[Ed. Note: Keith Ellison is a member of the United States House of Representatives from Minnesota’s 5th District.]
The Public Option. Lots of controversy right? Well, there shouldn’t be. Since the New Deal, ’public options’ have played a key role in preserving America’s standard of living and our way of life. Social Security provides public options for income protection for seniors and disabled people. Medicare, the VA, Medicaid, and MinnesotaCare are public health insurance options available to some members of our community, but not to enough of us.
Most of the people who stand in brazen opposition to giving all Americans the right to choose a public health insurance option wouldn’t dare come out publicly against any of these other public options — because they work, and Americans know it.
The Public Option is simple and President Obama is right to support it. It will simply be one choice along with many private insurance options available on the proposed health care exchange. This on-line insurance market will let buyers shop for health insurance from home, work, or their public library and select the highest quality and lowest price option which meets their individual needs. The public option simply introduces more choice, more competition, and will help to lower prices and improve quality.
Without a public option most Americans must trust their health and standard of living to publicly traded, for-profit insurance companies which face little or no competition on in most local markets. Our current system provides lots of options for Wall Street investors, but too few choices for healthcare consumers. The status quo gives us health insurance premiums that have doubled in less than a decade. The status quo leaves us with more than 62.1% of personal bankruptcies in 2007 caused by medical crises in American families who have health insurance. To do better, we need the right to choose a public option for health insurance.
So tonight, I look forward to hearing the President reaffirm his support for a robust public option. In the President’s own words: “I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make health care more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.”
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Keith knows what’s what:
http://uptake-editorial.groups…..w/id/2347/
Can’t wait to see Ellison in a higher office.
Thank you.
Rep. Ellison, thank you for being with us, today.
Can you tell us; how strong do you think the CPC coalition is on the public option?
Do you think enough members will stick to their guns, even after the conference committee, to kill any reform bill that has no public option?
Thanks in advance.
”Without a public option most Americans must trust their health and standard of living to publicly traded, for-profit insurance companies which face little or no competition on in most local markets.”
Nicely stated. Thank you, Rep. Ellison.
Thank you, Rep. Ellison, for putting the interests
of human beings before those of corporations.
That is a principle that people of all faiths should follow.
Thanks for supporting the public option and taking the pledge, Rep. Ellison.
Thank you. You’ve been a champion on this issue and it’s appreciated.
NYCEve and I just got back from Rep. Ellison’s office. I think he’s heading over to the joint session but all I can say is — he was amazing. We delivered 65,000 signatures and thanked him for his courageous leadership.
At one point Eve said “what would you do if the President came to you and said he wanted to you vote for a bill without a public plan because they needed to pass something?”
“I’d say, talk to them” (meaning the Blue Dogs/conservadems). As far as he’s concerned, he’s already compromised from single payer.
Not to pour cold water on… well alright yes, but.
Firstly this explanation makes no sense to me. If there are already over 1000 private companies out there why on earth would you need to create yet another outfit that is essentially the same? If all the public option does is add competition it’s pointless.
Secondly from what I understand the public option won’t be an option to 90% of the country. You can’t choose it unless you fit in with certain quite tight constraints. For example if you have insurance through your work you can’t choose the public option. Well that’s not choice is it? That’s not a market.
Thirdly is it not going to be delayed until 2013? So by that time won’t it be too late as an option? The mandates kick in sooner right? So by law you’ll have to have already signed up with some other group before you could sign up to the public option, right? Am I missing something there?
I realise the end product may not have these defects in it but to be honest I think it more likely to become even worse than better. For example this trigger thing would make it a lot worse and probably mean that there would never be a public option at all.
Burn the bill.
Even from a purely self-interested party political view point passing a bill that has mandates and no mechanism for price control is a disaster.
Thanks for posting this Representative Ellison. And thank you for pledging to stand firm and not vote for a plan that doesn’t have a robust public option.
A short pause and then back to public option.
The public option is important to discuss and Obama’s speech tonight might be important, but I am not sure I will be able to stop listening to the new Beatles remasters long enough to hear the speech.
Really, throw out all your old Beatles CD’s, these new ones are THAT much better. It is like the Beatles legacy has been fighting with one hand tied behind their back.
Shoto Jam makes a good point, but I have two rejoinders.
