Rockefeller Rebelling?

[Joanne98]

Fri Jul 31, 2009 at 10:00:04 AM PDT

Sen. Jay Rockefeller has made no bones about letting Max Baucus and the world know that he's unhappy that he and all but five of the other members of the Finance Committee have been shut out of the process of negotiating what is supposed to be the committee's healthcare reform bill. Earlier in the week, he blasted Baucus's proposal in the New York Times because the bill, unbelievably, would do away with SCHIP.

Last night on the Ed Show, Rockefeller took on another bad aspect of the proposal, the substitution of a strong public option with Kent Conrad's goofy co-op idea.

Here's the snippet (full transcript below the fold):

SCHULTZ: ...Would you sign onto a co-op? Or is that unacceptable?

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D), WEST VIRGINIA: That`s unacceptable, and I can almost prove it.

We`ve been in touch with the folks that oversee all the -- represent all the co-ops in the country on all subjects, and they point out that there are probably less than 20 health co-ops in the country. There are only two that really work that well, one in Puget Sound, one in Minnesota.

Except for those two, they`re all unlicensed. All present health co-ops are unlicensed, they`re unregulated, nobody knows anything about them, nobody has any control over them. And nobody`s ever, they said, which is a stunning thing to me, no government organization or private organization has ever done a study on what effect they might have in terms of bringing down insurance prices.

SCHULTZ: Well, Senator, they`re talking about, if I have this correctly, putting $6 billion in start-up money.

ROCKEFELLER: Well, that all to tell you something. In other words, put $6 billion out on the table in 50 states, and then hope that somebody comes in and picks it up to start it.

Look, health insurance is complex, it has a long history. There`s billions and billions of dollars involved.

These little tiny entities that will be starting up in states where there have never been any before -- remember, there aren`t any in the South, there aren`t any in the Northeast, there aren`t any in the Mid-Atlantic, there aren`t any in the Southwest. They`re only in the upper Midwest and the Northwest.

They`re not a good idea. They`re untested. They are unlicensed. They`re unregulated. They`re unstudied.

Why would we even think about putting them in as a control on this massive insurance industry instead of the public option?

SCHULTZ: So, Senator Rockefeller, you were at serious odds then with Max Baucus and Kent Conrad on this.

ROCKEFELLER: I would guess that would be the case, yes.

Rockefeller's fight for the public option in Finance's bill has gone beyond just going on tv and talking smack about co-ops. He's also asked the GAO to investigate healthcare co-ops, since no research has actually ever been done on them to prove their effectiveness. Which would have been a task that the full commiitee would have undertaken before adopting them as a model for competition to the private insurers, if the full committee was actually writing this bill. Rockefeller writes:

continued>>>
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/31/760189/-Rockefeller-Rebelling

Unregulated co-ops. I smell christian right!

[Inuca]

1. Interesting

And why on earth would somebody unrecommend this!?!?

[damntexdem]

2. Rockefeller is rebelling because Baucus is revolting.

It's time for a caucus to be raucous with Baucus.

[dmr]

3. "It's time for a caucus to be raucous with Baucus."

:thumbsup:

[LaPera]

4. Go Nelson!

Just seeing who's awake - Go Jay!!

[autorank]

5. Welll, old Max has run into real money

Rockefeller sounds a lot like someone representing his state. Great! We need that.

Baucus will be vilified and he may not do too well in his home state.

[glinda]

6. What Health Care Co-op in MN.?????????

[mzmolly]

8. MCHA. It's not all it's cracked up to be. My husband paid $800 monthly for catastrophic

coverage only when he was in his early twenties. He could not afford the premiums (and this was more than 20 years ago) so he dropped coverage. He's a diabetic (formerly self employed) and this was the only way he could get health insurance.

http://www.mchamn.com/

[glinda]

9. Sounds like a very unsuccessful "Co-Op". Baaaad example.

[mzmolly]

10. And, it's quoted as been effective and efficient. A "model" for co-op laden

reform.

[glinda]

11. That needs to be corrected.

[mzmolly]

12. ... it's quoted as HAVING been effective and efficient

My sentence needed correction as well. ;)

[WillyT]

7. Big K & R !!!

:kick: