If Congress Passes Health Care Legislation without a Public Option…

[Time for change]

As Congress considers voting down health care legislation that contains a public health insurance option that Americans may choose in place of currently available private health insurance, they – and we – should consider a few things.

The most fundamental consequence of failure to include a public option in health care “reform” legislation will be that the plan will involve massive government subsidy of the private insurance industry. There will be several very negative consequences that accrue from that simple fact:


Greater expense and less coverage

Since private health insurance is much more expensive than government health insurance, that means that the plan will of necessity be characterized by one of three very serious problems, or more likely by a combination of those three problems: Either it will 1) be far more expensive; 2) cover far fewer people; or 3) cover far less health care for those who have insurance than a plan that contains a strong public option would.

There is no getting around this. It is simple arithmetic. Those who complain about the expense of a public option are woefully ignorant or they are hypocrites. Private health insurance is far more expensive than public insurance, for some very simple reasons. The plan will either cost far more, or it will cover far less.

There are several reasons why private health insurance necessarily costs far more than government health insurance compared to what we get for it. Private insurance companies spend money on the following items, which a government sponsored plan would not have to spend:

• Advertising and marketing costs
  
  
• Lobbying costs: Private health insurance companies spend tons of money to lobby our government for such things as … passing legislation to subsidize their corporations at taxpayer expense.
  
  
• Profits for their investors
  
  
• Screening their customers so that they can allow only the healthiest – that is the most profitable – into their plans
  
  
• Multimillion dollar salaries for their CEOs – which they justify by saying that they couldn’t produce such a superior product without those multimillion dollar salaries
  
  
• Other administrative/legislative costs: Government sponsored health insurance plans would of course also have to spend money on administrative costs. But one of the favorite pastimes of private health insurance companies is finding creative ways to avoid paying claims to their customers. Doing that requires special administrative efforts, and of course occasionally results in costly lawsuits.

So take your pick – greater expense, less coverage, or a combination of both.

Some have complained that a public option plan will also subsidize the health insurance industry, because some people will choose to use their government subsidies to purchase private insurance. That is true in some sense. However, the competition provided by a decent government plan should more than offset the advantage of those subsidies. In fact, Pulitzer Prize winning economist Paul Krugman believes that a strong government sponsored public health option will kill the private insurance industry because they will not be able to compete with it. And that is precisely why they have spent so many millions of dollars lobbying against a public option.


Income inequality

Extreme income inequality is a good indication that large segments of society lack the opportunity to make a decent living. It is also a formula for expanding social and political inequality, and it thus creates a vicious cycle.

The graph pictured below has great relevance to today’s situation. In the late 1920s income inequality rose precipitously, to peak just prior to the Stock Market Crash of 1929, which precipitated the Great Depression. The graph plots income inequality in the United States over time, as calculated by the ratio between the average income of the top 0.01% of U.S. families and the bottom 90%:



The bottom line lesson of this graph is that major economic inequality is followed by economic depression. Following onset of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt leveled the economic playing field with his New Deal, which helped greatly to bring us out of the Depression. With the onset of Reagan economics about a half a century later (which included the dismantling of many New Deal programs), and again with the onset of George W. Bush’s economic policies, economic inequality began to skyrocket again – which helped to bring us to our present state of affairs.

Paul Krugman, in his book, “The Conscience of a Liberal”, discusses the importance of universal health care as one big step towards leveling the playing field:

The principal reason to reform American health care is simply that it would improve the quality of life for most Americans…

There is, however, another important reason for health care reform. It’s the same reasons movement conservatives were so anxious to kill Clinton’s plan. That plan’s success, said William Kristol, “would signal the rebirth of centralized welfare-state policy” – by which he really meant that universal health care would give new life to the New Deal idea that society should help its less fortunate members. Indeed it would – and that’s a big argument in its favor…

Getting universal care should be the key domestic priority for modern liberals. Once they succeed there, they can turn to the broader, more difficult task of reigning in American inequality.

But how will health care “reform” that is characterized mainly by a massive transfer of taxpayer dollars to the health insurance industry help towards reducing income inequality to decent levels? I don’t see how it can. In all likelihood it would greatly expand the wealth and power of the insurance industry – which they would of course use to rig the system even further in their favor. That is a scary thought.


Considerations of fairness

The health insurance industry has been given their chance. Under their control, the cost of health care continues to soar, along with their profits. Many millions of Americans have found their legitimate health care claims denied in their hour of need, after pouring their hard earned money into health care premiums for much of their lives. And the opponents of government sponsored health insurance scream about the dangers of government rationing of health care! What a joke!

