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

[StarfarerBill]

"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."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/how-a-few-private-health_b_388788.html

[Skink]

1. if this is enacted and if the dems win big in 2010....

they could then vote on a public option. Call it health care part 2. Obama could say we need even more measures to control costs.