I met Wednesday afternoon (July 1) with two of Representative Harry Teague’s (D-NM2) staff (Jake Redfearn and another fellow from the D.C. office whose card I didn’t get). They had just come out from another meeting with other health care reform advocates. After meeting with me they were headed to a meeting at what appeared to be Senator Bingaman’s office.

I ran down the litany for Jake, and he understood my position. That is, single-payer is far and away the preferable solution. But single payer is impossible because Senators Baucus and Hagan won’t allow it out of the H.E.L.P committee.

Both agree that cost-control is going to be more easily achieved with a strong public option. The D.C. staffer believes we can "do better than we are currently" with cost control. What that says to me is that he doesn’t understand the situation. Health insurance markets are highly concentrated in almost all the States. The sellers have cartel status in most places, and monopoly status in some. Here in New Mexico, if you want health insurance, your choices are BC/BS, Presbyterian Health Systems, or United. Cigna/Lovelace isn’t really a player outside Albuquerque. I ran down the evidence for cartel behavior among the insurance providers (the DC staffer was out of the office when I ran that down).

The bottom line: Congressman Teague recognizes the need for health care reform, he backs a strong public option. He wants health care that is universal, affordable and transferable. He will "examine carefully" any bill that comes to the floor, but will not agree that a strong public option is mandatory. More is the pity.

I have made contacts, though, and I will be combing through whatever comes to the floor. I think that it’s possible that Redfern can be convinced that a strong public plan is mandatory for a good bill. Harry won’t commit, but it’s possible he’ll vote against a bad bill (as we define it.) Unfortunately, his staffers don’t seem to see that making a stand can prevent the need for a hard-to-explain "no" vote.

I really wish that the HELP committee proposal had been available Monday or Tuesday so that we could have discussed that rather my pounding on the necessity for a public option. Oh well, now it’s fodder for next time.