They're trying to kill health care reform again! Call Congress, tell them to kill Conrad's co-ops!

[backscatter712]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/12/741573/-Tell-Senator-Baucus-NO-On-The-Conrad-Co-op-Proposal!

It's all here: A righteous Daily Kos diary rant, and also a decent selection of phone numbers you need to be calling to foil the Senate's latest attempt to water down, sandbag and sabotage health care reform for their corporate insurance murder-by-spreadsheet masters.

This time, it's Sen. Kent Conrad's proposal to replace the public option with "health care co-ops" at the state, regional and local level. What are these co-ops? Dunno, that's pretty nebulous, but it sounds a hell of a lot like "Same Old Shit."

What? You're not on the phone yelling at some Senator's poor overworked intern yet? Better get on it. Don't think for one second that the insurance lobby's gonna let up. They're pouring billions in tasty campaign bribes into Congress so they can continue to screw us. But they've only got money. We've got the votes, and in 2006 and 2008, we made it clear that even the big tasty corporate bucks won't save them from electoral ruin if they piss us off enough.

THE BIG QUESTION:

Have you contacted Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, other members of the Finance Committee, or your own Senators and Congresscritters and told them to stop watering down health care?

[Teaser]

1. hoping this gets killed dead soon

.

[global1]

2. Conrad Coming Up On MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Show Soon.....nt

[Teaser]

3. bullet point summary?

.

[backscatter712]

4. Here's a little bit...

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/co-op-health-plan-emerging-as-a-senate-option/

In theory, they'd get some federal seed money, operate as non-profit organizations, but I'm not buying it. Sounds like yet another way to hide the same old insurance graft behind a new buzzword so they can kill health care reform.

[backscatter712]

5. Robert Reich also mentioned exactly how co-ops are designed to fail...

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/ (second article down, titled "The Latest Public Option Bamboozle, and How to Recognize the Real Thing")

Here's the latest contortion from Senate Dems trying to win over a few Republicans to a "public option:" Let nonprofits create health-care cooperatives, and call them the public option. Kent Conrad came up with this bamboozle. Finance chair Baucus is impressed, and some Republicans -- even Grassley -- seem interested. Watch your wallets.

Nonprofit health-care cooperatives won't have any real bargaining leverage to get lower prices because they'll be too small and too numerous. Pharma and Insurance know they can roll them. That's why the Conrad compromise is getting a good reception from across the aisle, just as Olympia Snowe's "trigger" (whereby no public option until some time down the pike, and only if Pharma and Insurance don't bring down and extend coverage a tad) is also gaining traction.

The truth is that there's only one "public option" that will truly bring down costs and premiums -- one that's national in scale and combines its bargaining power with Medicare, and is allowed to negotiate lower drug prices and lower doctor and hospital fees. And that's precisely what Pharma and Insurance detest, for exactly the same reason.

Whatever it's called -- public option or chopped liver -- it has to be able to squeeze Pharma, Insurance, and the rest of the medical-industrial complex. And the more likely it is to squeeze them, the more they'll fight it. And the greater the opposition from Republicans, and from Dems who either believe any bill has to have some Republican support or who have sold themselves out to the medical biggies.

As long as single payer is off the table, then we need a real public option. Don't be fooled by labels. Demand the real thing.

[riderinthestorm]

6. Kick. So frustrating. nt

[redqueen]

7. Stopping this attempt to water down the public option should be a top pirority.

K&R