Would A Triggered Public Option Be Acceptable

[WeDidIt]

If everything else in HR3200 is in the final health care reform bill except the public option is only available if certain things are not done by the insurance companies, is it acceptable?

[mdmc]

1. whatever Obama can pry from the corporatist will be okay with me

I want universal or single payer... but will take what Obama can get..

[placton]

17. Let's surrender for Obama now! n/t

[Mystayya]

22. So forced enrichment of the healthcare CEO's is fine with you?

Because that is what it is starting to boil down to. Forcing those of us with no ins to buy over priced crap that we can't afford the deductibles on anyway. So the rich CEO's get our money and NEVER have to fucking pay out a dime. Once again the working class are bent over and screwed while the party cheerleaders chant the latest spin.

[mdmc]

24. I support universal health care for all

but I also support Obama.

[Mystayya]

25. I don't understand what that means

[mdmc]

26. I'm left of the Democratic Party

I want us out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
End the drug war
fair trade, not free trade
Universal health care..

These are not democratic party (or Obama's) goals. But in the end, I will still vote for Obama and support Obama like a good little DLC'er.

[Teaser]

2. I still expect what I expected months ago

A public option that is split up...with aspects of its coverage triggered and other aspects starting ASAP.

It'll be a mess, but that is the way legislators do things. Avoids all possible hard choices.

[KittyWampus]

4. you seem very realistic and that is sort of refreshing. I am also resigned to a less than stellar

behemoth to get passed.

[KittyWampus]

5. dupe

[RDANGELO]

3. It would be better than a co-op.

We all know that fostering more competition among the insurance companies will not substantially reduce costs.If the trigger mechanism reflects that, then we will eventually get the public option. The big question will be, what exactly is the trigger. A true co-op will never work.

[vi5]

6. If it does other things like....

Stop insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions or for dropping people when they get sick and all that.....then I'll be o.k. I think some of these other things that get less coverage are just as important.

[joeybee12]

7. No, but the best we can hope for after Obama bungled health reform

so badly.

[Kahuna]

8. It depends on what the trigger is. The goal is affordable healthcare

for all. The trigger would define what is "affordable" and "all." Good luck with that. :grr:

[Donnachaidh]

9. a trigger is UNacceptable

Please - we have enough people struggling to keep their heads above water financially, with job losses, etc. You want them to have to jump through even MORE bureaucratic hoops and face the possibility they will get turned down because some a-hole has pulled some ass-stats out that are antiquated before they even hit the table?

Too many of you who are working and have health insurance just really don't give a shit enough about your neighbors to fight what is TRULY needed. Still that same American attitude *fuck them, I've got mine* -- but wrapped in Democratic blue, to make it *seem* nicer.

[harun]

10. No, if they won't go for a strong Public Option we are going to vote on H.R. 676.

[Greybnk48]

11. What if the repugs are back in power when the trigger is to be pulled?

Does anyone think it will happen. ENOUGH foot dragging already. We won the election because, among other things, people wanted health care. The Democrats need to do their jobs and quit kissing non-Democratic ass. We won. It's time for our policies to be pushed through.

[ddeclue]

12. No because it totally defeats access to it and competition between it and private insurance!

:argh:

Letting FoxNews guard the hen house again!

:argh:

[tabbycat31]

13. only if there is a short deadline

[WeDidIt]

14. For the record, I voted no.

Without the public option, a weak plan for "triggers" simply insures the bill becomes a big government giveaway to insurance companies.

If there is not a strong public option, I will work to defeat the bill, and any politician who votes in favor of the bill or signs such a bill.

[Vidar]

15. No.

[Overseas]

16. The Trigger went off years ago when private insurance stomped out national health insurance.

They told us then that they could do things better. That the private sector could take care of our problems.

Where are we now, over 10 years later? Millions more uninsured, millions more bankrupt from medical bills, premium costs escalated wildly, private profits soared.

Trigger has been blown out of its sockets. Long long ago.

That's why I want HR676 type expansion of Medicare.

OPEN UP MEDICARE, SINGLE PAYER NOW !

I don't want five more years of meetings and discussions about how best to shape a public option.

Take a system that has a high customer satisfaction rate and low overhead that is a MIXTURE of public and private elements:
-- medical services privately delivered, between me and my doctors;
-- payment and cost controls publicly administered, accountable to us all.

What do we call that? MEDICARE.

OPEN UP MEDICARE: SINGLE PAYER NOW !

To be fair to private insurers even though they've never been fair to us, people will be able to CHOOSE whether they want the amazingly complex private system or the public option of Medicare.

[justgamma]

18. I read that they were going to give

the insurance companies 2 years. They can afford to be "good" for 2 years, no trigger, then boom rising costs. Without cost controls, I see no hope.

[Johonny]

19. It's acceptable if it gets the Bills out of the committees

It's probably unacceptable as the final version of the bill, unless it came with strong GOP support. Since it won't, I see no reason to have it in the final version.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

20. NO TRIGGERS!!!!!!!!!!

:mad:
We had an effort 16 years ago to reform health care in this country and it was defeated. It was defeated for a lot of different reasons but essentially because people believed the insurance companies' propaganda about "socialized medicine" and all of the scary things that might happen under such a system and that the insurance companies would do a better job for their customers and that most people were essentially happy with the status quo, blah, blah blah.
Well, we didn't get our much sought after "socialized medicine," and 16 years later we are experiencing the very SAME scary things- that the insurance companies said would happen under a GOVERNMENT-RUN system- under the private companies, and people are currently paying higher premiums, receiving less services, and are largely miserable under the tyranny of the private insurance companies (if they're even lucky enough to afford it in the first place) and now, like any other abuser, they want ANOTHER few years to try and convince us that "they're sorry" and that "they'll change and do better" for us. :eyes: Well, sorry. Private insurance has FAILED and it's high time we had some other non-profit options.
As far as I'm concerned, trigger is really nothing more than a "punt" on substantive HCR and there's really no reason why we should even have to go there right now anyway since we have the support of the public on the PO. More importantly, any "trigger" we pass into law is probably never going to be "pulled", particularly if the GOP increases their numbers in Congress or, heaven forfend, retakes Congress in 2010 (not likely, but still....). At least one of their ilk is already vowing to ensure that anything that Obama and the Democrats get passed gets repealed IF and when they get back in power and I think we all know that they would just change the law so that whatever "trigger" is put into place is ultimately unusable or worthless. We need to get an alternative passed into law that can start helping people and something that would, like Social Security and Medicare, be impossible to simply repeal.
The ONLY way that I would "support" a "trigger" would be if that's what would be needed to get a bill out of the Senate- with the understanding that it would be unceremoniously stripped out during conference.

[Mystayya]

21. A trigger is no option at all. It is Smoke and Mirrors

It is designed to do nothing except get you to vote in the 2010 elections and then the 2012 and so on and so on.

[moondust]

23. Gives the insurance industry more time to game it/defeat it.