1. the state situation is why the best solution, not even yet tried, is to simply allow national competition of all insurance companies guided by national standards and regulations. Obviously, if there is only one or two companies competing, high prices and some abuse will occur. Lots of competition with the public able to vote with their dollars, the dishonest will wilt.
2. I’d rather trust my fate to a NUMBER of private companies than ONE government entity. Notice, a number, not just a few.
Since #1 has never been tried, it should be the first thing done. Then, maybe a trigger to public option if that doesn’t work.
Witness the phone companies. Many years ago it was one or two phone companies. Now, there are many and the prices are a fraction of what they were. The services are with more variety and of higher quality. The innovations increased ten fold.
Why go to the old phone company idea of one big entity controlling all? Or at least moving in that direction.
Thank you for your leadership on this and many other issues.
You make such a compelling case that it’s hard to understand why anyone would be opposed to the public option.
Of course, as your colleague Mazie Hirono has told us, simply:
Look,lets stop pretending their is a progressive caucus.The sad truth is their is not,people running for office often say they are progressive just so they can get elected.They are pretenders to progressives.
We will see who is going to stand up for a Public Option when the time comes.The pretenders are already showing their true colors.
Every so often, MN produces a Congress critter that has grown a pair. Ellison is amazing. I wish with my whole heart he were my rep, but not willing to move to make that happen. So I continue unrepresented by John “The Colonel” Kline.
cregan,
you have been misinformed.
the public option will offer just that, consumers will get the option to sign up for a public insurance plan.
As to your points:
1. Insurance companies are already allowed to sell insurance on a state by state basis, but they must adhere to the regulations in the state that the consumer, that is, the buyer of the plan, lives in. The deBaucus bill would eliminate those restrictions, and engender a nationwide race to the bottom. Think about what happened with credit cards, it will be a lot like that.
2. Again, the public option is an OPTION, there won’t just be one govt. entity. It’s not the same thing as the old Ma Bell monopoly.
Seriously, I suggest that you try to get your news from some different outlets for a while.
Barbara !
Senator Franken will also represent MN well, along with Progressives across America.
Also, Ellison’s examples are all organization that service a narrow band of people with specific needs and special circumstances.
Applied more broadly, they might not work as well. In addition, a few of those programs are headed for financial ruin, and will require more and more subsidy to survive.
A buffet cafeteria works well for the people visiting and and working in a hospital, but I wouldn’t want it to be the entity that we all have to eat from. Even if they supply great organic foods and wonderful juices, etc.
Thank you Rep. Ellison from a VERY satisfied constituent! I am so proud to have you as my representative in Congress!
You should read someone’s comment before replying to it.
Did you notice I said national market with national standards and regulations?? No credit card situation would happen. There would be no race to the bottom–except for lower prices.
As to your point #2, that would only apply if the public option ended up with a higher price than the private companies or a similar price. But, that isn’t really the goal.
The goal is to have lower prices than private companies.
It is like Democrats think (come to think of it they say it all the time in relation to conservatives, so I guess they DO believe it), that people are stupid.
When you have nearly EVERYONE on this board and in the progressive movement in favor of a single payer plan, and all of them saying the public option is essential, it doesn’t take a genius to know that the public option is only the first step in a movement toward single payer.
AND YOU GUYS HERE WOULDN’T BE WORTH YOUR SALT IF YOU DIDN’T TRY TO SEGUE AND PUSH THE PUBLIC OPTION INTO A SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM IN THE NEAR FUTURE.
You know that is what you are going to do. And, you wouldn’t be true to your principles if you DIDN’T work in that direction.
So, let’s drop the pretense that this is only going to be one option amoung many, etc.
“As far as he’s concerned, he’s already compromised from single payer.”
Bingo.
I have put up several posts discussing in detail the economics of mandates on insurance companies. I don’t see you in my threads explaining why I am wrong. I suggest you check the real numbers and the behavior of the companies before you make such bald-faced assertions about “markets” in insurance.
Ellison doesn’t actually bother to define the public option that he claims to stand behind — and unless its what the chairs of the House Progressive Caucus define it as (available to everyone, immediately, with premiums/costs based on Medicare reimbursement rates) his entire post is meaningless.
I also suggest you read up on the kinds of regulation that are actually considered necessary in Switzerland. wesgpc has discussed this issue several times in comments on my posts.
I would be delighted with that level of regulation, intrusive, domineering and controlling.
