Could the Public Option Get a Third Lease on Life?

Easier to declare it “politically unviable” and exclude it from consideration, so that you never have to take a REAL position on the proposal, than it is to put it in and actually have to debate the nuts and bolts of the implementation.
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Put it in, with some details, and they may start to get an earful from the constituents.
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Right now, a “public option” is as bad (or good) as the opponents want it to be. They can describe it any way they want. Who’s gonna argue with the description, since there’s really nothing on the record officially?

“Bennett, after all, is the senator who said this.”

So new to DC that he puts public interest over re-election concerns.
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Silly Freshman.

“Sixteen Democratic senators and 119 House Democrats have now signed freshman Sen. Michael Bennett’s letter to pass a public option via reconciliation.”

The Senators have to know this is a waste of time and yet they are signing on to it. Who are these people we elected into office and what do they do with their time daily???

LM

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/stalking-criminality-the-law-and-women/

Glad you’re so comfortable, KP, unlike the millions without coverage and the millions more being gouged by their health insurance companies.

Under the current proposals I fail to see how a “public option” is a good idea unless you agree with the idea that private insurance companies should go the way of the dinosaur and everyone should be on a publicly administered health care system.
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While I have no philosophical disagreement for a small public option that helps out people who are down on their luck, it is inconceivable to me that the proposal that was stripped out of the Senate bill would do anything but what I stated above because the rest of the bill does nothing to address the underlying costs of health care (overhead costs for insurance companies) at the ground level (i.e. the doctor/hospital etc). If those costs cannot be controlled then the mandates proposed to be placed on private insurers would do nothing more than drive them broke hence leaving only the public option remaining. This would mean that all 350 million people in this country would be on public health care which this country cannot afford.
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Finally, the fact that these people might get an “earful” from their constituents is, in my mind, a good thing. They probably would get it for the reason I listed above. Also, that’s the whole point of the American system, the people run the government not the other way around. You simply cannot govern this country from the “left” or the “right” because it is an indisputable fact that the US generally falls a touch to the right of center. The reason is because it’s the people, not the government that ultimately run this country and the “public option” is overwhelmingly unpopular with the people. Government forcing it through even if though 2/3 of people don’t support it flies in the face of the system of government under which we live.

“Under the current proposals I fail to see how a “public option” is a good idea unless you agree with the idea that private insurance companies should go the way of the dinosaur and everyone should be on a publicly administered health care system.”

From your keyboard to God’s ears, Bigfoot.

Under the current proposals I fail to see how a “public option” is a good idea unless you agree with the idea that private insurance companies should go the way of the dinosaur and everyone should be on a publicly administered health care system.
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Could you explain just what value private insurance companies bring to the table?
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They don’t provide the actual health care, they don’t employ the doctors or nurses, they don’t run the hospitals. All they do is serve as an expensive middleman who jacks up the prices we all pay.
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Why not have public health insurance? We could get rid of the 15-25% that private insurers waste on overhead and exorbitant executive pay, and extend coverage to everyone.
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I’m not looking to drive the private insurers out of business out of spite, but you know, if they really are dinosaurs, why should we bleed ourselves dry to keep them alive?

Reconcile please! I beg you! Put the gun to your head and squeeze!

Please help us by making the case that the PRESENT public options for healthcare (medicare and medicaid) and retirement/disability (Social Security) really are doing what this country needs? They’ve reinforced the entitled sense of the individual American and fostered a false sense of security and dependence on a government program instead of personal responsibility, they’re administered by a Federal Government on both sides that REFUSES to be fiscally responsible and are therefore bankrupting our country. Don’t give me pie in the sky answers people–for almost 60 years we’ve tried these things through various political climes and world events, and it’s bankrupting us–what about “learn from history” do we not understand?

…it is an indisputable fact that the US generally falls a touch to the right of center.
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I dispute that, and would ask you to show evidence that this is true.
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..the “public option” is overwhelmingly unpopular with the people.
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Again, I would ask that you show your homework.

” .. But I am comfortable saying that it’s EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY unlikely. ..”

Damm right!
Last time I checked, ‘democracy’, the ‘birth of freedom’ and ‘the government of the people, by the people, for the people’ implied that the will of a strident minority of Americans, as represented by the minority party in the senate, shall forever sabotage or ride roughshod over the critical desires of majority of Americans in pursuit of liberty and (healthy) happiness.

