One wonders why this obvious formulation is not chiseled into everyone’s foreheads. That’s why the Senate bill freaks me out so much, because it’s so blatantly insane.

The notion of “the public option” is like comfort food for the masses.

It should be clear that the business of all three branches of the US government is business. Same with the 4th branch.

If you’ve never worked in a corporation, you aren’t familiar with things like “corporate culture”, expected behaviors, and your supposed value in the matrix (and if you suppose your value is high, you are clueless).

Go to any corporation’s web page, and navigate to the “About us” page. There you will find corporate comfort food for your consumption. It’s meaningless jabber that tells you that the corporation places high value on things like individuals, diversity (my personal favorite), innovation, and all that good stuff. It tastes good.

I’m afraid that “The Public Option” is on the US government’s “About us” page.

Well said.

i’m sorry jon, but the public option was created and sold by the dem party elite (NOT the grass roots). i think it’s quite clear now that the public option was a con to get progressives to sign on to a neoliberal policy. and that’s exactly what a public option in competition with private insurance is — a neoliberal policy proposal based on a mistaken belief in the magic of free markets in all cases, even in cases where competition leads to a race to the bottom instead of better outcomes — like the case of health insurance in a weakly regulated market.

it is a fundamentally flawed policy that to my knowledge has worked nowhere it’s been tried.

single payer (as in, for example, hr 676) is a progressive policy. i expect there are others. but the public option is not one of them. please, i beg you and everyone else to read glenn smith’s 2007 paper, The Logic of the Health Care Debate.

“t is obvious that many republicans oppose the proposed health care bill. But many liberals and progressives oppose it as well.

For example, economist L. Randall Wray writes:

Here’s the opportunity, Wall Street’s newest and bestest gamble: there is a huge untapped market of some 50 million people who are not paying insurance premiums—and the number grows every year because employers drop coverage and people can’t afford premiums. Solution? Health insurance “reform” that requires everyone to turn over their pay to Wall Street. Can’t afford the premiums? That is OK—Uncle Sam will kick in a few hundred billion to help out the insurers. Of course, do not expect more health care or better health outcomes because that has nothing to do with “reform” … Wall Street’s insurers… see a missed opportunity. They’ll collect the extra premiums and deny the claims. This is just another bailout of the financial system, because the tens of trillions of dollars already committed are not nearly enough.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/economist-health-care-bill-just-another-bailout-financial-system

Damn right it’s foundational!

Sen Tom Harkin:

“I like to think of this bill as like a starter home. It is not the mansion of our dreams. But it has a solid foundation, giving every American access to quality, affordable coverage. It has an excellent, protective roof, which will shelter Americans from the worst abuses of health insurance companies. And this starter home has plenty of room for additions and improvements.”

Hey Tom, – you are building this dream hose (not home) on someone else’s property, dumbfuck!

This is an excellent article, thank you Jon.

It is disturbing to hear the proponents of the Senate bill make the same arguments the pragmatic Public Option proponents made not too long ago to Single-Payer advocates, though: “It’s the best we can get.”

We need to learn to fight for what’s right, since in this case it’s right politically and policy-wise.

P.O. or No!

This article reads to me like rationalization. The problem is that the House version of the public option won’t help hardly anyone who needs the help. It will be more expensive than the “bargain” plans the insurance companies offer, and it will be restricted to a small pool of potential customers. It will do nothing to control the cost of health insurance and it will do nothing to make insurance companies honest.

The only thing that will happen is that the next congress that deals with the issue, which probably won’t be until 2015 or later, will kill the public option because it clearly doesn’t work and nobody wants it.

selise, looks like a gem of a read – thanks!

Man, I dunno, I mean we can go on and on about how great the public option would be and tell ourselves things we all already know, but where is the strategy to put it back in the bill? If we don’t have that, we’re just blowing smoke up each other’s skirts.

Off to read it!

Never another vote or another dime….better to be screwed over by rethugs than shafted by the dems.

Kill the bill.

It’s worth noting that single payer is objectively superior on every criteria that the health bill was supposedly looking for. As in, it can be demosntrated, in real countries, that this works. The objections to single payer were entirely ideological. Progressives were promised that, even though everyone knew single payer was better, the public option was the reasonable compromise way to get there.

Imagine Obama making his maiden speech on health care and announcing, “I’m going to cut your health insurance premium in half without reducing the quality of your coverage, and I’m going to prodvide free or low-cost coverage to every American who needs it, while reducing our overall spending on health care.”

“No, don’t cut our premiums in half!”

“We love insurance companies, please don’t hurt them.”

“Please add an incomprehensible system of exchanges,subsidies, mandates, penalties, and paperwork — our system is too simple and efficient!”

And the strangest thing of all is that progressives’ attachment to single payer (or the fucked-up public option) is “ideological.” We’re “purists” who don’t live in the real world. And all the pols who took single payer off the table before it started and crafted a “compromise” they never had any intention of sticking to are reasonable pragmatic realists who are serious about policy.

selise, you are right in that once we codify the principle that everyone must be covered, and set limits on how much can be charged for age or pre-existing conditions, the entire economic rationale for private insurance fails away. All insurance is just a mechanism for risk sharing, and time shifting of cash payments by individuals, thus with everyone in the pool, private insurance is exposed as a parasite rather than an efficiency gain.

The problem is, how do you get to there from where we are today? The fact that it appears we’ve lost on public option shows that single payer was a bridge too far. But we have to try to get public option because over time it will demonstrate undeniably the uselessness of private insurance.

I don’t think a bad public option would have been better than none at all. If the argument is it could be built upon…

we already have medicare, and yet, we are not building on it.

For the life of me, I cannot think of a reason why progressives didn’t try for that – its easier to understand and is better policywise.

Another great read Mr. Walker-

The first thing that jumped at me was that the Senate Mandate is the linch pin to privatize ALL entitlements, and the PO as was robust is the linch pin towards the elimination of private insurance.

A grand struggle of epic proportions being played out in front of us. Erm, behind closed doors, that is.

with toxic sheetrock

The public option was projected to be “small” because it would be forced to be a big fish in a very small pond

This quote doesn’t make sense to me. Do you mean it was to be a small fish in a big pond? That’s why it was projected to be “small”?

Or are you saying they projected it to be “small,” but really they knew it would grow to be “big;” they just didn’t want to admit its future power? [Per your subsequent discussion.]

Your discussion suggests that it would grow to be a big fish in a small pond [the "pond" of health insurance providers], but I don’t think it would be “forced” to be that “big fish.”

I dunno; it just doesn’t make sense to me.

I really don’t think people understand the path that this legislation puts us on. The inability to deny coverage is the game changer. Here is Drum on it:

one of the reasons that, warts and all, I support the current healthcare reform legislation so strongly. My take is that community rating at the national level can eventually lead to only two outcomes: (a) the end of private health insurance completely1 or (b) the transformation of private insurers into regulated public utilities. Roughly speaking, Option A is what you see in Canada or Sweden, Option B is what you see in Germany and the Netherlands. I’d prefer the former, but the regulated utility model works OK too, and it’s hard to see how you avoid one or the other in the long run.

Bottom line: if this thing passes, it is the first step to the inevitable goal that all of us seem to want.

Push for the public option hard, but understand (as I bet Obama and others do) that there is a poison pill inherent in this that will provide the type of plan that we want long term.

Understanding the difference between the battle and the war is something that conservatives get but we don’t when it comes to this kind of thing.

The bill is a war winner even though it costs us some battles. We have to think bigger than we seem to be doing here. Our children will thank us for this start.

I’m tragically heartbroke to learn of its demise before its even been born in full (not that I think it WILL be at this point).

Should we just break out the whiskey and get to the wake?

This is nothing, NOTHING but a money spigot from the government to the insurance companies.

If what thing passes? Obama doesn’t want it and the Senate won’t let it so all’s left is to kill it.

Kill the bill, kill the filibuster right on it’s heals, then pass 676 with 50+1 in the Senate.

The track record of private insurance is terrible, and no honest economist could look its performance compared to public insurance and think it a smart solution.

THIS is the winning meme that Progressives should be writing in capital letters and posting all over the internet.

Folks can and will understand this. Everyone who’s ever had private insurance knows that it’s shit. “Mandates” to enable and enrich the private insurance criminals are just the icing on the cake.

1. I have no problem with insurance companies increasing their profits of the goals of broader coverage can be simultaneously met. Arguing against “evil” big business is a loser long term. I wish liberals would move away from that.

2. A healthcare system that is heavily regulated is a huge win and takes us down the correct path.

3. I have never once heard a hardcore opponent of the current bill explain how we are supposed to make Lieberman, all of the republicans and the blue dogs disappear so that we can pass exactly what we want.

Bottom line: Dems will be further weakened in coming elections and would have lost seats regardless because that’s what happens at mid-terms when a new POTUS is elected. Despite that, the argument seems to be to scrap the whole thing and wait until the future when we will have even less leverage to pass something with a public option.

Or something.

I get the anger and frustration. I wanted a public option too. But here on planet earth, our senate is required to pass legislation and in a senate where we have a razor slim majority, there are limits on what you can do.

But by all means, I am open to hearing those capable of writing paragraphs critiquing the current legislation explain, in detail, the path that they saw to getting Lieberman and others to not tank a public option.

I’ll take your suggestions and put them into a book. “Jedi Mind Control the Progressive Way” is my working title but I’m open to suggestions on that as well.

It’ll be the best selling book in history regardless of what I call it and I’ll cut everyone here in on the profits.

The problem is, how do you get to there from where we are today?

completely agree. would love to have that conversation.

here’s my simplified take (work in progress, so it may change tomorrow. or today if you’ve got a better idea *g*):

1. social movement politics. as far as i know, in my lifetime no major human rights advance has come from deecee. it’s taken a social movement, which usually means decades — certainly not a single legislative cycle.