The same politicians who tout the “free market” and market competition as a supreme value are the ones who whine and complain that a public option insurance plan will hurt private insurance companies – as they accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribery… I mean campaign contributions from them. Yes, indeed it will. That’s too bad. They’ve had their chance. If they can’t stand the heat of the competition, then they should get out of the business.


What our best economists have to say about the need for a public health option

Let’s take a look at what our best economists have to say about this. Coincidentally – or NOT – these are the same people who warned us against bailing out failing banks with hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money. They warned us against doing that for much the same reasons as they are now using to warn us against a massive government subsidy of the insurance industry:

Paul Krugman
On August 20th Paul Krugman wrote about the futility of trying to appease Republicans in the Obama administration’s quest to enact meaningful health care reform:

But there’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness, and progressives increasingly feel that the administration is on the wrong side of that line. It seems as if there is nothing Republicans can do that will draw an administration rebuke: Senator Charles E. Grassley feeds the death panel smear, warning that reform will “pull the plug on grandma,” and two days later the White House declares that it’s still committed to working with him.

It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled. Indeed, no sooner were there reports that the administration might accept co-ops as an alternative to the public option than G.O.P. leaders announced that co-ops, too, were unacceptable.

So progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back.

On August 23rd Krugman wrote about what he describes as the inanity of the hysterical arguments against the public health option:

The debate over the public option has, as I said, been depressing in its inanity. Opponents of the option – not just Republicans, but Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Ben Nelson – have offered no coherent arguments against it. Mr. Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance – which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing, rather than as what should happen if the government plan was, in fact, better than what private insurers offer…

How will this all work out? I don’t know. But it’s hard to avoid the sense that a crucial opportunity is being missed, that we’re at what should be a turning point but are failing to make the turn.

Robert Reich
Robert Reich, President Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor, recently wrote about the futility of leaving our health care insurance needs in the hands of private insurers:

Without a public, Medicare-like option, health care reform is a bandaid for a system in critical condition. There's no way to push private insurers to become more efficient and provide better value to Americans without being forced to compete with a public option. And there's no way to get overall health-care costs down without a public option that has the authority and scale to negotiate lower costs…

He explains why private insurance companies are so aggressively against the public option:

… A public option would cut deeply into their current profits. That's why they've been willing to spend a fortune on lobbyists, threaten and intimidate legislators and ordinary Americans, and even rattle Obama's cage to the point where the Administration is about to give up on it.

And he offers political advice to our elected representatives and to us:

The White House wonders why there hasn't been more support for universal health care coming from progressives, grass-roots Democrats, and Independents. I'll tell you why. It's because the White House has never made an explicit commitment to a public option… If Obama tells Senate Democrats he will not sign a healthcare reform bill without a public option, there WILL BE enough votes in the United States Senate for a public option.

I urge you to make it absolutely clear to everyone you know, everyone who cares about universal health care and what it will mean to our country, that the bill must contain a real public option. Tell that to your representatives in Congress. Tell that to the White House… If you are receiving piles of emails from the Obama e-mail system asking you to click in favor of health care, do not do so unless or until you know it has a clear public option. Do not send money unless or until the White House makes clear its support for a public option.

This isn't just Obama's test. It's our test.

Dean Baker
Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, recently drove home the point that private insurance companies cannot compete with government sponsored health insurance:

If the insurers ever had to compete with a publicly run insurance plan on a level playing field, they would be blown out of the water. We know that private insurers can’t compete because we already had this experiment with the Medicare program. When private insurers had to compete on a level playing field with the traditional government-run plan they were almost driven from the market. That is why they got their friends in Congress to pass Medicare Advantage. This program spreads the wealth around by giving the private insurers a subsidy…

Then he summarizes what will happen if Congress enacts “health reform” without a public health option:

The fight is over whether Congress will leave in place structures that will siphon an ever-larger amount of money out of taxpayers’ pockets and put this money in the hands of the insurance industry, the hospitals, the drug companies and the doctors…

Unless Congress creates a serious public plan, you can expect to be hit with the largest tax increase in the history of the world – all of it going into the pockets of the health care industry.

The editorial board at The Nation magazine
I’m not certain that The Nation has economists on their editorial board, but in my experience their opinions are almost always right on target no matter what the subject. In their most recent editorial they expressed their hopes for health care reform in an editorial titled “By any Means Necessary”.

