The Public Option Chronicles Thread #2 For 12/7/09: A Lot Of Oyyy

Well, it was a pretty bad day of news today after the first thread.

At least Al Franken again exemplified the values of a Senate for the people once again. It's a protection for women's choice rights and women's rights in general that Franken speaks about in his speech: It is long though, but hey, you'll be okay. You can watch it or not:


And Bernie Sanders adds another to his "highlight reel of real."


Here's the so-so, but oh so funny news. After Kent Conrad slammed his Medicare plan, Jay Rockefeller got real and slammed back at Conrad.

"I'm really very tired of hearing about that from him," an exasperated Rockefeller told reporters. "And it's always about North Dakota, and it's never about any other part of the country. And I thought, you know, that's what we're trying to do--we're trying to do the best thing for the country as a whole."

While that was funny, the whole news here is that the Medicare plan from Rockefeller will only be down to 55 and up (eligible for them).

The unfunny thing however is, despite the possibility of Medicare expanding to more people, the fact is that the public option maybe kaput, after all of this.

Where does this all leave the public option? In a van down by the river is where. The idea here is to basically offer something like Medicare buy-in or Medicaid expansion or bigger subsidies or a tightening of the medical loss ratio for insurers (what percentage of premiums must go to medical care) in exchange for basically dropping or triggering the public option. Will that be acceptable? Private insurance companies would still predominate, and Americans would still be forced under this bill to send them premium money for coverage that may or may not be sufficient. Most importantly, the architecture of a public option, as a benchmark which could be improved upon to change incentives for insurers, could be gone.

As evidence, Debbie Stabenow has said she could live with a bill that doesn't contain a public option, provided that it "lower costs and create competition." You know, that usual line and all.

Again, here's the great Jon Walker:

Well, Sen. Stabenow, the goal of the public option was not just to lower costs and provide competition. It was also meant to keep the insurance companies honest, ensure everyone had access to at least one decent plan designed for the public good, and to prevent this reform bill from becoming a massive corporate boondoggle that funnels billions of taxpayer dollars into private insurance coffers.

The bill will give hundreds of billions in federal dollars to the private insurance companies and force millions of Americans to hand over hundreds of billions more. That money will go to the same corporations that have done everything possible to kill meaningful reform. They will use this government-provided bailout to eventually lobby to remove what little regulation this bill will put in place, and to stop future reform efforts.

I wonder if what the people of Michigan really want is for Stabenow to force hard-working Americans to buy extremely expensive, poorly regulated, junk insurance. Forcing people to give their money to the same companies that ruined meaningful reform will only make them larger, rich, more powerful, and more profitable.

Couldn't have been said better.

The new Medicare buy-in plan is a replacement from the virtual confusing and disastrous plan of having the Office of personal management trying to negotiate with private non-profit insurers. Walker clearly indicates that this would not do a damn thing:

This is not a public insurance entity competing with the existing private insurance companies. This will do nothing to inject competition into concentrated markets. This will not ensure the government provides people with at least one decent insurance plan structured to promote the public good. In the long run, this will not change how the insurance market operates or help rein in our out-of-control health care costs. (The FEHBP has been a failure on the cost controlling front.)

The last few days have been truly not good for real meaningful reform on health care.

Now, a Medicare buy-in in plan that is activated next year after this bill's passage would be huge indeed, especially for the over 55 crowd who needs affordable coverage like no other in this country now.

But the painful reality is that the insurance industry, who we all know have flooded the market with their capital to lobby our government officials to preserve their power, will be reawarded for their efforts at bills' end. They will get the rest of the crowd no longer eligible to stay on their parents' plan (like, well, myself unless things drastically change) to buy their crappy insurance.

And they will continue to rake in their profits, with the respective CEO's of these immoral companies bring home the eight figure salaries they are so accustomed to right now.

Is this the augury of what the end result will be?

It sure is headed in that painful direction, unless someone, like Sanders or even Franken, stand in the way.