Weak Public Option, no Single Payer = jobs program?

[FredStembottom]

I have been wondering to myself all along if the tenacious resistance to putting the Ins Cos out of the health care business is an effort to prevent Ins Co job losses.

Just as so many "defense" programs are known to be pure waste but live on as zombie job creators.

Obama seemed to acknowledge that very suspicion last night when he said:

"Since health care represents one-sixth of our economy, I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn't, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch".

So much good in last nights speech but what a crazy quilt is being sewn with this plan!

Still, my adult children are having such a hard time finding any insurance at all that I feel forced to support Obama-care. It's so late in the day.

My kids get insurance. People keep jobs............ Ok.............. Let's go. I am resigned to it in my mind now. :eyes:

[daleanime]

1. Sorry...

it's not about jobs, it's about profits and that's not right. :argh:

[FredStembottom]

5. Well, I think in O's mind.....

The prospect of a few hundred thousand Ins Co job losses must loom large in his mind.

Both ways (defense and insurance) are pitiful ways to employ Americans but.......

[daleanime]

14. I really don't think it be that many jobs loss...

the companies wouldn't disappear, their profit margin would change and downsizing is a definite, but how many new jobs would be created by an additional 25-30 million people looking for health care? More doctors, nurses, technicians, and people to train them. Rural hospitals could staff better. Single payer just makes sense in too many ways.:bounce:

[FredStembottom]

22. Oh, and I think you are right.

But I also think O may have flinched at the thought of the in-between times. You know, when vindictive Ins Co CEO's would toss out thousands of employees overnight.

[ej510]

2. It took me a while to figure it out, but I did Obama is a corporate democrat.

[TheKentuckian]

25. I'm a big supporter but I have ALWAYS said he is a common sense global corporatist

After thirty years of Reaganisim that is a cut above what we could expect. So, he is certainly a corporate Democrat but that is way better than usual or that could be projected at this time.

I don't get how anyone could miss that he leans corporate (certainly capitalist) or that his center/center left position (in American politics) is a huge boon.

[FredStembottom]

33. Well........

"common sense" paired with "global corporatist" is an oxymoron to me......

But I will agree that last night's goofy-assed plan still manages to be "a cut above" - so long as the no-drop, no-exclude, cap stuff doesn't now evaporate too.........

[xchrom]

3. and it's in that 'crazy quilt' that the weaknesses

are being designed.

it's what people will run on to defeat or design again in 2010 and there after.

[ProSense]

4. Weak public option?

Your conclusion doesn't work unless you frame it that way, does it?

[FredStembottom]

6. By "weak Public Option"....

I mean the restricted PO that Obama so clearly described vs. the public plan anyone could opt for that I thought was a Public Option.

Clearly the restrictions are there to prevent real competition with the Ins Cos.

[emulatorloo]

16. I always understood the public option as being "restricted" I guess.

Always seemed to me this was a two pronged attack

== get people insured who did not have insurance (insurance exchange, including public option to get costs low)

== stop the abuses of the insurance companies by making denying coverage on pre-existing condition illegal, dropping coverage illegal, etc

[ej510]

19. If everyone is not given the option to choose the public option; then how does it lower cost?

[emulatorloo]

24. It lowers the cost for Basic Coverage. The other reform stuff ends abuse and lowers costs for

people who already have insurance -- for example, a cap on out of pocket expenses.

(For what it is worth, I think this is incremental -- that eventually the public option will be broadened out if it is working. Apparently Social Security and Medicare were broadened out after initial passage.)

[FredStembottom]

32. Good point, em

As I understand it they were broadened later.

And I am very excited about the no-drop, no-exclusion, cap stuff for anyone in my kids' age range. You know, when they are forced off a parents insurance at 19 and excluded from getting their own because they had pimples once.

[ej510]

7. Only 5% of the country will be eligible for the public option.

This is a fact straight out of the President's mouth.

[jgraz]

9. It doesn't get much weaker than that.

Well, it could get 5% weaker -- which is what I think we're going to get.

