Yesterday, I wrote about the terrible idea Sen. Carper has been trying to sell as an “alternative” to the public option. Thanks to a report from Politico it appears that the idea is even worse than I first thought.
Carper’s proposal would leave decisions and solutions up to the states. While Snowe’s amendment sets only an affordability test for the trigger, Carper would allow states to opt-in if affordable insurance is not widely available or the insurance market is dominated by only one or two players.
It sounds like Carper’s plan is a trigger, but a trigger that, once pulled, requires each state legislature to then act. If the state legislature acts it must then choose from three basically worthless options, a state-based public option, co-ops, or some kind of managed government partnership with private insurance companies.
If this is the case, then Carper has the dubious distinction of coming up with the worst “alternative” to the public option so far. A trigger for co-ops. This idea is so bad, it makes Conrad’s worthless state-based co-ops look robust.
FYI Politico: I understand Carper or one of his aides probably fed you this line of BS:
[T]he Delaware Democrat never staked out a public position on the government insurance option, solidifying his status as the model of an undecided moderate in need of persuading. . . .
But it is not true. Back on July 6th Carper told MSNBC that he was against a national public option that is available on day one. He said he is with Sen. Snowe, and thinks there should be a trigger like the trigger in Medicare Part D. Carper has repeatedly said he supports the trigger idea.
20 Comments
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL Action
Advanced search
Interesting idea from Dylan Ratigan — get rid of the anti-trust exemption given to health insurance companies. Immediately forces competition.
I like Franken’s idea that Rockefeller’s signing on with. Why should approaching 30% of health insurance premiums go into the pockets of the execs? Excessive profits = theft plain and simple.
Carper = Weasel
Moderate? Next to whom? Attila the Hun?
Delaware must be a real red state.
When you get into the area of the economic consequences of oligarchies, there are numerous instances, industry by industry, where such is tolerated by governments and ordinary folk. Remember Ma Bell? It’s back, alongside Verizon. Is Comcast a dirty word, yet? But in nearly all instances, we’re talking about commodities, not people. Health care should not be the exclusive domain of nongovernmental entities.
The single most fundamental flaw of Carper’s plan is that it assumes states will act responsibly if his preconditions are met. It doesn’t address states like Texas, where affordability tests are so ridiculous its frightening.
For example, if you make more than $188/week, you aren’t eligible for Medicaid because YOU CAN AFFORD private insurance (I’d like to see THAT trick! Private insurance for me & mine would run $1700/month right now in TX, and that only gives catastrophic coverage). If they apply similar standards (as they most likely would), then essentially you end up enslaved to the health insurers because you are required to carry coverage, or you pay Federal penalties for failure to carry coverage and STILL get screwed on costs.
WHY IS IT that so many of these dirt bag Blue Weasels can’t seem to grasp that the cost of insurance is out of control, and people simply CANNOT afford it unless its subsidized by an employer? The reason I don’t have coverage is not for lack of desire, but for lack of functional coverage (i.e. – it doesn’t pay for jack unless its a catastrophic event, and then pays only 65%!) at anything approaching a reasonable price! I simply cannot afford $20,400/year for health insurance that doesn’t provide actual coverage!
PaPa Joe…VP…..needs to sit sonnyboy down…and read him the riot act
“floats” is the closest thing to journalism I’ve ever seen from Politico
Mornin’ All
I happen to have a trigger we can all get on board with for those politicians who look at triggers like the do their favorite fetish;
“the trigger is immediate and happens automatically without further legislation
any individual is automatically triggered into medicare who wants to pay for that option, they will pay the comenserate costs per individual of said enrollment and be cost nuetral
any person who loses their job is automatically triggered into medicare the moment private insurance coverage is lost, the person can remain in medicare once they acquire employment if they so choose, at the correct costs per individual and will be cost neutral, the person should be required to pay health care premiums that were not payed while unemployed back to medicare to keep costs down’
there are a few other addendums I would add but there are triggers right there we could live with, however these are not the triggers they want
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Jon Walker and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
It would appear that the tide is turning and the corporate money can’t cover all the shit that’s been tossed into the argument here. Even procedurally, folks like One Hung Harry Reid and Dancin’ Nancy Pelosi can’t keep real healthcare reform from happening as long as the progressive forces in their own caucuses keep growin’ and as long as the President doesn’t shoot himself and the rest of us in the ass. Triggers and coops have been smothered and can’t be resucitated while the “public option” is the only option still alive. The alternative to comprehensive healthcare reform with a strong public option is no bill and even that won’t kill healthcare reform, it will only euthanize Blue Dogs and Republicans at the polls.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THIS ONE IS OURS TO LOOSE!!
Oh dear oh dear, Senator Carper. Perhaps you missed the memo. You see, the OH Legislature doesn’t know how to pass… erm… legal stuff. Even their system for funding publick educashun has been found unconstitutional multiple times, that is, until the OH supremes refused to deal with the matter any more….
oh dear oh dear, where was that pile of -linquents? … they were here just a moment ago, under that rug I believe… or was it 500?
*sigh*
i was so very much younger when this all started… i could remember things back then… maybe others have the same problem… a terrible thing to have lost… *sniffle*
tarnation! I thought I wasn’t going to cry about all this stuff any more.
Citizen perris:
I think yer on to sumpthin, Citizen…of course what you are callin’ an “immediate trigger” is really the strongest possible public option and I think that may very well be the rhetorical cover the Carpers and the Snowes yank over themselves when confronted with the demand to vote for either healthcare reform or no bill.
carp.
eh?
dayum!
yup
that’s what the progressives can hit back with when approached with “a trigger option”
He’s from Delaware, the home of corporate corruption. He takes bribes, he is a criminal. And he is your senator.
Does anyone in Delaware care? Then do something!
Delaware is the state in which the insurance companies are all incorporated because of the state’s lax corporate law. I’d imagine that the state would lose its percentage if 1/6 of the US economy were to suddenly turn from for- to not-for-profit.
I don’t know how red he voers are but the whole state is owned by the banking industry. It’s Neveda for banks.
Emptywheel has a cross-post up on the front page some might be interested in: “Jay Rock Demands 90%”
As many others have said – if states are given an opportunity to create their own public options, and POOL them, this is not necessarily a bad thing at all, and could be a backdoor way to makes some serious waves.
Obviously there are a lot of ifs in that scenario – IF states are given real room to do this – IF they are allowed to function collectively – IF there is adequate federal support – but making such a sweeping statement that this is all worse when its just at the nugget-of-an-idea stage feels a little too reactive to me.
Sure as shit some of us care. He and the DLC are big under the DE DEM party tent, however, in this land of the duPonts and the smelly armpit of Philly at that.
Most DEMs active in the party are finally getting some ass but it took this to do it. Carper, unlike Biden, plays his cards close to the vest. He has a career’s worth of feeding lower-level candidates out of his PAC and staying out of the limelight. Not to mention that his staffers are EVERYWHERE in the state and party jobs (having also been a Governor and US Congressman).