Or something close.

I am sure then that you would approve of passing a bill allowing us to put our parents on our company provided Health Care Policy.
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“They’ve reinforced the entitled sense of the individual American ”
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Nothing entitled to it. I paid for it, have been for 47 years, and looking forward to using it.
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Your Congressman spent it, ask him why instead of bashing those who paid for it. Your blaming the victim instead of the thief.

sas: I agree that the private insurance companies should go the way of the dinosauer.

They’ve reinforced the entitled sense of the individual American…
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Entitled to what? That ol’ “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” canard? P’shaw…
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“Have they no prisons, have they no workhouses? Better they should die and decrease the surface population.”
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I had hoped that, morally, we were better than the philosophy you describe above. Maybe that’s just “pie in the sky” thinking.
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Maybe we ARE a nation of money-grubbing SOB’s, and that, for 200+ years, we just put on a noble face for everyone.
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God, I hope not…

In the years since Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were enacted, the average American’s lifespan has increased by decades. Poverty alleviation and health care programs are essential to longer lives. So I’d say these programs are serving us well.

But I’ll ask you your own question: can you make the case that private insurance provided mostly by employers has provided us with the best possible health care? Can you make the case that all people have reasonable access to it? Can you make the case that 401(k) plans and pensions that are being phased out will provide people with a minimal but reasonable standard of living in retirement? It seems that you’d like the status quo without Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Will that improve or hurt quality of life in America? Why?

sasquatch08:
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While I can certainly agree with you that the wildly expensive, underlying health care prices paid for by private insurers are the real problem, I first need to echo grape_crush’s reasonable request that you provide links and quotes in support of your claims.
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How exactly do you know with such certainty that “it is an indisputable fact that the US generally falls a touch to the right of center” and that “the “public option” is overwhelmingly unpopular with the people“?
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Please link to and quote from your sources for those claims, so that we may examine their validity for ourselves.

You guys are disputing that America is right of center? What?
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/121403/special-report-ideologically-moving.aspx
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/125480/ideology-three-deep-south-states-conservative.aspx
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The point to remember on the 2nd link is that conservatives outnumber liberals in ALL 50 states.

Please help us by making the case that the PRESENT public options for healthcare (medicare and medicaid) and retirement/disability (Social Security) really are doing what this country needs?

The bottom just dropped out of the housing market, the Dow plummeted to under 7k last year (link to 5y Dow data demonstrating the plunge in dollar value of securities), 401k’s lost their worth during the fall of 2008, many pension funds were wiped out, and these were all events and circumstances that lay completely outside of ordinary people’s individual control.
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To blame a lack of planning, or hard work, or forethought, or smarts, or responsibility on folks who have done everything as they should throughout their lives, and yet have faced a collapse in the value of their hard-earned investments brought about largely by the gambling habits of elites smacks of sadism, not the Protestant work ethic.
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You want someone to make the case that Americans should provide for each other a system that guarantees a baseline life of dignity and health in our Senior years, regardless of what the market says our houses or investments are worth at the exact moment when we’re facing retirement?
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If the past two years’ reminder of the Great Depression haven’t made that case for you, I’m just not confident that appeals to your patriotism will, but I’ll reiterate anyway that this country needs Americans to put enough value in other Americans’ dignity and health to find a way to make Social Security and Medicare work the way that these programs currently succeed in other first-world countries –countries where citizenship matters more to people than crackpot theories of “personal responsibility” when economic bubbles eventually burst.
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You want “personal responsibility” instead of “government dependency”? Then let’s guarantee accountability for our elite class’s financial gambling additions before and after their catastrophic failures kill the economy for everybody else. When we’ve put back into place the New Deal laws that previously had made sure these tax-payer bailed-out geniuses weren’t legally able to destroy peoples’ life savings overnight, then we can talk about “personal responsibility” and “government dependency,” OK?

stuart,
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Well said. You have my pain-addled endorsement to your comments.

Stuart,
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The only thing I didn’t like about your statement is that I didn’t make it!

apollyon07:
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…Not the stupid Gallup poll again.
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I’ve gone through the problems with that polling and its ridiculous labeling issues before, and I guess I’ll have to go through them again after I eat my lunch (and deal with work issues).
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The short answer is: No, Americans are not center-right, the Gallup poll points to problems with policies that are described in certain ways, and to successful conservative messaging.