2. improvements and intermediate steps should be worked in the mean time. first, because alleviating suffering is a good thing and because there are intermediate steps that build support for and movement towards the final goal. an example of such an intermediate step would be fixing medicare and including everyone from 55 (or 50 or 60) and older. another example would be letting a couple of states experiment with a true comprehensive and universal single payer system so that the rest of the country could see how it worked.

in this way the long term social movement politics and the short term legislative politics work together and not at odds with each other.

just my two cents.

for more on the strategy social movement politics, see my previous comment where i typed out a semi-long passage from my favorite practical book on social movements, doing democracy, by bill moyer (different person than the bill moyers of pbs)

So if the present House Bill and Public Option are unacceptable to you, and the Senate Bill as is is unacceptable to you, what do you advocate for a course of immediate action given the final outcome is not completed?

Hey Tom, – you are building this dream hose (not home) on someone else’s property, dumbfuck!

I prefer to characterize that home as being built in a meteor crater, and a sand-filled crater at that.

Good plan until the GOP takes control in a few years and screws us all back to the dark ages. I mean are you listening to what those folks are saying. I want as many limits on Team Palin/Gingrich as possible.

You don’t appreciate the senate’s arcane rules now, but you will.

Trust me.

We need to realize that FDL policy is to constantly push this line about the public option despite the fact that much of it has nothing to do with reality. I am not sure that this is Jon Walker talking. It seems to be FDL talking.

Any of these are very doable changes that could have completely changed the dynamics in only a few years.

Legalizing drug importation is a very doable idea that could change the dynamics of the drug market in a few years. But it never happened.

Expanding Medicare to those aged 55-64 is a very doable idea that could completely change the dynamics of Medicare in a few years. But…it never happened.

If the public option was able to to sell to the entire private insurance market

If pigs could fly…

To argue otherwise is intellectual dishonesty

Look who’s talking.

You may not agree with the methods that the supporters of the public option are using, but pretending that they are somehow fools chasing after symbolism

Not fools–in this case they’re paid bloggers with a party line. Even from the perspective of what is in this particular bill, the Medicaid expansion was far more important than the public option, for example. It insures at least 15 million (more if you use the CMS estimates) people compared with the 6 million of the public option. It is hard to see why either the taxes used to fund the bill, or the subsidies that would apply to all exchange participants and not just public option participants, were manifestly less important either. This is not even discussing single payer, because that comparison hardly needs discussion.

FDL will now probably attempt to rewrite history to duck the fact that their strategy was an absurd, pre-compromised mess and quite predictably produced a miserable failure. It’s up to us to not let them get away with it, which is why I advocate crossposting everything at Corrente and ZBlogs and also thinking about how we can start new blogs that actually dare to take progressive positions.

i wish. but that’s not what is happening in MA – where we’ve had modified community rating for some time.

what is happening instead is that because costs aren’t controlled, coverage is being scaled back and the people being hurt the most are the most venerable. please see my comments in marcy’s post, 21% of People in MA Still Forgo Necessary Medical Care

Ding.

There is no strategy because that particular task is politically impossible. We need to understand how to cut our losses in a lost battle and make sure that the war is won.

Who needs to wait for the Republicans to “screws us all back to the dark ages”, when we’ve got Democrats with Obama in charge, leading the charge on behalf of Wall Street.

Trust me.

I am not a troller, I am a genuinely interested reader, who happens to come form the right, and you would probably say the wingbat right.

I also happen to live/have lived in countries with nationalized or pseudo nationalized health insurance for extended periods.

I have a couple of questions based on my actual experience in Canada and Germany, and how you guys envision the public option if you could have it your way.

1) Would you a)force all doctors to accept the negotiated rates. b) allow doctors to either work solely for public option patients OR solely for non public option patients (as is the case in Canda) c) allow doctors to take both privately and publicly insured patients at the respective rates they pay.

In Case of the option C (which is the status quo in Germany), how would you deal with doctors who give significantly preferential treatment to the patients that pay more (again the status quo in Germany). Shorter waiting times, longer and more detailed diagnosis, more doctors offices located in areas where more poeple tend to be privately insured.

As you might now, the German system has been around for over 100 years, and it is pretty mature in that regard, so the status quo is based on what actually happens in practice.

2) on what would you base the premiums? Would you have a pro head rate, a percentage of income, or go the Canadian route of paying for it out of general tax revenues.

The german is currently 15-16% of income, with half paid by the employer, half by the employee.

3) If the renumeration for doctors were on the medicare basis, how would you deal with major doctor shortages which would develop in the next 20 years. This is the case in many parts of europe, and was the case in Canada until they started paying rates putting canadian doctors on par with most in the USA. In Germany they handle it only with wage arbitrage against the eastern european countries.

I have lived in various systems,a n in many ways I think the German is the best. Your insurance is portable, you choose who you want to be insured with (even in the public system), you aren’t dependent on an employer. They have a public/private dual system, with about 15% in the private system. The private system gets severely preferential treatment, with many hospitals having dedicated wings, and many specialists treating either exclusively or predominantly private patients with elevated fees. But this also means that the hospitals tend to have enough machinery and very good doctors still are available in hospitals. Thsi is far less the case in the candian system.

The descrepency in treatment related with the dual system is a thorn in the side of the left in europe.

Or do you see it as a base coverage, and people can choose private add ons, like in France?

Just wondering….

what do you advocate for a course of immediate action

i don’t know. we’re in a horrible place. i can’t support either bill but if you think they will help you, i’m not going to tell you i don’t think you should support them — i will, however, argue with you over details about the nature of both bills and what is included in them.

better suggestions welcome.

Took the words out of my mouth. Who needs the right to screw us, we’re already screwed by the supposed left.

Which is why we need new strategy.

Unless David Waldman doesn’t know what he’s talking about . . . Waldman Kos Diary

“Both the House and the Senate have passed their own versions of the health insurance reform bill, for instance. The House version, though, is embodied in the legislative vehicle known as H.R 3692, whereas the Senate’s version is embodied in the vehicle H.R. 3590. Both houses can therefore be said to have passed their own versions of a health insurance reform bill, but H.R. 3590 is the only legislative vehicle to have passed both houses, and is therefore the only one of the two eligible to go to conference.”

Given Waldman’s posits, the HR 3962 House Bill which HAS the public option, will NEVER go to conference, so it’s out already . . . my ital’s and bold in the Waldman quote, BTW.

Can any Pups tell me if I’ve got that part wrong? Cuz, to me, it’s over, already. What we are now fighting for if you support Mz. Hamsher’s POV is to KILL THE SENATE BILL, to force them to go back to their drawing board.

There needs to be cost containment.

In the Senate bill, the insurance companies cannot set provider rates.

Only providers can set rates. That’s an open invitation for providers to increase rates, and health care companies will pass on those increases plus margin.

What do you believe will happen when the health care companies have exhausted the profits from the 30 million forced to buy heath insurance?

In a world where there are no denials, everybody must be covered, what is the purpose of the health insurance companies? They are delivered customer by mandate, and cannot set prices, and for this they are paid 20% of the Gross revenue.

If I were the CEO of such a company, I’d lay off as many people as I could as fast as I could to eliminate overhead, and live like a king on my 20% take.

Here’s some links that will assist you in starting your own blog:

https://www.blogger.com/start

http://en.wordpress.com/signup/

I marvel that someone willingly self described as ‘wingbat right’, appears to find merit in a substantially ‘socialized’ German system of health care.

How are you being treated by you ‘brethren’ ?

Huh, I hope the GOP takes control next year, and I still hope the filibuster dies.

Not that I’m a fan of the Rethugs, cause I’m not. They’re all assholes. But all the Democrats deserve to lose for passing this piece of shit and calling it “health care reform”. If they were going to pass this piece of shit, they could’ve at least been honest and called it HIPPA (Health Insurance Profit & Protection Act), or more accurately (since I think it’s the real reason behind this largesse), the Insurance Industry Bailout Act of 2009.

Assholes, each and every one of them that votes for this, assholes.

Weird. This essay ignores not only the Hacker formulation of the PO, which was still supposedly in play just a year ago and which hardly started out small, as well as the extensive critiques of the PO (big or small) put forth by the experienced analysts at PNHP — not least, but hardly only, Kip Sullivan.

One has to ask, If the PO is so “foundational,” why didn’t any formulation of the concept exist prior to 2001? And why has no other first-world nation found the need to adopt such a Frankensteinian hybrid of public and profit-driven plans if the concept is so “foundational”?

Foundational to mainstream Democratic conventional wisdom regarding the pragmatically achievable? Sure. Foundational to true reform or even (given international experience) to incremental implementation of true reform? Nah.

The problem with K-Drums’s analysis is the absence of a strong regulatory framework, as in Switzerland, to enforce guaranteed issue or any other of the bill’s reform provisions — and the proven history of grossly inadequate, easily subverted regulation of insurance markets & products in the U.S. As I understand it, most it not all enforcement will depend on state insurance commissioners. Imagine the rigor in states like Delaware or Nebraska, not to mention the red states. And, of course, attempting to monitor and enforce this first of all puts the burden on the consumer to prove and pursue, and more importantly adds anothere layer of paperwork, bureaucracy, and inffeciency instead of just giving people guaranteed coverage in the first place.

I have no problem with insurance companies increasing their profits of the goals of broader coverage can be simultaneously met. Arguing against “evil” big business is a loser long term. I wish liberals would move away from that.

Really? So when they come and privatize the police for profit we’re supposed to say, Oh, well, that’s a loser long term, I should move away from that??

Sorry, this is one liberal that’s never gonna move away from the fact that there are certain services that should NOT be For Profit. Police, Fire, Health Care, Prisons, Military, to name a few.

And I’m not going to apologize to the right wing for saying so either, because they’re wrong.

