess Event Tracker, please enter in that information.
This is a list of all Democratic townhall events for this week alone.
- Report back to us at FDL about what happened at the event, and upload any videos or photos from that event. Also, if you go, don't forget to ask questions like these of our Democratic officials, and make the best case as you can as to why the public option is a necessary cost containment on insurance premiums, otherwise it'd be a mandated bailout of the murder-by-spreadsheet industry with no end in sight to your rising premiums.
- Read ShadowSD's diary for his excellent defense of the public option, and the rebuttals to the most common conservative talking points. Please bring a copy of his diary with you and your friends when you go to a townhall event.
PLEASE recommend this diary so others can see the townhall events of these brave health care heroes and thank them! Also don't forget to donate to our ActBlue page for our health care heroes!
And don't forget to donate to our public option fund at FDL since Nyceve, Jane, I, and others are working hard night and day on this issue for us all!
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