So why are you hanging around here reading it. I’m sure Malkin has something you would like.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
I think it’s fine that Ellison is bargaining hard for the public option, but he ought not to vote down a bill if it doesn’t contain one. If he wants to threaten to do that, well that’s one thing, but if he actually follows through with that threat, then he’s just ruining people’s lives: pure and simple. The fate of all progressive reform is attached to this bill.
One thing that I have sent an e-mail to Mr. Ellison about is that he was mistaken when he claimed that we could do this the reconciliation route. Both Senator Dick Durbin and former Chief of Staff of the Finance Committee Lawrence O’Donnell have said that there is no way to get this thing through reconciliation. There are “countless” (O’Donnell) numbers of veto points for it. Reconciliation can be filibustered with amendments. That’s why Judd Gregg has already amassed more than 100 procedural roadblocks to reconciliation and is accumulating more still. Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift has also noted the impossibility of reconciliation for this.
The only we’re going to get a reform bill is with a coalition of 62 Senators (the entire Democratic caucus and Snowe and Collins). Only 45 Senators support the public option and many senators are adamantly opposed to the public option.
Therefore, our best bet is:
* Ban on denying coverage for pre-existing conditions
* Subsidies for poor folks and working class folks to get coverage
* Lower co-pays
* Public option trigger
* An employer mandate
If the insurance companies are as bad as their behavior often reflects, then they’ll raise their premiums and then we can come back and get the public option. Then we won’t have to worry about losing all the other good stuff being lost (since it will already be law) and we can focus totally on an up or down vote on the public option and deploy everything we have to focus on only that one issue, since it will be the only issue to focus on. The economy will have recovered by then, the public option will seem more acceptable (since we can say it’s already in the law as a trigger) and the GOP will simply have less to lie about.
A Public Option could potentially siphon off all the sickest and the poorest clients from the private for-profit Health Insurance Co’s. The Health Ins. Co’s would be happy to rid themselves of their sickest customers. That’s what they do anyway in our “free market”. Cherry pick the youngest and healthiest customers and deny claims and retroactively declare the existance of pre-existing conditions inorder to deny claims and nullify the insurance policies of the sick.
If that becomes the case, the public option could become underfunded and overwhelmed by excessive claims. Premiums would have to be increased to compensate for maintaining all the sickest customers.
The public option could “fail” in such case, and guys like you could say, “I told you so”.
I agree Raven. We have had enough of Corporate Death Panels and rationing of health care to those who already Paid for services and been denied All in the Name of PROFIT. How fucking great is that kind of “Free Market”! Free my ass it is just Wall Street just ripping all of us off for the all mighty dollar. Throw them out of the Temple of Health Care!!
I already know that some Dems are going to try to screw the American people out of getting the public option.
I want progressives to vote DOWN any bill with no robust public option. End of story. I’m tired of the debating. No public option? No bill!
We Balrogs (Balrogi? Balrogians? Hot guys?) from the frozen North are proud of Rep Keith and Sen Al, even if that loon is my rep.
No. Say it isn’t so!! Batshit Barbie of CD6?????
Senator Schumer loves reconciliation and thinks it should be used as much as possible:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…..we-can.php
Thanks Rep. Ellison for your quick email reply to the message I left your office this morning. It’s absolutely great to see your support for the public option here on FDL. Keep up the excellent work!
- Tom
My sympathy to you and yours. I suffer from a Republican too. Heading home to listen to the speech, see you all on the otherside of it.
From the state that has given the nation both Rep. Ellison and Rep. Bachmann, I am proud to be a constituent of the former. Thank you, Congressman Ellison.
Therefore, our best bet is:
* Ban on denying coverage for pre-existing conditions
* Subsidies for poor folks and working class folks to get coverage
* Lower co-pays
* Public option trigger
* An employer mandate
Apologies RFKUS,
but without a mechanism for increasing competition (& keeping premiums down), none of those will matter.
-Those w/ preexisting conditions will be priced out of the market.
-Subsidies for coverage are little more than taxpayer giveaways to insurance companies, if actual healthCARE is not mandated as well.
-Lower copays won’t matter if you can’t afford to pay your premiums.
-A trigger on the public option is just a way to game the system so that the trigger is never pulled.
-As bloggers here have shown, the employer mandates will pressure companies to get the crappiest plans possible for their employees, who will then be stuck with them. Also it will pressure companies to only hire wealthy people, or those whose spouses have insurance for them.