No strong regulation and no strong cost controls. Recipe for disaster (from the patients POV; great for the insurance corps).

Weird:

Why I Still Believe in This Bill
Jacob S. Hacker
December 20, 2009

“The public option was always a means to an end: real competition for insurers, an alternative for consumers to existing private plans that does not deny needed care or shift risks onto the vulnerable, the ability to provide affordable coverage over time. I thought it was the best means within our political grasp. It lay just beyond that grasp. Yet its demise–in this round–does not diminish the immediate necessity of those larger aims. And even without the public option, the bill that Congress passes and the President signs could move us substantially toward those goals.”

Huh?

OT — Hey OFG, I still have that technoglitch accessing the Seminal. You?

Whoa there. Read this.

Germany and Canada don’t have public options. In fact, Germany has at least nominally private insurers, but they’re all non-profit and are very heavily regulated by the state. Canada has a single payer system, not a public option. Either of these systems are potentially fine by me.

“they could’ve at least been honest and called it HIPPA (Health Insurance Profit & Protection Act), or more accurately (since I think it’s the real reason behind this largesse), the Insurance Industry Bailout Act of 2009.”

HIPPA is more correct. We need to be mindful of language – ‘bailout’ implies rescue of a foundering industry (like US automakers, who got abuse and minimal loans) or class (as in ‘American Middle’, who haven’t gotten shit).

Contrast with the treatment of the Financial & Insurance industries – this is a ripoff giveaway, or in economic parlance, a redistribution of wealth. Not a bailout.

The WH is spinning back.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/29/opponents-reform-vow-fight-insurance-industry

everyone should be very clear what is being called for here. At a time when insurance companies are finally about to be reined in, and when American families are finally about to be given control over their own health care, opponents of reform are advocating that insurance companies once again be allowed to run wild.

* Make preventive care completely free – with no co-payments or deductibles.
* Provide tax credits to help small businesses and hard-working families afford quality coverage.
* Create a new insurance exchange – essentially a marketplace – where individuals and small businesses can compare cost and quality and shop for the plan that is right for them.
Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director

Presently, I’m FOR the House Bill (3962) and against the Senate Bill (3590).

I don’t support Eshoo or Stupak, nor Nelson in the Senate Bill.

Given my present understanding that the House Bill will not even GO to conference, only the Senate Bill HR 3590, then the House Bill is really moot.

Given that, I say Kill The Senate Bill 3590, force it all back to the table, and force Obama/Rahm to step in and fight for a more progressive outcome.

They (Obama/Rham/DNC/DLCC) HAVE to get something passed in early ’10, so I tend to dismiss those who claim we won’t revisit this reform effort for a decade or more if we don’t pass the shit Senate version NOW!

Kill the Senate Bill, force Obama/Rham and DNC/DLCC to fight for a more progressive reform outcome, and force them to either break or modify significantly their ‘deal’ with PhArma and Insurance and Big Med.

I STRONGLY believe we CAN force the WH to get involved for a more progressive reform effort NOW, if we can get the present Senate Bill killed somehow. Leveraging Blue Dogs and ConsevaDems by denying them DEM Support in ’10 and ’12 is how it’s done.

And THEN it’s a matter of 50+1 to finalize something, with pressure on Reid.

It’s all there, it CAN be done, and I believe that’s the course Mz. Hamsher is pursuing, one I endorse heartily, given as you say, the shit sitch we are in . . .

Thanks for your reply, always thoughtful, honest and detailed . . . ‘preciate that.

“Sorry, this is one liberal that’s never gonna move away from the fact that there are certain services that should NOT be For Profit. Police, Fire, Health Care, Prisons, Military, to name a few.”

We need a list of services and commodities that will not be privatized/compromised by an active Progressive Left.

If the Libertarians could see their way to excluding items on the list from Free Markets, we may be on our way to a winning coalition.

I get treated fine by my brethren, especially at Redstate. they aren’t close minded apologists for the status quo insurance system. The current system is very anti-wingbat, with all sorts of anti-competitve elements, the across state line thing, the varying state minimum mandates, which are rife with lobbying interests…

The right has a problem with the Canadian system coming out of general revenues is truly horrendous. The German has the private system, and that keeps it honest, and keeps it funded…..we also like that even the public system has a cap on contributions, so even the super rich don’Ät have to pay way too much, like they do in Canada.

In Germany and in the states I have always taken the highest deductible I couldm, because I see insurance truly as insurance, in case of catastrophe.

I saw this site pillory the Whole Foods CEO when he made some of the most sensible proposals I had heard in the debate, so I would like to know what is so wrong with personal responsibility in paying your own bills,a nd maybe finding out what stuff costs ahead of time.

Yeah, that’s why I rarely go there anymore.

But what is realistic for America?

My realistic goal is a health insurance industry heavily regulated like utilities. That’s the system a number of countries have and it works.

This is too important to push policy based on pipe dreams of utopia. If I were king we’d have single payer but I’m not, single payer will never happen here and we need to find a solution to the healthcare problem.

If the PO is so “foundational,” why didn’t any formulation of the concept exist prior to 2001?

maybe because celinda lake hadn’t come out with her bogus claims yet?

references:
1. Americans Support Single payer. Why Doesn’t Celinda Lake?
2. Two-thirds of Americans support Medicare-for-all part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6

Finding out the price ahead of time is hard to do when one is run over by a bus and rushed unconscious to an ER.

I’d change “Military” to “National Security”

so I would like to know what is so wrong with personal responsibility in paying your own bills,a nd maybe finding out what stuff costs ahead of time.

And I would like to know what is so wrong with realizing we’re all a part of a community, and as such, have SOME reponsibility to/for each other. And why it’s so wrong to, as a community, protect ourselves from things outside our control (like a burglar breaking in, or an arsonist setting our house on fire, or a case of brain cancer) by using government services for them.

Sure, nothing wrong at all with finding out what a TV costs beforehand and then deciding or not deciding if you can afford it. Not nearly the same if it’s a burglar breaking in and you’re gonna look through the Yellow Pages and pick the cheapest or best quality policeman to call. Or the same as when blood vessel bursts in your brain and you need $500,000 in health care. (Not many people CAN afford that).

Paying your bills is, of course, your responsibility but if you don’t have a job and money coming in, what then? If you lose your home, where do you go? The banks and the IRS are looking at you like lions at a fresh kill what do you do? If you are a neo-liberal, you just tell them to eat cake.

The House of Representatives will shortly “be forced to compromise” on the public option, leaving us with the originally intended tyrannical legal compulsion to hand over our income to (deliberately ineffectually regulated) private corporations.

This isn’t a health care bill being produced anymore. This is a corporate welfare bill that, instead of giving our tax money to corporations, requires us to directly transfer our money to the corporations ourselves.

A friend of the family was the CEO of one of germanies largest private insurance companies, and they definitely were FOR PROFIT. The Private insurance companies are purely for Profit, and if you earn enough, you can, and usually do, opt out of the public insurance companies.

The private companies need to make long term allotments and pay their bills day to day without a deficit. The public insurance companies, whcih tend to run a deficit and rely on state subsidies, are heavily regulated,a dn that regulation means there are increasing co pays, less and less coverage and all sorts of things that make people less happy with it.

Fair points, but the regulation piece is an area that we can start attacking right away. We can win with that with the foundation of the current bill.

Fighting for a public option will lose. I have yet to see a way that it will not.

My point (and I think the point of the dems holding their nose to vote for this) is that it’s a huge trojan horse that opens the door to all sorts of creative ways to legislate towards our goals. We won’t call it HEALTHCARE REFORM. It’ll be an amendment here and a bill there and suddenly you end up with something good. Look back at where social security started and where it was just a decade later (blacks for example got screwed by the initial bill).

If history is any lesson (and it is), this will blow the doors wide open. This is the most massive baby step in the history of legislation, and we need to look at it in the proper perspective.

Calling it a direct profit line to wall street is just blatantly false and the kind of generalization that the republicans use. We’re the smart ones I thought. Save that stuff for the other team.

To me it depends on what we mean by “support.” Personally, I think both the House and the Senate bills are better than nothing, but that is not sufficient grounds for me to actively go out and campaign for them. It is like saying that eating a slice of bread for dinner is better than eating no dinner. Well, yes, that is a valid point, but when I ask for dinner, I am going to ask for dinner, not ask for a slice of bread!

Medicare for All is what progressive organizations ought to be campaigning for on the ground–or a valid alternative like the German system, but that has even less constituency than Medicare for All. The public option is not a valid alternative.

do you get any kind of error message?

That is possible. There is a small for-profit sector that serves the richest tenth or so of the population, but those who are less well off are not legally allowed to purchase its insurance.

This for-profit sector is not the main system in Germany, however.

Whenever I hear about getting run over by a buy, I think of my catholic school education about confession and getting hit by a bus right after it and going straight to heaven…..

But since I have a $10,000 family deductable, whcih means I am more than fully prepared to cover the first $10,000 a year (well with an HSA), I assume that the hit by a bus thing will cost me more than $10k….so take me to the nearest one…

but what would be so wrong with niemann marcuss and wal mart hospitals.

I had a terrible time reaching the News page but then was advised to clear my clear COOKIES…not just clear my cache. Have you tried that?

It certainly isn’t you, and it can be cured.

“The right has a problem with the Canadian system coming out of general revenues is truly horrendous.”

But not taxpayer funding the DOD to defend us from loss of limb and/or life?

What is the difference there?

If everyone prior to being born had the option of designing themselves, personal responsibility arguments could perhaps be acceptable. You are a fluke, and merely have arrogated luck to yourself as some personal achievement.

as I just replied to ralphbon

“I had a terrible time reaching the News page but then was advised to clear my clear COOKIES…not just clear my cache. Have you tried that?

It certainly isn’t you, and it can be cured.”

Calling it a direct profit line to wall street is just blatantly false and the kind of generalization that the republicans use. We’re the smart ones I thought. Save that stuff for the other team.