We hope the president, his Congressional allies and millions of Americans will be inspired to honor and do battle for Kennedy's lifelong cause. Surely Obama knows that the Senate's fighting liberal would not have put the fate of the nation's healthcare into the hands of private insurance companies, which increase their quarterly earnings by denying people care. Reform is not possible without a public alternative to the private companies, one based on coverage for all and quality care rather than profit…

Like so many other progressives, they speak of the folly of “bipartisanhip” in today’s political climate:

Obama often speaks of his desire to get beyond the partisan divide, but what good is bipartisanship at this moment? The Republican Party… does not simply want to criticize or modify Democratic healthcare proposals. It is determined to cripple or kill reform, and with it Obama's presidency… It's high time for Obama to part ways with the Party of No, which has been stoking outlandish fears about government "death panels" and "socialism" …

And they speak of the folly of enacting health “reform” legislation without a public health option:

If the Dems put forth a watered-down "bipartisan" bill with no public option, they will be justly blamed for its inevitable failure – and will see ugly results in the 2010 midterm elections. If, on the other hand, Republicans manage to defeat a good bill, let them try to explain themselves to midterm voters, who will still be at the mercy of Big Insurance and Big Pharma.

This is what the American people voted in Democrats for in 2006 and 2008

Our elected representatives in Congress – and President Obama – should not lose sight of the fact that the American people elected them in large part to enact meaningful health care reform. Presidential candidate Obama promised a strong public health option plan, and he spelled out the specifics of that plan in great detail on his website during his presidential run. That plan is no longer described on his website. But during the 2008 presidential race I summarized it in posts that specifically and very favorably compared it to John McCain’s non-plan. If our President and Congress back away from this now, that would represent a betrayal of the American people who voted them into office, in my opinion.

I heard David Gregory disingenuously claim on Meet the Press this morning that the American people do not support “Obama’s plan” for a public health option, citing an inappropriately worded poll as his evidence. After millions of dollars of private insurance company money have been used – with the help of our corporate news media – to misinform the American people about the “Obama plan” and its associated “death panels”, it’s no wonder that a slim majority of American’s don’t support the “Obama plan”. That does not negate the fact that Americans have consistently demonstrated widespread support (more than 75%) for a health insurance plan that includes a “choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance”.

The editorial in “The Nation” (that I quoted above) that proclaims the need for a public health insurance option concludes with the following warning and tribute to Ted Kennedy:

Every so often in American history a window to change opens… If Obama gives up this fight and caves in to lobbyists – and if Congressional Democrats and the grassroots fail to deliver the support he needs – that window will slam shut, and with it the chance for reform, which might not come for another generation. That would be a tragedy – and no way to honor the Lion of the Senate.

[cleveramerican]

1. how can anyone rally behind a plan that doesn't exist fully?

so far Obama hasn't given us very much to unite behind.


until this changes the outlook remains grim.

[Time for change]

2. I'm with you on that

I take Robert Reich's advice on that. When asked to "support" his plan I tell them that I'll wait until they specify what the plan is before I support it.

[Feisty]

14. I agree

I'm brand new here but in my opinion, I'm really tired of the distractions from both the far left and the far right. There are real solutions out there, and I agree with some of the ideas from the right (make insurance costs more negotiable and make the companies try to compete with each other more by allowing health insurance to be accessible across state lines, torte reform to keep the lawyers from always trying to make megabucks which increases the cost of doctor's insurance, etc), but also I feel for people that are in dire straights because they have no health insurance.
My understanding is that if you take away the people that simply don't want to pay for their insurance (the "nothing bad will happen to me" crowd), and take away the illegals, and also the people that simply have enough money to pay cash for their health care (Kennedy, Limbaugh, Soros, Bill Gates, etc), that you then only end up with about 12-15 million.
So, in my mind, it is sad for them, but if, in fact, the government is so bad with our money like they were with social security and such, why should I trust them to all of the sudden be financially responsible with yet another program?
Would really like any input. THanks

[riderinthestorm]

17. So too bad, so sad for the "only" 12 - 15 million who can't afford health insurance?

Welcome to DU.

Honestly, 12 - 15 million people without access to healthcare is too many but you obviously believe that isn't a significant amount of people. Can you give me a link that specifies how you came up with "only" this many people will be without health care AFTER your factors are played in? Also, I'm curious, are you really okay with ANYONE being without access to healthcare, morally, philosophically, ethically?