[ProSense]

18. It's a fact straight out the President's mouth via a report.

Reports can't predict what people's status will be or what they will opt to do given a choice.

Also, eligibility will change when the plan is opened to more small businesses and eventually larger employers.

The number that isn't factored into the 5 percent is the millions of uninsured who will get subsidized coverage and those who will pay nothing at all to a modest amount based on their income.

[daleanime]

23. Then it's not a "Public Option"...

5% is not every one:mad:

[emulatorloo]

27. "Public" means it is run by the government. n/t

[jgraz]

8. Here's an idea: let's have a jobs program that doesn't kill people

We already have our "death panel" jobs program. It's called the Defense Industry. We don't need another.

[FredStembottom]

13. Exactly.

Quickest route to that: end the weird science experiment known as "Globalization".

I just bet Americans can build electronics for Americans just fine.

[jonnyblitz]

10. According to Matt Tiabbi in his Rolling Stone article titled

"Sick and Wrong", Obama told Lynn Woolsey that if he were starting from scratch he would consider single payer but thought now it wasn't possible because it would disrupt the health care industry.

this can be found 3rd paragraph down under Step One: Aim Low not far from the beginning of article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/print

[FredStembottom]

11. Cool! I went to less than zero with this OP!

Haven't taken that ride before.
;-)

[Oregone]

12. That quote is pure bullshit

Really....1/6th? Look, of those that are care providers, they would be unchanged if they went with Medicare for All (and thats not even a new system). As for the rest, according to a study posted by PNHP, it would result in a net job gain. Regardless, this bubbled sector isn't manifesting in a health manner on the American economy. There shouldn't be that many people employed to deny claims. Its absurd to want to keep it this way.

[FredStembottom]

20. Well, in my world of Express Air Delivery......

.... we live off the thousands and thousands of Ins Co offices, their employees and all the paperwork that is over-nighted everywhere across the country.:shrug:

[Oregone]

21. Maybe you can carry mail for all the new startup small businesses that would be created

[FredStembottom]

26. Unclear what you mean.

Single Payer involves start up businesses?

[Oregone]

28. Universal health care would be a boon to the free market

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/november/universal_health_car.php

[FredStembottom]

34. Sorry, I was dense there for a second

Yes. Single Payer would be a boon in that way.
I would try new entrepreneurial things myself if it wasn't so clear that I would never have insurance for me or my family again if I quit my present job.

I am all for SP. But.... that dream is officially over I am so deeply sorry to say.

In the meantime I have un-insured children that require me to accept the no-drop, no-exclude, cap portions of this snarl of a plan that O has come up with.

[NYC_SKP]

15. The hardest thing about going to Single Payer Universal would be the transition...

Well, second hardest after getting Congress on Board.

It's a shame we have two wars and this fucked up economy.

If we had the Reagan or Clinton or GHWB economy (relatively stable) we might have a shot, and I'd venture that Obama would be far more willing to try to go to Universal.

If and when we go there, the transition will be the most important part to craft well.

:patriot:

[Oregone]

17. "I'd venture that Obama would be far more willing to try to go to Universal"

I wouldn't. Not bipartisan enough

[FredStembottom]

30. That's a good, crunchy thought there, NYC!

I'll probably work "thought experiments" on your observation the rest of the day.

What if we were in that kind of stable economy - all else being the same?

Would Obama have been braver?

[jgraz]

31. The economy argument is a red herring. Single Payer would HELP the economy

It would start by eliminating $300 Billion/ year in paperwork costs from health care. Add in overall reduced prices, instant job mobility and dramatically lower costs for small businesses and you've got something that might bail us out of this depression all on its own.

Of course, if the real is goal preserving insurance profits and executive salaries, then we're not likely to see anything approaching Single Payer in our shortest-in-the-industrialized-world lifetimes.

[Scarsdale Vibe]

29. Simpler explanation: Single-payer would not ever pass the Senate.

Until there is a constitutional amendment that changes the undemocratic structure of the Senate we will be stuck with Midwestern small population state politicians supported almost solely by out-of-state special interests.