These aren’t my ideas, folks, that’s just full-throated liberalism.
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It’s the liberalism that Americans don’t usually get to hear (because the Democratic wing of the Democratic party isn’t in charge), and so we get to deal with the stupid Gallup poll that people like apollyon07 use to trumpet “proof” regular Americans think like sechandler912 instead of us.

afguy: Thanks for a giving us some Dickens. I am currently rereading Oliver Twist. I can see some posters here as potential beadles.

There was the SC pol who suggested we should stop feeding the poor because it just encourages them to breed.
The English were happy to starve the Irish. They either starved to death or immigrated. In any case, it got rid of their pesky Irish problem. Stephen Colbert was discussing this on PBS when his ancestry was being investigated.
There are always creative ways to deal with the poor. After all, Reagan suggested they got the vegetables they needed. Catsup is a vegetable.

I really don’t see how anyone can objectively believe that this is a left of center country. If that’s the case, then what is Europe? Ultra far left? I would contend that since the conventional wisdom is that we’re a center-right country (especially in comparison to other countries) that the burden of proof falls to the people claiming that this is a majority-liberal country.
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I mean, the 2nd one shows that conservatives outnumber liberals in all 50 states. If most people here are in fact liberal, then there would have to have been some egregious and intentional errors on the part of Gallup. I understand people can give differing responses based on the questions, but I don’t see it on these (example: Guns: Do not favor a ban on hand guns).
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I must have missed your criticism of this poll earlier, sorry about that. If you have the time I’d like to read it, I’m always interested in flaws in polling. Maybe I’ll even learn something today!

apr2563: people that say that our government was ALWAYS based on Christian principles forget that, right before they immigrated, some of the newcomers had had about all of the “Christianity” they could stand in their home countries.
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400 years of mutual slaughter in Norther Ireland. Persecution of the Quakers. Inquisition. I could go on.
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I have no problem with a secular government, with overt religious celebration and enforcement kept at arm’s length. Many religions have the same set of moral principles. If we actually live by them, we will do well and flourish.
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It’s the religious belief, coupled with an sense of entitlement of power and wealth, that I have a problem with.
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I worry that, as bitter as the partisanship is now, even if we reach a point and come to our senses and throw out the obviously blind partisans, there will be too much “history” between individuals and communities to forgive and forget.

None of this is binding and all of these senators have supported a pubic option all along. This is worthless, besides making Bennett’s reelection campaign that much more difficult.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Precondition is that the country is center. What kind of objective measure do you have for a center position?

I keep e-mailing Sherrod Brown with opposition but he just doesn’t get it. OHIO is a conservative state. 52% of voters already say the prez shouldn’t be re-elected and “nobody” polls even with him! What do you and the WRONG Brown (Sherrod as opposed to Scott) think will happen in November with all the trickery being perpetrated currently in DC? No more Dems. for a long time; and I have been a registered Dem. for 40 yrs folks. BUT I am not a progressive, and this country cannot afford the entitlement programs it has now, let alone any more. WAKE UP!

Poorly paraphrasing – as seen on Jon Stewart show (feb 11, 2010):

Rightist militants of the party of Nyet! (and some undercover carpetbaggers of the Chai brand) descended on Honolulu, Hawaii for meeting which is graced by the presence of their leading mullahs and assorted commissars – including one Rush Limbaugh.
They preach loudly to all and sundry – and especially to the coveted members of the media – that socialized medicine cannot deliver and that public option or government-run health care system is a recipe for disaster in less than 5, 10, 20 years – or something close.

[Yet, what do you know! Like his measly friend Cheney, Rush desperately desires to live one more minute - even as he desires others to suffer and die - already!] Then without warning, Rush feels sudden suspicious chest pains in the general area of his measly ticker. Alarmed and desperate Rush begs to be rushed, pell-mell, to hospital, any local hospital.

A few hours later when he leaves the hospital, Limbaugh is full of praise for the excellent care which he received in Hawaii – “the best the world has to offer,” he proclaimed. That was THEN.

