Dems Agree to Drop Government-Run Insurance Option

It is not "covered." Anything that you have to pay for out of pocket is not "covered."

Americans pay a great deal for their insurance and get very little in return.

Sure...it may be subject to a deductible, but the insurance company pays nothing until you hit $5,000 in a calendar year. In practical terms, unless something bad happens, you will not hit $5,000 a year.

This is what is called illusory coverage. You still have to find the money to cough up or not have the procedure.

Yeah...great insurance "coverage."

 

How a Few Private Health Insurers Are on the Way to Controlling Health Care
Robert Reich

The public option is dead, killed by a handful of senators from small states who are mostly bought off by Big Insurance and Big Pharma or intimidated by these industries' deep pockets and power to run political ads against them. Some might say it's no great loss at this point because the Senate bill Harry Reid came up with contained a public option available only to 4 million people, which would have been far too small to exert any competitive pressure on private insurers anyway.

To provide political cover to senators who want to tell their constituents that the intent behind a robust public option lives on, the emerging Senate bill makes Medicare available to younger folk (age 55), and lets people who aren't covered by their employers buy in to a system that's similar to the plan that federal employees now have, where the federal government's Office of Personnel Management selects from among private insurers.

But we still end up with a system that's based on private insurers that have no incentive whatsoever to control their costs or the costs of pharmaceutical companies and medical providers. If you think the federal employee benefit plan is an answer to this, think again. Its premiums increased nearly 9 percent this year. And if you think an expanded Medicare is the answer, you're smoking medical mar1juana. The Senate bill allows an independent commission to hold back Medicare costs only if Medicare spending is rising faster than total health spending. So if health spending is soaring because private insurers have no incentive to control it, we're all out of luck. Medicare explodes as well.

A system based on private insurers won't control costs because private insurers barely compete against each other. According to data from the American Medical Association, only a handful of insurers dominate most states. In 9 states, 2 insurance companies control 85 percent or more of the market. In Arkansas, home to Senator Blanche Lincoln, who doesn't dare cross Big Insurance, the Blue Cross plan controls almost 70 percent of the market; most of the rest is United Healthcare. These data, by the way, are from 2005 and 2006. Since then, private insurers have been consolidating like mad across the country. At this rate by 2014, when the new health bill kicks in and 30 million more Americans buy health insurance, Big Insurance will be really Big.

In light of all this, you'd think the insurance industry would be subject to the antitrust laws, so the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission could prevent it from combining into one or two national behemoths that suck every health dollar out of our pockets (as well as the pockets of companies paying part of the cost of their employees' health insurance). But no. Remarkably, the Senate bill still keeps Big Insurance safe from competition by preserving its privileged exemption from the antitrust laws.

From the start, opponents of the public option have wanted to portray it as big government preying upon the market, and private insurers as the embodiment of the market. But it's just the reverse. Private insurers are exempt from competition. As a result, they are becoming ever more powerful. And it's not just their economic power that's worrying. It's also their political power, as we've learned over the last ten months. Economic and political power is a potent combination. Without some mechanism forcing private insurers to compete, we're going to end up with a national health care system that's controlled by a handful of very large corporations accountable neither to American voters nor to the market.

 

That is the fault of her company and whatever insurance they offer their employees. You can insert my name for hers in your anecdote, except in my story, my colonoscopy was 100% covered (as was my wife's). I did not even have to pay a deductible or co-pay.

 

You just don't get it. Everyone who works hard and plays by the rules should have decent health insurance. Mine is excellent and you might have good insurance, but there is an immense disparity that leaves millions of hard working people hanging out to dry, worrying, despite working hard, whether they can afford those tests that might save her or his life. It is simply rediculous that people even have to think about the subject.

This is a national disgrace.

 

I DO get it and something certainly needs to be done, but as DonnyMost posted in another thread, anecdotal evidence is not a good argument.

In Refman's argument, it could just be that Refgal's company is cheap or negotiated a poor deal with the insurance provider(s).

Everyone should have reasonable access to reasonable insurance.

Shoot, if I lived in Washington state and worked for the same company I currently do, my monthly premiums would be ZERO and I would have access to the same coverage as I do now, so even though I have good coverage, I'd get a better deal depending on where I live.

 

And the point is it shouldn't be like that. Everyone should have access to coverage that actually covers at a price that they can afford. Anecdotal evidence is pretty good for pointing out things that happen over and over again. That story is repeated millions of times all across the country.

 

I think I'm ready to ask mc mark to pony up to the tip jar.

 

rhad yer cynicism is stepping on my buzz

But after the weekend and LIEberman (F*@king jerk) once again playin' the fool, I don't know what to think anymore.

 

I don't see how anyone can pretend there is a viable "public" option anymore or that the reform is "reforming" enough. I don't see it.

 

And in a system in which health care prices are ever-increasing, and correspondingly, fewer and fewer companies are able to offer health insurance at all - how many people need to be uninsured before you will realize that it's a systemic problem? 50%? 75%? 100%? Serious question.

 

It might be time for Reid to start looking seriously at reconciliation.

Mojorge is right, scrap the whole watered down plan and come back with a robust healthcare plan, without any input from wimp ass blue dogs and republicans.

 

From Greg Sargent

Poll: One Third Of Dems Less Likely To Vote In 2010 If Public Option Dies

This is striking: A new national poll finds that fully one third of Democratic voters say that they’re “less likely” to vote in 2010 if Congress doesn’t pass a public option, underscoring the possibility that dropping the provision seriously risks dampening the Dem base’s enthusiasm.

I was sent an advance look at these numbers by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America, which commissioned the poll from the nonpartisan Research 2000 and will release the results later this morning. The poll asks:

Among Dems, 33% say it would make them less likely, while less than one fourth that amount, 7%, say it would make them more likely. Sixty percent say it would have no effect.

Among independent voters, 21% say it would make them less likely, and 13% say it would make them more likely, with 66% saying it would have no effect, suggesting that passing a public option would have a marginal impact among indys.

Separately, in other advance excerpts of the same poll obtained by Sam Stein, 81% of Dems want Joe Lieberman punished if he filibusters health care reform.

Obviously, passions over the public option are on full boil right now. Passage of a health care bill of some kind, not to say the passage of time, could reduce the impact that dropping the public option could have on Dem turnout in the 2010 elections, particularly since they’re nearly a year away.

But these numbers are a reminder of just how dispirited the Dem base is by the party’s inability to leverage their comfortable majority in support of an agenda built on core liberal priorities.

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I hope Democratic senators are paying attention...

 

Please

Republicans had eight years to reform healthcare and didn’t touch it. Why would any thinking person now believe that they would be interested in doing what "makes sense for the American people?"

 

I'm one of those folks. I won't vote for any democrat that took part in this fsck up. Including Obama.

 

And how would the Democrats get another bill passed without Blue Dogs or Republicans?

 

I believe reconciliation only requires a 51 majority vote.

 

I agree. They should pass some watered down option that will pass filibuster and then put the public option's teeth and meat in during the reconciliation process. The result will only require 51 votes.

 

If I am not mistaken that would mean reclassifying the bill as a tax bill which I'm not sure if that will apply also wouldn't that also risk a meltdown in the Senate if Blue Dogs and Republicans countered by holding up other bills?