Where are the cost controls? Without any real cost controls, how is this NOT a direct profit line to Wall Street? They’ve made in mandatory that we all send money to Wall Street, and if we can’t afford it, Uncle Sam will help us all send money to Wall Street.

And with no cost controls, there appears to be no limit on how much money eventually gets sent to Wall Sreet.

And if we refuse to send our tribute to Wall Street? Why then we’re PENALIZED.

Jeebus, I can’t for the life of me get how any liberal, progressive, or Democrat can justify this. And once the precedent gets set that it’s ok for the government to mandate all it’s citizen’s purchase this particular service from private entities, whoa daddy, the lobbyists will be coming out of the woodworks to convince future Congresses and Presidents that their particular good/service is so important to “the Public Good” that it too deserves a mandate.

Nope, this liberal or progressive (sorry, I’m never again calling myself a Democrat) wants no part whatsoever of this shit. I’ve called and emailed my Senators so many times in the past two weeks I’ve gotten on a first name basis with one lady in Sen. Webb’s office.

To no avail, I’m sure. I’m sure this pile of shit will be passed and signed. And I hope all of those that support it are still around 20 years from now when we’re still fighting for health care reform to answer some questions.

If you don’t have a job, get a job, or start your own job. If you really are not able to pursue any form of gainful employment, go to your support network, whcih could be your family, or church or neighbourhood. Those poeple can properly assess your situation, your needs adn the like.

I am sort of amazed how much the people on this site base their world view off the worst of the worst case scenarious. I don’t understand how so many people with no job and no income have access to the web (I guess they have internet for free at the library) and the time to spend on this site.

While people are gainfully employed, whcih still tends to be the majority of the time, they should be living a lifestyle and setting aside enough money for rainy days.

The system should let people choose and keep their insurance irrespective of their job…..and people who have a computer and an ipod and claim they don’t have money for health insurance, I just can’t take seriously.

Can’t recommend your Ref 2 (the six-parter by Kip S) too highly. Indispensable for anyone interested in the deep dark history of HCR circa, you know, 2008.

Not insane @ all from a Corporatist AKA Fascistic point of view. If I owned or ran a huge Health Care Ins. Company why would I ever ever ever allow my bacon to taken right out of my mouth by a bunch of easily bought whores AKA politicians? Insane is not spending a few bucks to make sure my billions are secure forever. Better yet, having my paid for lackeys AKA politicians create a system where everyone has to buy my crappy product like it or lump it. Then to add a cherry on top of this delightful sundae how about I call this new law “expanding coverage.” Orwell would blush.

It’s not a bailout, it’s a money boon to the corporate masters.

happened to me too and rbg had me reset safari (which did clear my cookies among other things). worked a charm.

Yeah, I know. The frustrating thing is I’d bet someone like you or… well, probably anyone, could sit here in five minutes and have it fixed. But I’m just not smart enough.

And yeah, we’ve been back & forth with the tech guys. Cleared out all sorts of things, upgraded to IE8, tried lots and lots of stuff. This computer of mine is just weird I guess. *G*

there’s a helluva a lot of people losing their jobs through forces waAay beyond their control. You seem to be securely employed, you are fortunate. Not everyone on this planet is.

BTW ralphbon, how old is your computer? And is it a Dell?

You are an elitist. GET A JOB? Where? Ford is asking 41,000 of its workers to take early retirement for example ! Do you not read what is going on? You are one of those “I’ve got mine, tough about you” people – disgusting.

It’s a weird glitch involving IE 8 and Windows XP. Nothing to do with caches. All FDL sites are readily accessible except the Seminal. The problem arose spontaneously in August or September.

I found a workaround (for myself and OFG) by using “InPrivate” browsing. Now whenever I visit FDL (or at least if I think I’m going to go to the Seminal), I switch to InPrivate, and all is well.

I’ve had expensive life threatening cancer. Those 2 years were $150k+ in treatment…that would have been a stretch to pay myself and with the family…..That is why I have insurance, to cover that which I canÄ cover myself. But the $950 a year my family averages in health care bills is definitely somehting I can handle, adn I would assume most people can.

My problem with the candian system is that someone who earns a taxable income of $10 million in Canada (and I have no problem with someone earning whatever they earn), they would be paying about $4.5 million in taxes,a dn about 20% of that is going to health care, so that person would be paying $900k for health care, adn getting a pretty shitty system for their money.

I don’t buy the “they can afford it” argument, it has no very good moral or philosophical underpinning.

If history is any lesson (and it is), this will blow the doors wide open. This is the most massive baby step in the history of legislation, and we need to look at it in the proper perspective.

Barack, is that you?

Can’t recommend your Ref 2 (the six-parter by Kip S) too highly. Indispensable for anyone interested in the deep dark history of HCR circa, you know, 2008.

thought i shouldn’t claim two “must reads” in one thread or no one will ever pay any attention to my links. so, i’m not saying this one is a “must read” (my link @4 already has that designation). but i’ll repeat the links to kip’s six-parter, just in case anyone is interested *g*

Two-thirds of Americans support Medicare-for-all part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6

Yeah, it started all at once, but I must say, I was still on IE 7 when it first happened. I upgraded to IE8 in an attempt to fix it.

But yeah, just like you said. I could go to The Seminal fine forever and then BLAM, no more. Yet all the other sites up there work fine. And when I’m on my laptop, that gets there just fine and dandy like always. It’s just this ole Dell dog that don’t wanna play at the Seminal anymore (unless I go into InPrivate Browsing).

Let me slightly rephrase, but over all you seem to have avoided the gist of my post.

Are you ok with taxpayer funding the DOD to defend us from loss of limb and/or life?

What is the significant difference between DOD and Health Care where security of life and limb are concerned, in relation to taxes?

If everyone prior to being born had the option of designing themselves, personal responsibility arguments could perhaps be acceptable. You are a fluke, and merely have arrogated luck to yourself as some personal achievement. Is it not so?

I know there are lots of people losing their jobs. In lots of social democratic countries there are systemic unemployment rates of around 10%. I feel badly for anyone this happens to. I think a system that links your insurance to your job is doubly troubling, but I think that one that puts everyone on the public dole is more morally indefensible. As I said, i am from the right.

Let people buy their own insurance, definitely come up with a system to give a short term amnesty for pre-existing conditions and let people buy in to the system of their choice…get rid of the ste line restrictions and the state minimum mandates, adn let people make thier decisions, whether they want chiropractic, or whatever….

But let people keep their insurance after losing a job, and if they thought their job is insecure then take an insurance whose rate you cna cover in case you have sigificantly less income. COBRA ain’t right. Let me buy my insurance at age 18, and keep it as long as I want…..through 5 or 6 jobs….right through to retirment or whatever…..I can definitely get on board with the left on consumer protections, and barring insurance companies from kicking out paying customers who develop a condition….

I have worked extensively in developing countries and in eastenr europe,a dn I have seen people thrown into hardship by no fault of their own, but I also see the industrious of people.

The public option is a must for true competition and especially if they are actually going to force people to buy it. Are current system sucks and we rank 13th in the world in life expectancy and our insurance costs TWICE as much. We are the only civilized country in the world that dose not provide it’s citizens with quality low cost insurance. Buying insurance across state line is a great idea only if the likes of Ben Nelson were not in the senate to remove the anti-trust (which prevents price fixing) and the public option. Did a hear that? Not only did Ben Nelson want the public option gone he was also responsible for removing the anti-trust from the bill. Not ONE republican sponsored the anti-trust amendment,NOT ONE, twas 18 Democratic senators that added the amendment only to have it pulled by good old Ben for his support.

The DOD does not defend us from loss of life or limb. We aren’t being threatened on our home soil (except for possible terrorism, from which the DOD doesn’t really protect us).

I would more likely agree with the DOD protecting our liberty than our life. And yes, the DOD protecting the liberty of all the american people is something that can come out of general revenues. But health care, just like food or clothing, are not things that should come fromt eh government or be funded through general tax revenues.

Kill the damn bill!

There are places around the world where people privately buy services such as military defense, police and fire protection, etc.

They’re known as “Tribal Warlord Societies.” Maybe you’d prefer to try living in one.

“health care, just like food or clothing, are not things that should come from teh government or be funded through general tax revenues.”
___

Every other comparable industrialized nation disagrees with you. And, they achieve better aggregate clinical outcomes at roughly half the per capita cost.

imo, there can be no health care reform without disengaging insurance coverage from employment, the time for that is long past. Employers are no longer loyal to their employees and employees are no longer loyal to their employers.

There is a myth that the public option was only a tiny idea blown out of proportion for symbolic reasons. The public option was never going to be truly tiny, it was only going to be small at its inception. It is not because it was “weak,” it was just strongly caged in. But even the largest redwood tree starts out as a very small seed.

Where is this myth? The condition seems quite the opposite in reality. An idea that was only novel for its magnitude (130+ Million people), because its foundation is completely broken; competitive markets in risk-pooling make smaller pools, and are thus less efficient.

This idea was then watered down to essential irrelevance (House bill), and is being championed symbolically as the necessary counter-balance (despite it’s functional irrelevance) to the individual-mandate-only route (Senate bill).

In fact, in Jane’s post about, “Why Continue to Fight For a Public Option?” symbolism seemed to be the only coherent argument:

Of course, all of this completely sidesteps the greater argument for a continued fight. The public option battle has become a proxy war over who controls government, whether Congress has the slightest responsibility to reflect the will of the public, whether Democrats from Obama on down can just casually abandon their campaign promises in the wake of unrelenting influence peddling and whether progressives are going to take a stand for something and refuse to back down.

I have to agree that this piece sounds like a post facto rationalization, and with all due respect; not a very cogent one.

Whatever.