LATER, when Limbaugh gets back on the mainland, he is full of condemnation and vitriolic ill-will toward the islanders, hospitals and health care system in Hawaii and, of course, the HCR bill in congress that dares bring to 50 million Americans without health care, the despicable government-mandated universal socialized health care.

What happened between THEN and LATER?
Well. In the meantime, the Lim-creep learnt that Hawaiians run a so-called ‘socialized’ or government-mandated health care system which is accessible to nearly all islanders. And he had just enjoyed its benefits and witnessed its efficacy.
AND that the system has been in place and working for 40 years.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/127679/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-thu-feb-11-2010 [4:00 to 8:30]

{I wonder: Did Rush fear that those socialists of Hawaii may have excised his $$-minting, malevolent ‘fire and brimstone’? Did Rush rush to a capitalist hospital on the mainland to undo/redo the socialist repairs, or maybe to get a real capitalist, “rich-get-richer-and-may-the-masses-be-damned” prognosis .. Yes, Nasty to the bone, gladly ..}

By the way, people who were kind enough to read all of that, I just want to point out that I managed to get across these liberal ideas that we liberals understand without telling this person (with conservative themes running through their head) that they were stupid, or a dodo, or mentally ill, or evil, or racist, or uneducated, or selfish, or pathological, or any number of reactionary, tribal epithets that are often used in the poor, negative defense of liberalism –a defense that doesn’t seem to convince anybody of anything we know to be true, no matter how loudly we proclaim it.
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Just sayin’.

…example: Guns: Do not favor a ban on hand guns
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That’s rather broadly worded, don’tcha think? I’m pretty left of center and think that owning a handgun is fine, just as long as you’re not a minor, have a history of violent crime, or have a mental impairment.
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Even then, maybe you should re-read your link:

Gallup’s recent polling from 2008-2009 indicates that a majority of Americans concur with the Republican Party’s general philosophy on the death penalty, defense spending, gay marriage, the role of government, environmental protection, and handgun legislation. Americans are about as likely to agree with the Republican Party’s general philosophy as they are to agree with the Democratic Party’s in terms of abortion, government activism, government promotion of “traditional” values, taxes, changing the power of labor unions, and certain aspects of the need for healthcare reform. They are more likely to agree with the Democratic Party’s philosophy on other aspects of healthcare reform, embryonic stem-cell research, government regulation of business, the Iraq war, and immigration.

So, really, it’s pretty much a mixed bag…and when you ask specific questions, all of those results get thrown into question.

On Hawaii’s health care system:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/health/policy/17hawaii.html

