Obedient and Docile- Starting Negotiations with "Public Option" Instead of Single Payer?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

"Public option" is NOT single payer; it is a cynical deceit

The "public option" parrots never address the arguments made by, e.g., Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org). Why do you think that is?

Public Plan Option in a Market of Private Plans
By David Himmelstein, M.D. and Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.:

The "public plan option" won't work to fix the health care system for two reasons.

1. It forgoes at least 84 percent of the administrative savings available through single payer. The public plan option would do nothing to streamline the administrative tasks (and costs) of hospitals, physicians offices, and nursing homes, which would still contend with multiple payers, and hence still need the complex cost tracking and billing apparatus that drives administrative costs. These unnecessary provider administrative costs account for the vast majority of bureaucratic waste. Hence, even if 95 percent of Americans who are currently privately insured were to join the public plan (and it had overhead costs at current Medicare levels), the savings on insurance overhead would amount to only 16 percent of the roughly $400 billion annually achievable through single payer -- not enough to make reform affordable.

2. A quarter century of experience with public/private competition in the Medicare program demonstrates that the private plans will not allow a level playing field. Despite strict regulation, private insurers have successfully cherry picked healthier seniors, and have exploited regional health spending differences to their advantage. They have progressively undermined the public plan -- which started as the single payer for seniors and has now become a funding mechanism for HMOs -- and a place to dump the unprofitably ill. A public plan option does not lead toward single payer, but toward the segregation of patients, with profitable ones in private plans and unprofitable ones in the public plan.

www.pnhp.org

Everyone knows that successful negotiations begin from a position greater than what one actually wants. Therefore, starting negotiations with "public option" instead of single payer means that the ultimate outcome will be less than even "public option."

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Exactly. Start bargaining by asking for more than you want, not less.

[joeycola]

2. Bingo. The WH started from a very weak positon and Congress followed.

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. A predetermined position, I'll bet. nt

[Laelth]

5. That's the kicker.

I have to believe that the leaders of the Democratic Party understand basic negotiation strategies. That means they never intended to get a public option. They intended to compromise and abandon the public option all along.

:dem:

-Laelth

[joeycola]

6. I think you are right about that.

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. Yes Indeed!

:thumbsup:

[Triana]

9. ...with Rahm and his bro leading the charge to compromise and abandon...

...I've no use for either of them, I'm sorry to say.

[ipaint]

19. What else could it have been but predetermined.

Newly released records of visits to the Obama White House by health care executives provide some important new details not included in the White House’s July 22 letter sent to CREW on the eve of the President’s health care press conference. The records identify the names of the individuals the visitors were meeting with, and include information about scheduled appointments that apparently never took place. The new records include information from WAVES records, which show the scheduled dates of appointments, as well as ACR records, which show when the visitor actually entered the White House complex.

Bill Tauzin (President and CEO, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America):

• March 5 (meeting with president)
• May 19 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)
• June 2 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)
• June 24 (meeting with Clare Gallagher)
• July 7 (meeting with Jim Messina)


Karen Ignagni (President and CEO, America's Health Insurance Plans):

• March 5 (meeting with president)
• March 6 (meetings with Elizabeth Bafford and Larry Summers)
• March 11 (meeting with Jennifer Cannistra)
• June 30 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)
• July 24 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)

Richard Umdenstock (President and CEO, American Hospital Ass'n.):
• February 4 (meeting with Tina Tchen)
• February 23 (meeting with president)
• March 5 (meeting with president)
• March 25 (meeting with Jennifer Cannistra)
• March 30 (meeting with Ezekiel Emanuel)
• April 6 (meeting with Tina Tchen)
• May 22 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)

J. James Rohack (President-elect, American Medical Ass'n.):

• March 25 (meeting with Ezekiel Emanuel)
• June 22 (meeting with president)
• June 24 (meetings with Clare Gallagher and president)


William Weldon (Chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson):

• May 12 (meeting with president)


Jeffrey B. Kindler (Chairman and CEO, Pfizer Inc.):

• March 5 (meeting with president)
• May 6 (meetings with Sarah Fenn and Elizabeth Bafford)
• June 2 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)


Stephen J. Hemsley (President, CEO, Director, UnitedHealth Group, Inc.):

• May 15 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)
• May 22 (meeting with Peter Orszag)
• July 14 (meeting with Aneesh Chopra)


Angela Braly (President, CEO, Director, WellPoint, Inc.):

• February 13 (meeting with president)

George Halvorson (Chairman and CEO, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan):

• March 27 (meeting with Keith Fontenot)
• June 5 (meeting with Peter Orszag)
• July 23 (meeting with Kathleen Sibelius)
• July 24 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)

Jay Gellert (President and CEO, Health Net, Inc.):

• February 10 (meeting with Tina Tchen)
• March 11 (meeting with Jennifer Cannistra)
• March 20 (meeting with Matt Flavin)
• July 24 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)


Thomas Priselac (President and CEO, Cedars-Sinai Health System):

• April 3 (meeting with Ezekiel Emanuel)


Richard Clark (Chairman, President and CEO, Merck):

• March 24 (meeting with Ezekiel Emanuel)


Wayne T. Smith (Chairman, President and CEO, Community Health Systems):

• June 4 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)


Rick Smith (Sr. Vice President, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America):

• May 19 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)
• June 2 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)
• July 7 (meeting with Jim Messina)
• July 24 (meeting with Sarah Fenn)

http://www.citizensforethics.org/files/20090904%20-%20Summary%20of%20Health%20Care%20Visits.pdf


I'm sure they already know the outcome too. This drama and anguish is all theater for those who believe we actually have a voice in the discussion.