I'd really like you to articulate how you think government is doing so badly with Social Security. Do you get your checks on time? Are they accurate? Do you have a link on who has rated the performance of the SSA that backs up your claim?

Since we're talking about healthcare, your post seems to imply that the VA, Medicare and Medicaid is also fucked up since "government is so bad with our money". Can you provide links to back that up? Or do you want to see those programs eliminated too since you think they are so "bad"?

[G_j]

18. just a note,

ALL the recent financial disasters emanated from the private sector.

What exactly is the problem with Social Security, btw?

[Jackpine Radical]

23. You are of course aware that malpractice suits contribute maybe 1% to

health care costs, that places that enacted "tort reform" saw no reductions in health care costs, that Medicare administrative costs are under 5% in comparison to an average of about 30% with private insurance companies, that we end up picking up the tab every time a "nothing bad will happen" type wraps his car around a tree, that the "illegals" problem is relatively minor, and that when Roosevelt set up the New Deal he figured out ways to do is so that there was virtually no corruption, theft or fiscal mismanagement. There has been serious fiscal mismanagement in government, but it has been largely either in the Defense industry or on places like HEW during Republican administrations who cut enforcement because they saw no need to monitor their political hacks and inconvenience them as they performed their various grand larcenies.

[nashville_brook]

38. in Florida, at least, it's impossible to take a malpractice case to court unless death occurred

short of that, your case has to be so horrible that it would make the national news -- you know, like they amputated the wrong leg.

[Jackpine Radical]

40. ...and there was no resultant reduction in insurance premiums.

[zeemike]

32. Well I can tell you this

If you think allowing health insurance across state lines is an improvement you have another think coming.
What it will allow is the big fish to eat up the little fish and we will have ever fewer companies than we now have and they will have a monopoly on the market.

[The Wizard]

35. Social Security would be fine

if the fund wasn't incorporated into the general treasury to pay for unfunded wars.
Vietnam was the first war fought without raising taxes because the Social Security trust fund was raided, and it's been happening ever since. For most of our lives our country has been at war because war provides a good cover for treasury looting.
The elephant (with apologies to our Republican trolls) in the room is unmitigated defense spending because every politician is in fear of being labeled weak on defense or the real or imagined ism of the day that's threatening us.
That 19 guys with box cutters brought us to our knees tells us we're being robbed. And we're also spending far too much on health care for the results. We're ranked 37th in health care by the World Health Organization and we pay twice as much per capita as France that's ranked first. Again we're being robbed.
For far too long the shysters have had their hands in our pockets through well heeled lobbyists bribing public officials for legislation that fills the coffers of the already wealthy.
Americans should have the choice as to what health care coverage they get, and the public option creates greater choice. So a question might be: Why is the choice to choose better than the option of having an option?
If the government can't do anything as well as the private sector, why should the private sector be concerned with competition from alleged incompetents?
If the government can provide a 20% savings in health care premiums that would free up more money to circulate into the economy, thus creating more demand and by extension more jobs.
The simple fact is that the current course were on regarding health care is unsustainable and has to be changed to promote the general welfare.

[horseshoecrab]

37. disinformation ...

Feisty, when you write: "and take away the illegals" you are wrong. There is no bill with a plan to include those who are illegally in this country. None. Period.

As for "torte" reform... the re-thugs have been harping on this for ages on behalf of corporations. What exactly is so wrong about a trial lawyer getting the maximum possible settlement for the victim of some form of corporate neglect? Should someone who's left paralyzed for life by a product which is poorly designed (for example) be limited to some arbitrarily limited settlement which isn't based on the extent of their injuries and the future cost of their care? Why? What is good and just about that?

You write "so bad with our money like they were with social security and such" and all that I can say is ask anyone with Medicare, the single payer medical plan for seniors and the disabled how they're faring with this horrid, awful, nearly unspeakable form of socialized medicine.


horseshoecrab

edited for clarity

[Time for change]

50. I don't know what you mean by saying that the government is "bad with our money"

As long as our money is used for things that we need, it usually works out pretty good. Look at Social Security and Medicare. If our government told Americans that it intended to take those things away, there would be hell to pay. Instead, Bush pretended that he intended to "save" Social Security by turning it over to the private sector. Thankfully, the American people didn't buy that. And what about our highway system, and our public schools? I don't think that people would have wanted to do without those. Our public school system was of inestimable value in developing a middle class in this country.

