Reply #51: Yes, Obama Campaigned on a Public Option [View All]

[flyarm]

and that is not what one of Obama's top campaigners said this morning..or what is really being done ..i am sick of anyone saying one thing and meaning the other..we just had 8 fucking years of that shit!

Sen. Claire McCaskill: I'm Happy We're 'Handcuffing The Public Option'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9RV_r-k9lU&feature=channel_page
she says a public option could morph into a comprehensive government plan

that a moderate like her can not support ...and that Obama handcuffed the public option in his speech.

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then we find out there is more and more propaganda..

Yes, Obama Campaigned on a Public Option
By: Jane Hamsher Thursday September 10, 2009 11:55 am
I'm not sure exactly what Chuck Todd is trying to prove here:

he speech also will be a failure if progressives -- Obama’s second audience tonight -- are still obsessing over the public option a week from now. We've said this before and we'll say it again: Obama never made the public option the focus of his health-care ideas, in the primaries or in general election. In fact, he never uttered the words "public option" or "public plan" in his big campaign speeches on health care. But there is no doubt that the public option has fired up the left, and how he sells them near-universal coverage and lower costs -- even if it means no public plan -- could very well be the trickiest part of tonight's speech.

From the Obama '08 campaign document, "Barack Obama's Plan for a Healthy America" (PDF):

The Obama plan both builds upon and improves our current insurance system, upon which most Americans continue to rely, and leaves Medicare intact for older and disabled Americans. The Obama plan also addresses the large gaps in coverage that leave 45 million Americans uninsured. Specifically, the Obama plan will: (1) establish a new public insurance program available to Americans who neither qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP nor have access to insurance through their employers, as well as to small businesses that want to offer insurance to their employees; (2) make available the National Health Insurance Exchange to help Americans and businesses that want to purchase private health insurance directly; (3) require all employers to contribute towards health coverage for their employees; (4) mandate all children have health care coverage; (5) expand Medicaid and SCHIP to cover more of the least well-off among us; and (6) allow state flexibility for state health reform plans.

I'm not quite sure how that jibes with "never made it the focus of his health care ideas," but YMMV.

But if the DC wags think that the base is going to get over its "fixation" on a public option in a week, I seriously doubt it. Here's Rasmusssen from yesterday:

One major challenge is that while most voters oppose the legislation with or without a so-called “public option, that option is essential to supporters. In fact, without the inclusion of a government-run health insurance company to compete with private insurers, enthusiasm for the reform plan collapses among Democrats.

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then we find out who is really writing the bill...........


Letting Insurance Write the Bill: How Bad Is That?
By: emptywheel

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/09/10/letting-insurance-write-the-bill-how-bad-is-that/

Thursday September 10, 2009 8:51 am

Ezra has written a thoughtful follow-up to my complaint that discussions of the role of insurance company in writing our legislation neglect to discuss profit. I agree with parts of it and disagree with others. The most important point Ezra makes--which explains his focus on providers to the exclusion of insurance companies--is this passage:



a must read in it's entirety...

Of course, that's not entirely right. Patients whose health care is provided by their employer "like the health system better when it's got unlimited amounts of money flowing through it." Patients who have to pay out of pocket--like many of the ones who will be mandated to buy insurance--don't really like that so much. And it's not just patients and providers that like a system that's got unlimited amounts of money flowing through it. So do insurers (assuming you understand this to be a system as a whole). Even assuming insurance companies only make that 3.3% profit and setting aside things like huge executive incomes, the insurance companies have an incentive to have as much money flowing into the system that it can take its 3.3% profit on.

And that's one of the baseline problems with letting the insurance companies write the bill: they have just as much incentive as providers to see that as much money gets flowing into the system as possible. And, they have an incentive to make sure that as much of the money put into the system as possible stays in their pocket. For those affected by the mandate who will not be subsidized or will only be partially subsidized, it is actually the patient, and not the insurance company, with the most urgency to cut the amount of money flowing through the system. But the patient doesn't get to write the bill; the insurance company does, and it appears that it is with these patients that the insurance companies stand to make some of their highest profits.

That's one of my gripes with the Max Tax. It sets out-of-pocket caps higher than other bills and sets lower amounts (73% if they are to be subsidized) that insurers have to cover. The result will be that more middle class families go into debt. As it's written, the Max Tax (frankly, most the bills) amount to a mandate that is simply not affordable for some middle class families. But the Max Tax throws in a bit more mandated costs that will go to insurance company profitability. The extra thousand or more dollars included for insurance companies means a lot to a family otherwise faced with surviving off of less than $8,000 for utilities, transportation, education, clothing, and debt. To me, you don't have to get any further than this money--taken from middle class families who will still go into debt under this scheme and giving it to insurance company profit--to demonstrate "how bad it is" that the insurance company wrote the bill.

The other big difference with a bill written by insurance companies is that it includes no apparent means to challenge the insurance companies to limit how much money they ask to be put in the system in the first place--something the public option would help to do. Now, Ezra argues the exchange will be enough to bring costs down.

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Hartmann on Obama's Speech: For Profit Health Industry Continue Skim $$ To Support Dems 2010!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=368974&mesg_id=368974


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And we are supposed to be happy about it all???? sorry this is dealing with my health care and that of my family..and i have no hopey shit to play out when you talk about my kids health and that of my grandchildren...and their future.I want facts and truth..I am not going to go all warm and Fuzzy because my party wants to stuff something down my throat to say they did something..

This is our government..mine ..and yours ..I have every damn right to speak up about the crap I don't like and how we are being manipulated and propagandized..if you don't like it..don't come to a message board..people discuss here..if that is a serious problem for you ..why are you here????????

If you have a problem with people discussing what their health care reform will be , take it up with the White House..they haven't been very forthcoming with what we are going to be graced with or sold out with.

I didn't know this was a cheerleading board..

Maybe you should open a board yourself for only good warm fuzzy stuff.