In short, what you describe as “our best bet” is, in fact, a huge failure for progressives, and a huge win for corporations, and their bought-and-paid for Blue-Cross Democrats in Congress.
Rahm? Is that you?
Thank you Rep. Ellison.
I pray the president will come around before he finds himself in the political wilderness without a base or support. What’s a win worth? A win is not a win without real, robust comprehensive reform to our healthcare system.
*sob* Her.
That actually depends on the nature of the trigger, which I don’t understand clearly.
I think you’re right, Petro. May it be contagious!! The antidote to spine flu.
Oh, honey, I am so, so sorry. At least my rep keeps the lowest of low profiles lest he be quoted saying anything whatsoever to anyone, and particularly to a constituent. Your rep, on the other hand . . . well, you know.
We have been screwed by insurance companies in this country in the area of health care for all since way back in 1912, not since the 40’s although that was the second shot at it.
There is an excellent book on the subject Almost Persuaded by Ronald L. Numbers, published in 1978 by Johns Hopkins University Press. We deserve better than getting screwed by a supposed “liberal” again. Moynihan helped to kill Clinton’s plan in 1994, the same Moynihan who was such a liberal he worked for Nixon.
The Family’s $en. Tom Coburn, M.D., (mucho dinero) gave a speech the other day where he said there is nothing in the constitution about the government providing health care. That may be so, but as far back as 1798, congress was concerned about health care for workers. Back then it was merchant seamen and a law was passed providing health care for merchant seamen throughout the country. By 1872 there were 32 marine hospitals throughout the country but by 1884 AMerican shipping companies lobbied congress to kill the system because they were finding it hard to compete with English shipping due to costs.
This issue is going to hurt the Democrats at the polls whether it’s in the form of people voting against them or people becoming disgusted and failing to vote at all. Either way, the blowback needs to be laid at Obama’s feet, not congress. We all know congress is filled for the most part with whores who have no principles. Obama sold everyone a false bill of goods and he is to blame for the expanded war in Afghanistan and the fiasco that this “debate” over health care has become.
LOL … Spine Flu … love it !
Come on, face it everybody.
Public Option: Dead, deceased, room temperature, a’moulderin’ in the grave . . .
You can give that dead horse all the CPR you want, but it’s over.
I just hate to see you waste so much energy.
(((blush))) an original. Use liberally!
You’ve heard that America will elect an African-American President when pigs fly?
Swine flu.
Uh, no, I say it like it is a good thing. People should follow their principles.
Oddly in today’s political atmosphere, I actually respect the principled stands of those with whom I disagree.
In the post above, it is also a recognition of real world reality.
it’s like one Congresswomen said in the town hall I attended, “Abortions will not be paid for with government money.” She then went on to explain to people on the other side how that didn’t matter since part of the funds going into the public option would be out of personal pockets so that is what would be counted as paying for the abortions.
Personally, I don’t care about whether it pays or not, I don’t have a big thing on it. But, it was a deceptive answer in that it TECHNICALLY was true, but it tried to shade it make the person who asked the question THINK she said it wasn’t going to be funded, when in the real world, it was not going to stop the public option from funding any abortion someone wanted.
The PR campaign is that the public option will be one option among many, but the real world is that the intention is for single payer to come in right behind it.
Not a free market at all. The politicians in the various states have created a situation where there are near monopolies in some areas, and limited competition in others. Politicians voted those laws in. THEY created the mess we are in.
No one else made those laws.
Main Entry: ap·pease
Pronunciation: ə-ˈpēz
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): ap·peased; ap·peas·ing
Etymology: Middle English appesen, from Anglo-French apeser, apaiser, from a- (from Latin ad-) + pais peace — more at peace
Date: 14th century
1 : to bring to a state of peace or quiet : calm
2 : to cause to subside : allay
3 : pacify, conciliate; especially : to buy off (an aggressor) by concessions usually at the sacrifice of principles
appease – Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online DictionaryMain Entry: ap·pease; Pronunciation: ə-ˈpēz; Function: transitive verb; Inflected Form(s): ap·peased; ap·peas·ing; Etymology: Middle English appesen, …
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/appeasement – Cached – Similar
Happy to stand corrected, then. I hope you’re right about public option devotees fighting on for single payer. I suspect, though, that for the most part only the single-payer stalwarts — folks like me who’ve been nipping at HCAN’s heels from the get-go — will be carrying on that fight.
Red tie– to court GOP? Or is because he’s a commie?