It appears more as he ” Avoids ” it……..

Why are those so regulated by states instead of the federal gov’t?

Well, I know banks can be state or federal, but for a very long time even the federal banks were only doing business within a state where they met the regs.

Now we have banks which operate nationally, but apparently we still have the parochial states regulation system for insurance.

Either you’re going to have free markets and competition and a national economy or you’re not. Can’t really have it both ways.

OTOH, changing the way insurance is regulated is a bit outside the current reform plans.

That is, only in certain insurance markets. It sure seems competition is inadequate in every state. Of course, it all depends on how you define “inadquate”.

I think that may be the point. Orszag is a smart cookie, doesn’t owe anything to Obama or anybody else in the administration, and knows this stuff inside out. Here’s my take. The administration think they can mousetrap the opposition into not seriously opposing (they will never support anything) the health reform package. So they set up the system in a way that guarantees triggers will occur almost immediately, and we get the public option. It’s an open secret that there is no competition in health care provision. And there won’t be any more after the law is passed. The technical problem is subsidizing access of of poor people while pretending to maintain the existing system. I don’t know how that circle is going to be squared. But suppose it is in some way. Within a year the triggers go off, and we go to the public option.

I don’t agree with this strategy, but I think it is the way they are approaching the issue. Any improvement at all in the short run gives the Dems something to run on. It is certain that getting the PO up and running will take a couple of years, giving the Thugs an opportunity to attack. So doing it this way in part eliminates the attack until after the Congressional Elections next fall.

It’s a thought.

“something like looks like public option”

IT TOTALLY LAYS OUT THE WH STRATEGY FOR GETTING SNOWE ON BOARD IN ORDER TO ULTIMATELY WEAKEN CHANCES FOR THE PO… THAT’S WHY THEY WANT HER SO BADLY…. and it is not good for us… surPRISE, surPRISE, surPRISE.

His basic premise is that the reason the WH is pushing for approval of the Baucus bill (vs reconciliation) is that getting the Baucus bill approved will get it on the floor and will weaken the House bill with a PO (assuming a PO makes it in the House bill.)…. read this and weep… (itlaics are my comments)

“This Senate vote (if the HELP bill wins), moreover, gives more momentum and legitimacy to the House version of health care — which also includes the public option, employer mandate, broader Medicaid coverage, and more generous subsidies to the lower middle class. That Senate vote thereby reduces the power of House Blue Dogs and conservative Dems to influence the bill that goes to the House floor. It also enables Pelosi to say to them: It’s either this or nothing. If you vote against this bill you’re voting against health care reform. The more progressive Senate bill, plus the stark choice Pelosi poses, garners enough votes from the conservative and Blue Dog Dems to pass a strong bill.
The White House doesn’t like this scenario because the use of a reconciliation bill in the Senate poisons relations with Republicans and risks their support for financial reform and cap-and-trade. It may even make it more difficult for Obama to rely on Republican support for more troops in Afghanistan. But as we move into the gravitational pull of the 2010 midterms, congressional Republicans won’t support Obama anyway, on anything. And remember, George W. Bush used reconciliation early in his first term to enact his huge tax cuts, mostly for the very wealthy. It’s a tried-and-true strategy.
I don’t know about you, but I’m hoping the Senator from Maine votes no next week. If she does, America has a fighting chance of getting real healthcare reform.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..90287.html

Here I was so excited for real healthcare reform… what a snow job.

You can create more alternatives, give people different choices (e.g., a public option), but the fact that insurers “compete” does not create a “competitive market” in which prices are efficient as understood by economists.

This is fundamental. It means the trigger concept based on “inadequate competition” is meaningless. There is no such thing as “adequate competition” in the insurance market.

Orszag knows this. He doesn’t care about competition in insurance markets. Orszag is the director of the OMB; he only cares about the effects on the federal budget, and that goal is being accomplished in the reduction to Medicare and the taxes on high-end insurance to help offset the subsidies for expanded Medicaid and exchange insurance plans.

It’s a silly little dance, really, since the best options were removed entirely from the card in the form of single payer health care. Whatever is left will be something carefully crafted to give the appearance of accomplishment so the administration can move onto energy policy and/or dealing with the military and multiple wars.

In actuality, I wish they’d just stop with the danse macabre–let the jokers in congress pass whatever husk of a reform option is left–because the results would be the same now or in five weeks when all this posturing is done. There will be no real public option. The insurance companies will have gained mandatory coverage and any actual reform in the name of “pre-existing condition” or “denied coverage” will still be a net monetary gain for the coffers of the insurance corps. Let’s just save the five weeks and stop pretending that, “The time for change is now, this is our time.”

This isn’t “our” time if we’re expecting serious health reform but if we thought so, as a result of campaign speeches, then it is our time to be fooled again. But if we thought someone who gives a good speech was going to go to the mat and do our work for us, then we deserve to be fooled, and fooled mightily.

Those who call themselves progressive will not deserve real change until they stay committed to the concept long enough to make it happen. FDL is one of the few action blog sites getting any coverage in the MSM. Until progressives show up and march in the streets, there won’t be any real reform in our time.