Wow, finally a thread where people can actually disagree without being called a “moron”, “idiot” or worse. At least not yet.
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Kevin:
“Could you explain just what value private insurance companies bring to the table?”
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Yes. They bring less waste and fraud. While I agree that insurance rates do seem to be rising at an alarming rate I find the claim that they are “gouging” insured’s dubious at best. Anthem’s president gave an interview this week (On the dreaded Fox Business News Channel to Varney & Co. who were not friendly to him. So don’t try to say they threw him a bunch of softballs and that FBN was trying to help him, because they took a very hard line on him.) He pointed out that in California the reason for a proposed 23-39% rate hike by Blue Cross Blue Shield would not increase the company’s profits at all, but rather would keep them right where they are making about 3.8% profit. The hike was due to the increased cost of medicine in California where state regulation, outrageous lawsuits and an enormous tax on business (yes, including doctors and surgeons) would cause a rise in the cost of health care provision of between 23-39% for 2010. He suspected that it would be closer to 25%, but that once the cost increase was known the rate increase would be known. Is this reasonable? Of course not, but it is mainly the fault of lawyers and politicians who place all sorts of unreasonable restrictions on placed on doctors and other physicians by politicians who then try to claim they are helping people with hundreds of pages of legalese that would take days to read and consultation with a team of crack lawyers to have any hope of understanding.
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As to my point on waste and fraud; the government is horrible at providing just about anything to the general public. The United States Postal Service hasn’t made a profit in years and lost over $6 billion dollars in 2009; that’s not efficiency. Medicare which many people champion as a reason to expand to universal coverage has outright fraud perpetrated on it to the tune of anywhere between $137 billion a year to $220 billion a year depending on whom you talk to about it. The real number isn’t known because the government doesn’t really keep track of it that well. Further, the bill which contained this “public option” is thousands of pages long; on that topic please refer to the last sentence of the previous paragraph.
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All that said; depending on whom you talk to 20-32% of the cost of providing medical care is “administrative cost” this is due to the mountains of paperwork that different insurance companies require which in turn requires an army of semi-skilled laborers to push. Clearly this needs to be addressed, but the fix is not expensive at all and requires little government intervention. A bill no more than 20 pages could standardize the forms for all insurance companies greatly reducing the cost to providers and hence the overhead to insurance companies. Why they haven’t already done this is simple most states have at most three to four health insurance companies that can legally provide insurance within the state, with many having only two. This results in very poor competition between the companies, more competition in previous years may well have eliminated this problem long ago.
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Why NOT have public insurance? First of all the current proposals do nothing to cut down the ground level cost of health care providers which means that the public option would either rapidly go broke, drive doctors out of the practice or have to increase its prices or greatly increase taxes. There is absolutely no sustainable way to deal with this problem with or without a “public option” without addressing the underlying costs which current proposals fail to do. Also polls indicate that people actually LIKE their private insurance; ~80% (Rasmussen/Washington Post/CBS).
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Before anyone asks “What sort of things could possibly reduce the underlying cost without a public option?” I will say see below where I will repost my 7 points from the previous Anthem thread.
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Stuartzechman:
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I know this because I spent years in college studying it and I pay attention to polling data and particularly to how the data is weighted. I would have pointed you to the same polls that apollyon07 pointed you too but you clearly don’t want to believe that. What is true is that those ARE the newest numbers on that specific topic, previous numbers from some left leaning groups are totally out of date and therefore no longer considered useful by political scientists who are looking at the current climate thinkprogress.org (2008) mediamatters.org (early 2009) and socialistworker.org (early 2009). I won’t say that any of these polls are crooked except the socialistworker.org because it only polled socialists and clearly has an agenda they don’t even try to hide. The others however took a fairly unscientific approach and weighted questions in such a way that if I was to run them through SPSS they probably come up as statistically insignificant, except for a few cases where they would come up as VERY significant. However if I was to have tried to use my very significant data back when I was in college or now in grad school I would get a flat F and be accused of intentionally skewing my data to make it say what I wanted it to.
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However, if you wish to go back in time a few years (or many) I would point you to a few books that are either on the subject or touch on it. “The Lanahan Readings in the American Polity” by Scrow Ladd, “State Tax Policy: A Political Perspective” by David Brunori and while it may not seem that appropriate based on the title “State and Local Government: The Essentials 3rd Edition” by Bowman and Kearney.
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Also as to your claim that Gallup uses poor labeling techniques or vague questions, I would have to say that while I agree that this is difficult to poll on that almost all of the polls I have seen suggesting the country is left of center were all done in much poorer fashion and usually by left leaning or ultra left leaning groups (i.e. socialistworker.org).
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Finally, here is my repost of my 7 items for a good start at reforming healthcare. As I stated in the previous thread, after these are done I would consider a public option but certainly not before:
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1) A mandated standardized form for healthcare providers to fill out and send to insurance companies. The current system requires an army of people to push paper and the most recent statistics I’ve seen on CNN and in the NY Times (who both support HRC) suggest that this accounts for close to 1/3 of all expenditures on healthcare at the provider level (i.e. a hospital). \
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2) Previous mentioned tort reform, though you certainly have a point that if a doctor puts a patient in a coma for 30 years that should be covered as well, as should any other medical costs incurred by the malpractice. But families should not be able to get rich, and enrich some sleazy tort lawyer who takes 1/3 of what they get from a lawsuit because a doctor made an honest mistake. Keep in mind that John Edwards made his millions by claiming that natural births caused certain forms of palsy, and lawsuits brought by he and other attorneys caused the rate of cesarean section to jump by almost 27% because doctors were so scared of a lawsuit which is virtually impossible to defend against because the charge is so broad. Doctors who act in good faith but are victim to a quirk of personal physiology or just random chance should be exempt from lawsuits, as should drug companies who get and FDA approval. FDA approval should be a bulletproof vest against lawsuits for a drug company. There is absolutely no way to determine all of the possible side effects that might occur when the sample size of people receiving the drug goes from thousands to millions. It’s just not possible.
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3) Insurance reform and portability. We should all be able to shop for health insurance the same way we do for car insurance if we choose to operate a motor vehicle. Also prohibiting preexisting conditions from coverage should be banned.
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4) Technology needs to be injected to bring costs down. Insurance companies are usually WAY ahead of government supplement programs in use of new imaging technology. Not always but usually. There is no reason that someone with sinusitis, such as my mother should have to have six x-rays of her sinuses before Medicare will pay for a CAT scan that found the problem and showed a solution in one, yes one, use. Taxpayers paid for five x-rays that were pointless and even the doctor said they were pointless and he would like to use a CAT scan, but Medicare wouldn’t cover it until he ordered another five rounds of x-rays to prove that they couldn’t get the right answer from x-ray technology.
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5) Doctors need to be fairly paid by any government system; otherwise they pass the cost of business along to those of us with private insurance which is unacceptable. Medicare dictates what it will pay which in most cases is far below market value, I point to my previous post about the blood work for which they paid less than $13 on a $271 bill.
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6) While the government might pay for this sort of “public option” insurance they should not be allowed to dictate terms to doctors. Doctors found gouging or otherwise taking advantage of the system should be harshly punished, but the idea that doctors are routinely performing unnecessary amputations or other dangerous procedures to gouge the government is a baseless, blatant and vile lie which fortunately hasn’t been promulgated here but is a common claim among the ultra left. The vast, vast majority of doctors are good people who take their oath very seriously and would never order meaningless procedures. That said they do order a lot of tests that are probably not needed but that’s because in the current climate they are terrified of bankrupting lawsuits because they missed something that was a statistical anomaly (see point 2).
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7) A serious look at the fraud and waste in Medicare/Medicaid is required before I could support an “expansion” of either these programs or government health programs in general. There are billions and billions in fraudulent claims to both of these entities, mostly in my mind because the bureaucracies involved are simply too large to be “quick on their toes” and find ways to reduce this problem and prosecute those commit these crimes.