[leeroysphitz]

17. Maybe they did.

Looks that way anyhow...

[rucky]

26. Seriously. Would you ever buy a car this way?

You offer me a fair price, I'll tell you what I want for the car, then we'll meet halfway.

[ThomWV]

3. The starting point should have been single-payer with no tax increases

and we should have ceded to reality and raised taxes whatever it takes to pay for it. The increase in tax has to be across the board too - everyone plays, everyone pays.

[Triana]

8. Exactly. Obama should have demanded single-payer right out the gate

and TOLD the Regurgitators "look, we ARE going to get this done. YOU can help or not - up to you - frankly, we don't give a damn but it is GOING to get DONE."


If he had STARTED from there, we'd be better off right now in the process.

[madfloridian]

10. That group is still working aganst the public option?

Which we are having to fight to get and probably won't get anyway because we are being sold out most likely....and pushing for a plan which would have done away with insurance companies and shoved them out of the picture. That is a dream world that can't happen at all for now.

[TBF]

11. "Dream World" is starting in the middle and thinking you have a chance

at getting something progressive. The only direction you have to move is right.

[ipaint]

15. The public option is just as impossible as

single payer. There aren't the votes for either. The ins. companies see the public option the same as single payer and we allow them to control the show in part by repeating industry memes such as referring to what every other industrialized nation has a dream world that can never happen for the foreseeable future.

Well now the infamous public option is impossible, it's trigger time.

[madfloridian]

20. Perhaps if we had worked together

instead of fighting each other on it.

But we will never know.

Some single payer groups shouted down good Democrats over and over.

[ipaint]

21. No, it wouldn't have mattered.

Insurance companies see the public option as the beginning of single payer. They know what is best for people and it is not for profit health ins. Any exposure and education regarding single payer on a national scale is a death sentence for them. It was taken off the table.

Now they have said and believe the public option is the doorway to single payer therefore the public option is now being taken off the table.

Nothing to do with single payer advocates, we could have all jumped up and down for the faux reform called a public option from day one, it was never meant to happen. It was introduced to be negotiated down.

Most likely the new trigger will be settled on and the words "public option" will be spoken as back up for insurance companies future misdeeds. Anyone who thinks the trigger will ever be pulled is hopelessly naive and dangerously deluded.

[madfloridian]

23. Oh, well then....why the hell bother.

?

[ipaint]

28. I don't feel that way at all.

The system and our bought off politicians need to be exposed for exactly what they are. I am happy for the debate and I talk to everyone about it. Cashiers, grocery store clerks, neighbors. I'm not shy and people are involved because they believed obama would stand up to the insurance vultures.

I've had great discussions about single payer vs. a strong public option, etc. Things won't change until people are educated. I live in a pro obama working class neighborhood. People here expect him to stand up to the corporations.

It's highly likely he won't but in my small community people seem to be quite open to medicare for all.

[slipslidingaway]

25. THAT group is still working for Not for Profit health care for all...

they have not changed their position since the 1980's.

http://pnhp.org/about/about_pnhp.php

"Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) believes that access to high-quality health care is a right of all people and should be provided equitably as a public service rather than bought and sold as a commodity..."

[Elmore Furth]

12. Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all NT

[ipaint]

13. Tell that to the under estimate of 17 million left uninsured.

Or perhaps we should ask them if it's ok to leave them out in the cold. That number is guaranteed to grow and in the end when another 2 or 3 decades pass with increasing suffering a death maybe we will finally do what's right.
Instead of letting the insurance industry die a natural death in less than half the time and pass single payer we accept decades of increased suffering and death to get back to today. Brilliant.

As far as incremental improvements, we can't get incremental change today. We won't get it when the insurance industry gets their talons into an additional 50 million strong renewable source of increased profits and stock options.

[QC]

14. I'm about to pinch a loaf.

You want half of it?

[riderinthestorm]

18. So if you start out asking for half a loaf from the greediest bastards on the face of the planet,

do you really think you are going to end up with more than crumbs??!!

Honestly, I want to know.

Cause Biz school (MBA from the U of Chicago) and experience (professional horse trader for 20+ years) tells me that if you don't ask for the whole enchilada right away, start out guns blasting, you get nothing but crumbs.

Obama KNEW he was in for the political fight of the ages. And he caved first thing.

I've been flamed royally for pointing this out for months now. Go ahead and flame away.

There's no loaf to toast anymore anyway.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

22. Not if the bread

is stale.

[inna]

16. kr

"Once single-payer was off the table, the Democrats lost their best bargaining chip. Rather than being in a position to use the fear of radical legislation to extract concessions from the right — a position Obama seemingly gave away at the outset, by punting on single-payer — Republicans and conservative Blue Dog Democrats suddenly realized that they had the upper hand."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/print


(got this link from an unlikely source on this board, but this Matt Taibbi article is well worth reading in its entirety, imo.)

[Stinky The Clown]

24. "But he never promised single payer"

I can hear that refrain so clearly from the celestial chorus.

[slipslidingaway]

27. knr - "Public option is NOT single-payer" n/t