“Rent seeking generally implies the extraction of uncompensated value from others without making any contribution to productivity, such as by gaining control of land and other pre-existing natural resources, or by imposing burdensome regulations or other government decisions that may affect consumers or businesses.

While there may be few people in modern industrialized countries who do not gain something, directly or indirectly, through some form or another of rent seeking, rent seeking in the aggregate can impose substantial losses on society.

Studies of rent seeking focus on efforts to capture special monopoly privileges such as government regulation of free enterprise competition

[...]

Rent, by contrast with these two, is obtained when a third party deprives one party to a transaction of access to otherwise accessible transaction opportunities, making nominally “consensual” transactions a rent-collection opportunity for the third party.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking

that is not true. Most western industrialized countries + Japan have systems that require a vast majority of people to have health care coverage, certainly not all of them are paying for it through public coffers. The Gemran and French system are both done with varuous private companies runnign insurance programs within quite strict government guidelinesm, with the french ahving a vast array of additional private insurance add on options and the german system having a dual system. Definitely not all countries do it like Canda or the UK where it comes out of general tax revenue coffers.

LOL, Shorter fromtheright:

“Let them eat cake!”

“And yes, the DOD protecting the liberty of all the american people is something that can come out of general revenues.”

Is there a limit on the budget?

How about the Homeland Security Department. What are they protecting? Did the twin Towers result in some fucking occupation of the US? Were we upset and freaked out about the safety of our liberty or about the loss of life and limb?

damn right on that.

They shouldn’t be overly loyal to each other either. It is not in their best interests, or int eh general best interest.

You should choose your own insurance system, which should be able to travel with you from state to state and job to job…..when you are young and healthy you should be able to pick and choose whoever gives you the best service and value….and if you should have a pre-existing condition, which makes you difficult to insure in almost any country with any sort o private insurance, then the company you signed up with should be forced to keep you at the rates you signed in at (with COLA adjustments)

Dinner awaits, I am off for the night….but glad I could go out agreeing with someone….

You must not know many people who are self-employed.

Did you just say that the German and French governments aren’t paying for health care out of their general tax coffers?

The problem with K-Drums’s analysis is the absence of a strong regulatory framework, as in Switzerland, to enforce guaranteed issue or any other of the bill’s reform provisions — and the proven history of grossly inadequate, easily subverted regulation of insurance markets & products in the U.S.

Absolutely. Merely legislating community rating and universal access, while leaving the insurance industry in place with hundreds of billions of dollars more to undermine the process is just like something Drum would support. He would probably also support legislating community rating and universal access to credit, while leaving too-big-to-fail banks in place.

Do you understnd the term “progressive taxation”?

And do you believe that taxing investment income at a lower rate than wages is proper and correct?

Do you think a person earning $10 million uses more of the commons, consumes more of other people’s labor and health, and they should pay for their consumption and their use of the commons?

I decided to leave the site for the day agreeing with edward, but the whole defense department awars in iraq argument have absolutely nothing to do with health care.

Whether you agree with the current wars or not has little to do with health care reform.

I don’t share the protectionist island mentality that a lot of people here do. America is the beacon of light and liberty in the world, and I have travelled and worked in at least 50 different countries, adn I view all people in the world as equal. So america liberating people form tyranny is somehting that probably is worthwhile, adn more countries should do it too…..but every expenditure has limits….I enjoy a frappucino, I would probably drink a lot more for $1 than for $4..at $10 i wouldn’t drink any….

Now I really am off, or my wife will kill me!

enjoy your meal

Not about health security – life and limb, – yet, I seem to remember Tom Ridge offering to protect our Liberties with duct tape!?

woohoo!

Son, I have studied this in far more detail than you (including giving fair voice to David Goldhill and John Mackey). And I am fully aware of the German/Swiss Model. As I concluded:

Where do I come down? Net, (and guardedly), “Single Payer / Medicare for All” (all not otherwise covered by the active DOD or VA systems) But, I could live with a “Swiss Model” system, perhaps to exist alongside our current long-functioning single payer systems — (VA and Medicare) — the latter perhaps expanded to permit lower age enrollment as a de facto “public option” without being structured as means-tested “welfare” with a wasteful “corporate welfare” “affordability eligibility” vetting process. (And under that scenario I would subsume Medicaid under Medicare, and do away with the former).

So, I’m not gonna bog down in a red herring pissing contest with you over the various mechanical options toward getting to true universal health care. But, continuation of a for-profit actuarial model “insurance” intermediary industry is not gonna get us there. The current legislative direction is simply a toxic combination of corporate welfare and overt means-tested “welfare.”

I think any plan that involves the elimination of private healthcare insurance companies will fail.

It simply will not happen. I kind of have to tune you out when you start with that as the foundation of your position. For profit health insurance companies are going nowhere. Not simply because of their lobbies, but also because you’d effectively be putting trillions of dollars in investments and millions of people out of work.

Just from a practical perspective, it is not going to occur.

Oldfatguy,

Did it give a message that said something like database access error? I got that a few times a couple of weeks ago but it stopped. I don’t know why.

About the public option. I still want one. I still want single payer. I still wanted the public option after it was watered down at the request of the health insurance lobby. I disagree that the bill is worse than nothing. If you don’t agree take a look at this link. If you don’t agree with it, you will at least have the jump on people who may be bringing up its points in future arguments you may have. However this turns out let’s not get triangulated over here on the left. We still agree about more than we disagree about.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/28/where-road-health-reform-began

I don’t really understand a lot of the overtly dismissive retorts to your post. There are some functional gaps in knowledge and theory that I think can be filled by this: Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care (PDF)

It makes a strong case, perhaps an absolute case, that healthcare provision should be treated essentially like a public utility, and in fact that because of the distinct imbalances between the necessary countervailing forces for a functional competitive market, there’s really no other way to offer healthcare provision effectively except as a public utility.

Anyway, there’s a lot to learn in there, and honestly a lot of the people that have responded to you thus far could gather something useful from it as well.

For the German there is 7.5% of a persons wage (this is all for the public insurance companies) that the employer pays on top of the wage to the insurance company, adn the employee pays 7.5% of his wages, up to a maximum of about $10k a year, and that funds about 94% of the expenditures of the soem 125 public insurance companies. Trust me, I lived and worked there for more than 5 years, and all of my wifes family still does.

There is a shortfall for the public companies that is made up out of genral tax revenues,a dn that is a pretty recent phenomena, adn the reason for it is political expediency,a dn because they don’t dare raise the rate from 15% to the 17.5% or so it would need to be, or they won’T cut the coverage as much as would need to be done….

This si the main problem with all entitlement progrmas, and how they bankrupt a nation….

Please read my comments at 38. Then answer the questions. Thanks.

And

Do you believe saving the health insurance companies from loss of customers because medical provider keep increasing prices will save the jobs at the health insurance companies when it is not possible to deny claims, and all comers must be accepted?

“you’d effectively be putting trillions of dollars in investments and millions of people out of work.”
___

The only people at risk of employment would be the economic terrorists represented by Karen Ignagni.

Not that I disagree with your observation about it “not going to happen” — just your false dichotomy framing.

I would also recommend Einer Elhauge’s 1994 “Allocating Health Care Morally“.

I think most of here would agree with you that it’s not practicle today.

FDL from the beginning has been supporting a Public Option over Single Payer (even to the point of banning some Single Payer proponent posters, if I read the threads here correctly recently). Jane acted as pragmatically as anyone. It wasn’t until the Public Option, and every other real tooth in the bill was removed (like ending the anti-trust exemption, killing the reimportation of drugs, etc. etc) that Jane decided it had gotton so bad it wasn’t worth supporting. I agree (although IMO the House bill is also that bad, so she would disagree with me on that).

But the point is, I think most folks here are rationale enough to know that the chances of doing away with for profit insurance companies right now were slim and none.

But what we didn’t expect, and we can’t tolerate (IMO), is that this bill not only does NOTHING in moving us eventually away from these for-profit monsters, but it actually makes eventually getting rid them harder, if not impossible, and it’s entirely unacceptable (IMO) that we be mandated to be a customer of these monsters that have been responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths and untold suffering.

“false dichotomy framing.
”

I’ve seen it so many times from people who want to make a dishonest argument, I just can’t get interested in discussing it with them. It’s insulting.

It is quite possible to reasonably disagree on whether the Senate bill is any kind of improvement, and I’d wager that most FDL users don’t believe it’s an improvement. In fact, from what I’ve read, most posters seem to agree that the bill as it stands is just a money-funnel from the taxpayers to Aetna/Cigna/etc. When you couple that belief with the (reality) that Obama and Rahm met with at least PhRMA (if not AHIP… did they meet with AHIP?) early this year and apparently hashed out a deal about what could and could not be in the bill, leads to an incredible feeling of betrayal on one hand (essentially, they made a deal with the people who got us INTO this mess and allowed THEM to dictate the terms… shades of what’s happening with the financial industry, and civil liberties cleanup, and… everything else) and a strong resolution to break the current bill, for both pragmatic and political reasons.

The pragmatic reasons are simple: most of us believe that the current bill will do more harm than good. We can argue until the cows come home about if that’s true or not, and honestly that’s more the domain of the policy wonks than me, but it’s a very legitimate debate that is far from settled. Even triumphant proclamations from the WH that this bill will “fix health care!!!!!11!!” do not settle the debate, because anyone can assert anything; the proof is in the pudding.