Crap!
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I never got back to this thread.
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Well, in any case, apollyon07, I’m a self-described new liberal, and I’m about as pro-2nd Amendment as they come.

sasquatch08:
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Thanks for getting back to us.
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If this thread weren’t dead (and I weren’t in the middle of eating again), I would take some of this on.
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We’ll revisit these topics again, I’m sure.

It’s amazing to hear you guys talk like we don’t have $70 trillion in unfunded mandates… Have you checked the deficit lately? Do you know that SS is now NOT paying for itself (wasn’t supposed to happen until 2030), and our politicians have not been able to stop themselves from raiding it (sorry, bud, you’re not ENTITLED to SS–it’s a ponzi scheme–there’s no account for you somewhere waiting to dish it out)? It was supposed to be for people who lived BEYOND the average retirement age… Why are we not reading history, people? This country was founded as a unique entity throughout the world–people running their own lives… NO king, no dictator… free men (I’m a woman and don’t mind saying/hearing that) that could act for themselves. With that freedom to act comes the corresponding responsibility for what we choose. Our well-intentioned programs (I will assume those of you professing belief in these programs truly have noble intentions, and aren’t on this blog just being disagreeable for disagreement’s sake) are of necessity, slowly and methodically robbing us of our freedom to act… I’m a social worker, people, I help people for a living. I have only heard “pie in the sky” here. Has anyone of you actually HELPED human beings for a living? It’s very tricky stuff, and the climbing deficit (which has grown over the past 20 years –only Clinton being forced by a Republican Congress was able to reign it in) is a SYMPTOM of a lot of the reasons WHY WE CAN’T shift the balance of responsibility for one’s choices to someone else or the collective. It robs people of their dignity, their self-respect, their motivation and drive… Sure it can help people–I LIKE helping people. But it takes wisdom. Try out your truths on a really old farmer or rancher, and see if you can find ONE of them that would agree that what you’re saying has “horse sense.” They’d laugh you off the farm. It’s a balance, folks–can’t help people too much. It isn’t NOT AT ALL, it’s just SOMETIMES, and the help is best done locally, with a look in the eye and an arm around them. Watch iousathemovie.com–check out the percentage of our deficit that is mandates, and get a reality check on if we can do what you’re saying is “working so well.”