The political reasons for killing the bill are more interesting to me. Cruickshank’s recent post on progressive politics nailed the issue spot on, for me. Progressives have allowed themselves to be locked into a few simple tactics that roll us, again and again. We allow the neo-liberals (such as Obama, Clinton, Rahm, etc. — all the super corporate-friendly Democrats) to frame progressive demands as “crazy” and “unrealistic” (or as Greenwald puts it, “un-Serious”). You do it yourself by calling progressive fight for a PO unrealistic. It seems to be an almost reflexive response to requests from the left — what we want is “unrealistic;” only More of the Same is pragmatically possible. We must break this cycle of allowing the corporatists to frame the debate if we ever want to see any progressive legislation happen. Other variations on this theme are talking about legislative “sausage making,” the “razor thin Senate margins” (so how come 15-20 Blue Dogs carry ten times the weight of 10-15 progressives? how come their thin wedge is so much more powerful than our thin wedge? why does nobody outside of the progressive blogosphere seem to ask that question?), and the “realities of how legislation get passed.” All of this are just sort of condescending ways of shutting up progressives without ever really considering our requests, and we have to break that cycle. If that means damaging Obama politically, so be it — in my book, progressive desires for social justice, a safety net, civil liberties, transparency, and so on are, far from being “unrealistic,” actually far more important than the temporary fates of Democrats in Congress or the White House right now. In fact, if Republicans would advance these goals, I’d happily vote (R) — I care for the outcome, not the party.

Similarly, you trotted out the canard that we must pass this bill NOW. “We must do this NOW! NOW! NOW! Stop thinking and DO IT!” is exactly how the Iraq war and the financial bailout and every OTHER recent legislative travesty has been sold. WHY do we have to do health care reform now? A favorite argument of the “keep the bill” crowd is “well sure, it’s not perfect, but we can fix it!” Uh, well, if we can fix it in the future, why can’t we get it right, now? And if we’re going to be able to re-address health care reform in the hypothetical future, why do we still have such huge urgency to pass this current C.F. of a bill RIGHT NOW, STOP, DON’T THINK, JUST SIGN ON THE DOTTED LINE! Do you see how that sort of pushing us to stop questioning, to suddenly all fall in line and vote for a bill that happens to, oh just coincidentally, represent a MASSIVE new influx of cash for a group of corporations that, oh just coincidentally, happy to be major lobbyist contributors to the DLC folks… do you see how that makes many of us want to put on the brakes and think about this a bit more?

Your arguments are clearly stated and mostly non-insulting, and I thank you for that; after Nate Silver calling us akin to global warming denialists, after the White House lashing out at anybody and everybody who is urging caution and care at this point, a less directly insulting approach is refreshing.

But I still can’t buy your argument on its face. It is too full of canards that have been shot down elsewhere (and far better than I can in this book-length post!)

that is not true. Most western industrialized countries + Japan have systems that require a vast majority of people to have health care coverage, certainly not all of them are paying for it through public coffers.

Japan’s system is essentially a single payer system where the payers happen to be private. Yes, they’re nominally separate from the government, but they’re non-profit and do not behave like insurance companies in the United States. They do not compete.

The Gemran and French system are both done with varuous private companies runnign insurance programs within quite strict government guidelinesm,

You are simply wrong about France, which has a single-payer system. The insurance funds are at least mostly run by the government.

with the french ahving a vast array of additional private insurance add on options and the german system having a dual system.

Stop being asinine. Germany’s system is much less of a “dual system” than the US having Medicare makes it a “dual system.” It’s a non-profit system with exceptions made for those above a certain income level, and about 10% of the population chooses to opt out. And many countries have additional, supplemental private insurance. Canada certainly does.

That does not change the fact that the basic system is non-profit.

I suggest reading The Healing of America by T.R. Reid, if you actually want to know the facts.

The premise: Health care is a right.
The Mission:
Efficient, timely delivery of high quality health care to the individual based on need.
The Solution:

____.

House conference negotiators need to argue for all their bill’s elements, but know (before going in) which they would give up on (trade for the Senate version(s) ) in order to get the Public Option. And, it wouldn’t hurt to have discussions with the Blue Dogs (and even Republicans) to get their views on such a deal. As before, we need 60 votes for cloture, but there’s no reason it has to be the same Dems & Independents we got earlier.

Music to my ears, Jon. Nice bit of myth-busting.

I agree: this goes to the very nature of our shared way of being in this world. The question is, what’s the fundamental unit of our political economy? Are we consumers or citizens?

I want our basic way of being American to be as self-sovereign citizens, not mere appetites on two legs.

I don’t want to go into a for-profit market for my health care. I want a highly professional organization, staffed by dedicated public servants, funded by my tax dollars. That’s what it means, to me, to be a self-sovereign citizen, asserting my rights, as a genuine human being.

In a market, I’m just a consumer, a mere appetite on two legs, blindly competing with other appetites for scarce resources etc. Social Darwinism, outdated and discredit though it may be, still governs that world.

The myths of free market fundamentalism have delivered us into this Waste Land. That paradigm has shattered, says Robert Johnson in an interview with The Real News Network’s Paul Jay, but its zombie is still in charge.

JAY: So why do you guys want to fix this?

JOHNSON: Well, ’cause I think that you view life as more than just what you make personally and financially, and I think Mr. Soros is very strong in his belief that we’ve been way, way off course since the late ’70s, in this era of free market fundamentalism, and he would like to see the world organized in a way that’s much more productive for the economy and for the people of the world as a whole.

JAY: So what’s this institute going to do?

JOHNSON: It’s bringing together many of the leading academics from various different camps—the post-Keynesians, some of the Chicago school, some political scientists, some biologists, some regulatory officials. And we all agree, meaning 20 or 30 people that are on the board, that the current paradigm has been shattered and that it doesn’t breathe with the life of what you might call inspiration from the real events in the world, it’s not empirically well grounded, and its theoretical predictions, while being internally consistent mathematically, don’t describe the planet on which we live. So we’d like to build a community to come together to resolve what you might say where the next direction is [inaudible]

What’s the way out of a Waste Land of mythic proportions? This is it, what we’re doing right here and now, busting their opinion-jacking myths even as they’re firing on us, defining for ourselves what it means to be an American citizen.

We’ve been fooled into believing in ourselves as stick figure stand-ins for citizens (consumers, employees, Libs, Dems, Republicans, what have you), and are right now being swindled out of our birthright: Medicare for all; for less than a mess of pottage.

Jacking us with carefully crafted myths has been our elite’s MO.
Fooling us into acting as anything other than citizens is their most insidious weapon of mass destruction. So IMO, not falling for this Sith mind trick is Step 1.

What’s it gonna be, America? Are we consumers, or are we citizens?

If it is “intellectually dishonest” for the Obama admin to pretend that health care reform is a “static” thing (and I actually haven’t seen the Obamas make that arg, but to your point), isn’t it just as intellectually dishonest to complain when this legislation’s supporters claim it can always be improved in the near future? Isn’t that an example of them agreeing with the premise that health care reform can, should, and will grow into something far better than the current legislation offers?

Agree 100% with todayslies. If you pass the current health care bill and create a robust individual market for health insurance, along with the OPM-directed health care plans, then your chances of being able to add a public option into the mix later on greatly increase. If, OTOH, you kill the Senate bill now, the chances of creating a new bill with a public option in the foreseeable future are exactly zero.

Proponents of killing the bill – if they actually believe the bill should be killed and are not just pretending to believe that to shift the conversation to the left – basically ignore political consequences of their preferred actions. Which is their right, but it demonstrates that they have an naive and immature view of politics.

Allow me to disabuse you of the simplistic notion that killing the Senate bill, and defeating health care reform, are one and the same thing. For starters, the Senate already has passed their version. There’s nothing there to kill.

I for one don’t want the final bill to contain measures like the mandate, because that converts us from self-sovereign citizens into unwilling consumers. Getting jacked into being some modern robber baron’s cash cow, under the color of law and “good governance,” is not my idea of living the American dream.

“If you pass the current health care bill and create a robust individual market for health insurance, along with the OPM-directed health care plans, then your chances of being able to add a public option into the mix later on greatly increase”
___

That is the flimsiest of baseless speculation. It is equally — if not more — likely that what little “improvement” is contained in this legislation will be quietly gutted not too long after the ink has dried, particularly should the GOP make appreciable mid-year election gains.

Let’s assume for a moment that we are inhabitants of a country where the government has been granted a single role: to reflect and codify the wishes of its people above all else.

Imagine the reaction when the public learned that they were being required by their government in express opposition to their wishes to comply with the following:

-to forego their desire to have a single entity manage the cost of their health care bills and instead be made to pay twice the rate to private companies so they could profit, at their expense;

-be forced to pay these insurers for policies whether they wanted to or not for the sole purpose of enriching these companies;

-have the benefits of these same policies taxed in order that their access to health services be reduced;

-be disallowed to bargain for the cost of the medicines they are forced to buy from suppliers so that these may be enriched;

- and on and on.

Well since no reaction was forthcoming from the people then any neutral observer would remark, well what are they waiting for? Is it possible they could be so cowardly as to not react? Or so stupid as to not notice the extent to which they are being taken for fools? What is going on?

Well I think that we all know which country we are dealing with here. And after having left no stone unturned which all revealed one outrage after the next, it is time I think to answer this neutral observer’s very pointed questions.

What exactly are we prepared to do about all this?

If the bill is killed, the issue is still alive and well. And can parlayed into action in next year’s mid-terms (where I would love to see the Democrats nationalize the election around health care). If this piece of shit passes, then the issue is dead, because any attempt to even tweak it won’t occur until 2015 at the earliest, since it doesn’t even take effect until 2014. And it’ll be even further down the road before real reform ever gets done.

I do hope the bill is killed. Because passing this bill will kill any more attempts at real reform for another generation. At the least. It’s the same result that’s always happened. It’s been tried by several Presidents and failed. Well this time they got smarter and realized the same old “failure” wouldn’t work. So they came up with this piece of shit, that does nothing to proved health care to people that need it (it provides health insurance, not health care. lot’s of folks with insurance now that can’t afford health care because of the co-pays and deductibles); that sets a horrible precedent of forcing us to be consumers of a particular industry’s good (and once that precedent is set, look out); and that puts off anymore reform for years by initially waiting 4 years to even kick in (during which, btw, another 100,000 folks will die due to lack of health care); and ultimately does what the same thing that happened to the other attempts, fails to reform health care for another 20-40 years.

I say not no, but HELL NO. Enough. I don’t expect Single Payer (though if they would nationalize the elections around that I’d bet it would do better than anyone is giving it credit for), but I do expect better than this. And we CAN get better than this. You can call me naive and immature all you want. If my belief that we CAN do better than this is naive and immature, then guilty, and what the hell was Obama’s “YES WE CAN” mantra was all about then?

I am a citizen of America. Like most folks, I’m not crazy about paying taxes, but I understand that’s part of the compact — the responsibility that goes with being a citizen of this (or any other) country.

I am NOT a citizen of Blue Cross / Blue Shield, Anthem, Aetna, Wellpoint, or any of these other entities. They are Corporations — businesses — and they have demonstrated repeatedly that they will gladly take my hard-earned money and give me next to squat in return. I am not a citizen of Glaxo SmithKlein or any of these other pharmaceutical companies which have negotiated secret deals with MY government in exchange for being allowed to gouge us even worse.

I am an American. I will gladly pay my government extra in taxes, if that’s what it takes, for them to provide me with decent health care when I need it. I will gladly pay even when I don’t need it — because my fellow citizens might need medical treatment and cannot afford to pay much or even anything. I stand with my fellow citizens — and yes, with those who are visiting our great country — because with great wealth and opportunity (as our country has, in a collective sense) comes equally great responsibility.

I never swore allegiance to the flag of the Monopolistic Corporations of America. I never promised to uphold, protect and defend the quarterly earnings for preferred stock shareholders. I did not give my loyalty to any business, company, corporation, or conglomerate.

I’m an American, dammit. If my contributions are necessary through lawfully enacted taxes to help provide for the common welfare of myself and everybody else — fine. I will NOT give fealty to a Corporation and will be damned before I give them one dime in extorted blood money.

Bring on the IRS penalty. I’d rather pay that.

This is only true of a strong public option, whose aim is effectively to force private insurers out of business. Otherwise, selise’s standpoint seems right to me.

And of course that aim is ideological! Our basic view is that health care cannot be run for profit and we are seeking ways to stop it from being. Right?

Sturdy old IBM Thinkpad from the pre-Lenovo days (2005).

Well maybe (just maybe) we’re onto something with respect to age. This old Dell is a 2002 model.

Wonder if there was some upgrade at The Seminal that “older” machines, for whatever reason, don’t tolerate??

If it’s a dumb question, it’s ok to call me out on it, and call me dumb. I am dumb when it comes to computers, well, I suppose on more than just computers too. *g*

oh right on. that very thing never fails to piss me off. out of one side of their mouths the bill is so critically important “because we arent likely to get another chance” and out the other side “its a starting point, we’ll improve it later” YOU LIE!

I think that defiance of the government is the right way to proceed. In your case non-compliance with the mandate. I think that the mandate by the government to buy private insurance is by far the most dangerous provision and should not be adhered to as long as one’s health permits.

But I quibble with your being bound by a compact with the government. I do not for a minute believe that. There is no sacred obligation from actual people to an amorphous construct such as the state. We have only a duty to promote the well fare of ourselves and others. To accomplish that we make rules to assure that well being. We leave the task to others to codify those rules and to apply them, that’s it.

If people start to write rules we have no say over and we say we don’t want, then we are not bound to obey them. Our obligation is to care for ourselves and others. We are not serfs, we are not the subjects of any one group of people in the government. What we are supposed to do when faced with onerous madates from government is to disobey them and make it known that we do not recognize their power to act against our rights and well being.

I have zero allegiance to people making these onerous rules.

No, our aim is to destroy peoples sense of hope and belief in justice, install puppet leaders to do our bidding, incarcerate those who would disagree, enrich ourselves on the country’s resources and require the commoners to pay us tribute.

Oh wait.

“If the bill is killed, the issue is still alive and well. And can parlayed into action in next year’s mid-terms (where I would love to see the Democrats nationalize the election around health care).”

I don’t know how the Dems can profit by nationalizing the election around health care in next year’s midterms, after having failed to pass anything this year with control of the White House, the House and the Senate. Voters are just going to view them as incompetent failures at that point.

that sets a horrible precedent of forcing us to be consumers of a particular industry’s good (and once that precedent is set, look out);

That precedent has already been set by requiring drivers to have auto insurance. Few but the most extreme libertarians at this point argue that this requirement is a general good.

Our basic view is that health care cannot be run for profit and we are seeking ways to stop it from being. Right?

My basic view is that quality health care must be affordable and available to everyone, regardless of pre-existing or current conditions. If a private company can do that well, I have no problem with that. That they generally haven’t in the past doesn’t mean we can’t regulate them into doing so in the near future. We simply have not been regulating the private health care industry in any meaningful way in this coutnry.

Eventually, the regulations will make them quasi-public institutions anyway, as the profit motive will become drained out of the private insurance game.

oh right on. that very thing never fails to piss me off. out of one side of their mouths the bill is so critically important “because we arent likely to get another chance” and out the other side “its a starting point, we’ll improve it later” YOU LIE!

Is this how you always “debate” people who generally agree with you–calling them “liars” because of disagreement on a small point? That’s kind of a shame.

I would call single payer the foundational premise.

The public option was the “next best thing”.

This is nothing like the car insurance rules.

You are not forced to purchase car insurance. You can choose to not own a car and walk, bike, call a cab, or use public transportation.

No, this is the first time people will be forced to purchase something from private entities.

This is nothing like the car insurance rules.

You are not forced to purchase car insurance. You can choose to not own a car and walk, bike, call a cab, or use public transportation.

In most parts of the country, you are unable to arrive at any important destination (work, school, hospitals, etc.) within a reasonable amount of time without a car. And I’d be surprised if you knew anyone who takes a cab to work. I don’t.

As it is, people will not be “forced to” purchase health insurance. They will be forced to pay 2% of their income until they purchase a health care plan that costs no more than 8% of their income.

In many ways, accepting the penalty is the best deal of all under the pending legislation. Under our current system, if you wait to purchase individual health insurance until you become so ill that you desperately need it, you’ll likely be rejected out of hand. Under the new legislation, you could wait to buy into the insurance plan right up until you needed it, and only pay 2% instead of 8%. And no one could deny you. So no one actually will be forced to purchase insurance they don’t plan on using.

Sweet! We get to pay 2% of our incomes for nothing!

And then that 8% will be unregulated and with tons of co-pays that one still can’t afford, since there are no cost controls!

I think I can sell that to the electorate!

/snark

Sweet! We get to pay 2% of our incomes for nothing!

And then that 8% will be unregulated and with tons of co-pays that one still can’t afford, since there are no cost controls!

I think I can sell that to the electorate!

/snark

It’s still far better than our current system. And it can and will be improved upon. And that is the whole point.

It’s like outlawing homelessness by making you rent or buy something you already can’t afford.

That is the point.

Naw, probably not even better than the current system. Perhaps a little better for the few million that might get some care that don’t now, but worse for the few million that will see the quality of their employer provided health insurance decline. Probably quite a bit worse for all of us when this precedent of the government being able to mandate all of it’s citizens become customers of a certain industry (cause once THAT precedent is set, lobbyists for every other industry will be working overtime to try and convince future Presidents and Congresses that their good/service should be mandated too), and an industry with an anti-trust exemption so that they can in theory legally get together and price fix no less!!!!

I do know one group that it will be very, very, very good for. The health insurance companies and their CEO’s, which is why health insurance stocks are at all time highs now. You wouldn’t happen to be employed by one of those companies or their lobbying companies, would you?

And as for what the voters will do next year if the Dems don’t pass anything? Well that’s nothing compared to what voters next year are going to do if the DO pass this pile of shit. My entire family and extended familiy and close friends that have always voted and supported Democrats in the past are in unison saying they’re either not voting next year, or some are even saying they’ll vote for the Rethugs. And I’ll be right there with them.

And the Democrats will deserve the massive losses they suffer next year too.

If you don’t (as I suspect) have some financial motive for supporting this and are a real progressive (or Democrat), then I’m sure we’ll agree on far more issues than we disagree on. Just too bad this is one of those we disagree on. I hope you have a pleasant evening, and a wonderful, safe, and Happy New Year.

It’s like outlawing homelessness by making you rent or buy something you already can’t afford.

Except that the very low-income are going to have access to Medicaid, the next rung are going to be heavily subsidized, etc. Do the subsidies need improvement? Of course. Is starting over from scratch a better way to make that happen? I respectfully but strongly disagree. I think it is critical that we prove major health care legislation can be passed in this country again, and build on that existing structure.

Dr. Dean’s bill in 2004 had no public option, and covered far fewer people. It was the furthest left of the major candidates’ bills. No progressives complained then. Politics is the art of the possible.

You wouldn’t happen to be employed by one of those companies or their lobbying companies, would you?

You know, I was reading your post, taking your arguments seriously, not questioning your motives, and then I came across this rather gratuitous sentence questioning mine. Please question my positions and my arguments, not my motives.

If you must know, I am a Systems Administrator for the I.T. Dept. of a large law firm. I have excellent employer-based health care, and it will probably get hit by the excise tax. I am firmly behind Congress merging these bills, getting the House to improve upon the Senate bill as much as possible (national exchange over a state-by-state exchange, etc.), and getting it signed into law so that the next big fight can begin.

I’m not comparing with some bill or failed effort in a previous time or cycle, so who complained or didn’t complain about any of that is immaterial to today’s debate.

However, since you brought it up, women’s reproductive rights weren’t restricted in Dean’s 2004 effort as they are in either the house or Senate version of today’s climate.

This bill is regressive on more than just the monetary front; it’s money and women’s rights that are being talked about in this legislation, not actual CARE!

It’s not reform. It’s not health. It’s regressive.

I’m not comparing with some bill or failed effort in a previous time or cycle, so who complained or didn’t complain about any of that is immaterial to today’s debate.

It is material to today’s debate. If a weaker bill was acceptable before, why is a stronger bill totally unacceptable today?

However, since you brought it up, women’s reproductive rights weren’t restricted in Dean’s 2004 effort as they are in either the house or Senate version of today’s climate.

This bill is regressive on more than just the monetary front; it’s money and women’s rights that are being talked about in this legislation, not actual CARE!

I am strongly, strongly pro-choice. I am absolutely no fan of the Hyde Amendment, or these follow-up amendments by Stupak and Nelson. Stupak’s amendment IS regressive–it goes beyond Hyde, and should absolutely not make it to the president’s desk. Nelson’s, however, does not go beyond Hyde. So it is not “regressive”. Loosening the restrictions placed by the 1970′s-era Hyde amendment is a very worthy goal, but that goal should not be used as a poison pill to kill a major health care bill. This is health care legislation, not abortion legislation.

Also, it is a practical certainty that Dean’s bill, had he actually made it to the White House and had a Congress willing to pass some form of major health care legislation, would have had some type of amendment rammed in by a conservative Senator from “Middle America” who would have required the bill to match up with Hyde. It wouldn’t pass otherwise. Another of our nauseating but all too certain political realities.

The point is that a lot of republicans don’t seem to have a problem with spending endless amounts of money on the US empire around the world. However, when it comes to healthcare they freak out over the budget.

I’m sure that if Obama wasn’t such a chickenshit little corporate punk the Senate bill would have been much better, but he sat on his skinny ass and let Baucus, Leiberman and the blue pukes write the bill. You claim a better bill is ‘not possible’, we really don’t know that do we? You can appeal to the unknown all you like but the fact is that the shmuck in the oval office lied continuously, CONTINUOUSLY about ‘what we’re gonna do’ during his campaign, and then caved on EVERYTHING he said he would do. He didn’t even make any GESTURES in the DIRECTION of a good bill. He set up shop, and sold us out to pharma and the insurance companies as soon as he could, and none of your wonky bullshit will cover the smell of that up. We voted for change and we got mealymouthed compromise and lies. The bill is garbage.

Fuck that and fuck him.

The Goldman Sachs report for private insurers that predicted that the public option would be bad for the stock prices of health insurance companies also said that no reform at all would best for health insurance stock prices, even better than reform without the public option.

Some people who (like me) wanted the public option, believed that report before the public option was not included in the Senate bill.

“The study’s authors advise that if no reform is passed, earnings per share would grow an estimated ten percent from 2010 through 2019, and the value of the stock would rise an estimated 59 percent during that time period.

The next best thing for the insurance industry would be if the legislation passed by the Senate Finance Committee is watered down significantly. Described as a “bull case” scenario — in which there is “moderation of provisions in the current SFC plan” or “changes prior to the major implementation in 2013″ — earnings per share for the five biggest insurers would grow an estimated ten percent and the variance with current valuation would rise an estimated 47 percent.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12/goldman-to-private-insure_n_355998.html

Jon, selise is right. You’re barking up the wrong tree here. It’s time to say goodbye to Jacob Hacker and hello to Steffi Woolhandler. You’ll be a lot happier for it.

Goldman writes those as spin, not as predictions. Nobody with money on the line takes them as anything more than ‘what Goldman wants you to believe’, trust me.

Sorry Teddy; it’s “everybody in, nobody out,” and HR 676 we want. Failing that, let’s get rid of the mandates and come back for another fight next session.

Damn right.

Hiya Ralph, Jon, the PO is sooooo over. It turned out to be a meme connected with a straegy that was without foundation and that, accordingly failed. That strategy asserted that it would be easier to pass a PO than to get Medicare for All passed.

The history of this year shows that the PO strategy was a misjudgment, and since it has failed, it’s time to return to what we all really want — enhanced Medicare for All. Democrats haven’t seriously tried to sell this since 1948. It’s time to try it again. It’s simple. It’s right. In the end it’s cheaper. And it’s unmistakably for the people and not for the insurance companies, the Wall Street folks, or the Big Banks.

I just love the “mandates are like auto insurance” flawed analogy. I just love it so much.

Especially since I have a number of very poor friends who specifically don’t drive because they can’t afford auto insurance. It makes the point so beautifully, that I almost hesitate to refute the canard; optional auto insurance (optional in the sense that you don’t HAVE to drive) and mandatory (enforced by the IRS, and channeled directly into the coffers of Aetna and Cigna and all the rest) health insurance are NOTHING alike.

I’m sorry but I have to disagree. If a decent healthcare reform can’t be passed with a Democratic president, a democratic majority in the House and Senate, and substancial support of the general public, I fail to see how any improvements will be made when such Democratic control would be less.

I recommend these links too. Kip’s series is terrific.

Depends on how much less. If the majority falls to 54-46 and the 6 lost are blue dogs, then the remaining Senators may realize that they need to get rid of the filibuster to get anything done. If they do that with 50 + 1 votes. The 54 left can pass much better legislation, provided losses in the House are not too great great and are blue dogs.

It’s a democratic majority in name only, remember. Many of the D’s (and R’s) are simply corporate flunkies.

“I like to think of this bill as like a starter home. It is not the mansion of our dreams. But it has a solid foundation, giving every American access to quality, affordable coverage. It has an excellent, protective roof, which will shelter Americans from the worst abuses of health insurance companies. And this starter home has plenty of room for additions and improvements.”

This is when Harkin went into real “asinine” mode. The same avuncular Sen. Harkin who assured us over and over that we “will have a public option. It WILL be in the bill.” But when push came to shove, he caved. Spineless and corrupt. Every damn one of them.

Totally agree. And people need to understand that Social Security did not affect the profitability of any major corporation or collection of them. Health care issues definitely do. And the simple fact is that corporations today are more cunning and ruthless than they have ever been before. The attitude now is “take no prisoners.”

There seems to be no crime, no injustice, no outrage that the American public will not justice grin and bear it.

Oh come on. The reasoning behind mandating auto insurance is all about LIABILITY.You drive a car and you can damage other cars, injure people, perhaps many people. Protecting innocents who inhabit the roadway is the aim of mandated car insurance. That is obviously way different than health insurance which is about protecting yourself from injury and disease.

Christ, this is getting as ridiculous as the old Berlin Wall argument.

See my comment at 164. Surely you can see the difference.

Please read up on the history of Regulatory Capture. Pleeeaaaassse!

OFG. The argument you make is OK but please read my reply on 164.

This is too important to push policy based on pipe dreams of utopia.

Yeah, pipe dreams like the entire rest of the fucking world has.

Fuck that and fuck him.

With devastating arguments like this, it’s a real shock Obama and Reid aren’t paying more attention to the “Kill Bill” crowd.

Oh come on. The reasoning behind mandating auto insurance is all about LIABILITY.You drive a car and you can damage other cars, injure people, perhaps many people. Protecting innocents who inhabit the roadway is the aim of mandated car insurance. That is obviously way different than health insurance which is about protecting yourself from injury and disease.

Christ, this is getting as ridiculous as the old Berlin Wall argument.

No, health care insurance is about liability also. It’s not just about protecting oneself. When people without insurance get sick and go to the emergency room, and don’t pay the massive bill because they can’t afford the full price, and often have given a fake name anyway so as to avoid the frightening creditors that will come after them, that cost GETS PASSED TO THE INSURED.

“it’s quite clear now that the public option was a con to get progressives to sign on to a neoliberal policy. and that’s exactly what a public option in competition with private insurance is — a neoliberal policy proposal based on a mistaken belief in the magic of free markets in all cases”

I have to agree with this. It was foundational to Jacob Hacker’s neo-liberal market friendly *version* of reform, designed not only to maintain the private healthcare financing market but also to coddle the tax evasion proclivities of the wealthiest people–who live in horror of another “big government” program driven by progressive taxation.

This is especially true in a time of declining wages and contract labor without benefits. Hacker’s OTHER little beauty of an insurance plan, is one to protect people against loss of wages. This is consistently how he wants the government to respond to the decline of the middle class–have the government set up financing companies that the middle class will pay into for “protection.”

He’s a regular little capitalist this guy. Probably holds quite an investment portfolio, just filled with companies waiting to shed labor costs. Not too hard to see where these people are coming from. Paul Krugman is drooling all over the Senate Bill–better than they had ever dreamed.

Even *with* the so-called “public option,” Hacker’s government enforced mandate on a select class of basically unlucky people who work without benefits amounts to a *regressive* tax on people who are already being shed from our former 20th c social contract.

The so-called “public option” was never “progressive.” It’s still a winners always win and losers always lose proposition. I don’t see why any progressive would really want the government to take that route.

And, I would add, the winners always win at the EXPENSE of the losers. It just further tilts the whole playing field in the direction it’s already going.

It’s repulsve. The government should first *do no harm* to people already taking it on the chin from society. The Senate Bill is so appalling I can’t believe we’re still in the US, but the so-called “public option” does nothing to get us moving in a more just direction either. It just relieves the government of the onus of dealing with what corporations and the global market are doing to the social fabric of this country and puts the onus on unlucky individuals.

How Reid or Obama like to be spoken to is not a concern, cleary. Don’t be silly.

H.R. 3590 is the only bill currently eligible to go to conference, but that doesn’t mean it can’t carry the text of H.R. 3692 when it does.

The House can now take up H.R. 3590 as amended by the Senate, and further amend it by striking the entire text as passed by the Senate and substituting instead the text of H.R. 3692, insist on its amendment and request a conference (or simply send it back to the Senate and leave the next step up to them).

Then, if they do agree to enter a conference on H.R. 3590, they’ll go into it with one version with a public option and one without.