Where the government really is "bad with our money" is with our military. That's largely because it's become such a boon to a wealthy segment of the private sector that they drive us into wars and excessive military spending to increase their profits. The American people have largely lost their say with respect to war. We never wanted to go to war in Iraq -- except for a brief period of time when many Americans bought into the Bush administration lies about WMD in Iraq. But Bush and Cheney had their reasons.

[Crunchy Frog]

53. Wow. You hit every single Republican talking point.

Enjoy your stay here. :hi:

[nightrain]

3. thing is.... single payer and/or expansion of Medicare covers both bases of more coverage and less

expense. The Obama Administration keeps its blinders on about single payer and remains convinced that they secretly have a better answer. I doubt they do.

[cleveramerican]

4. if he had an ace up his sleeve...

we'd have seen it these last few horrible weeks.

could he possibly have "secret solution" to this?

[nightrain]

5. people keep hoping that he has that ace up his sleeve... what is that hope based on?

[cleveramerican]

7. desperation

[nightrain]

13. yes... and perhaps denial?? I mean really... this whole issue of healthcare "reform"

has been so poorly handled.

What ever happened to a President stating more than broad ideas, but really going for it?!? Like LBJ or FDR? This current multi-faceted crisis is not so different than what those bold Presidents faced, and they got Social Security and Medicare done!

[spanone]

15. actually, the media has told us this has been handled poorly.

[nightrain]

16. actually, I think it has been handled poorly, regardless of what media says...

We're more than 3 months into healthcare reform and there is no plan. The WH has met with plenty of corporations without transparency, has put forth some broad ideas, floated lots of trial balloons, kept important participants (single payer) out of the discussion, and can't/won't? get any consensus within the Dem party.

As someone who has studied healthcare policy, political science, and is a practitioner, my sense is that it has been handled extremely poorly.

[waiting for hope]

21. Handled poorly? Or done in a manner

to appease the left for a bit and come out with what they intended all along? I think the latter.

[nightrain]

25. doesn't matter to me, both seem likely. Although I don't see much left appeasement....

No wining and dining done....

[inna]

31. here's a pretty cool link that sort of addresses your question:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/opinion/03smith.html


(and i wish Obama took notes.)

[nightrain]

33. thank you!!! I really appreciated reading it! And yes, I also wish Obama was

acting more like FDR!!

[Donnachaidh]

6. no. All the *chess* references are total BS.

Dollars to donuts his people are talking more about his legacy than actually doing a healthcare plan that will help everyone.

[Coyote_Bandit]

9. There will not be meaningful healthcare reform

This administration lacks a principled commitment to achieving it. They also lack the political skill, the willingness to sacrifice personal ambition, and the intestional fortitude to bring it to pass.

[LuvNewcastle]

10. +1

[DemReadingDU]

11. It seems to be about keeping the status quo

Nothing should be disrupted for the lobbyists, politicians, big business, big pharma, the wealthy. It would be very unfortunate for our country's people not to pass single-payer or the public option.

[nightrain]

12. yes, probably.....sad, isn't it?

[Old Time Pagan]

20. I wish you were off target on this

but the only thing I can disagree with you on is the lack of political skill.

I think they've got all they need of that. Problem is without a principled commitment to achieving meaningful and just reform, the willingness to sacrifice personal ambition, and the intestinal fortitude to bring it to pass the political skill they possess is of no use to those of us who supported and believed in this man.

I still hope there is an amazing combination of high level political chess and poker going on but at this juncture I'm afraid I may simply be deluding myself.

[Coyote_Bandit]

41. They have the

political skills required to get elected. They can sell hope.

But it would seem that they lack the political skills to actually accomplish much of anything. Dems control the Presidency and the majorities in both houses of Congress. And yet they can't seem to push thorugh the President's legislative agenda. Why is that? After all, it doesn't get much better. Despite all the the talk of bipartisanship and political dealmaking it would seem they are either unwilling or inept and unskilled in making that happen. Even within their own party. I suspect much of that is because many in the administration do not have long established ties as Washington insiders. Folks with only a few years in Washington don't have the context and experience required to deal with folks who have spent decades inside Washington.

[Old Time Pagan]

43. I see your point but respectfully disagree

Obama set up the most amazing grass roots network in history. He and his people were able to organize, energize, and mobilize (damn, starting to sound like Jesse Jackson there) millions of citizens. They've got the skills.

It appears that what they don't have is the guts for the dirty, down in the trenches, nasty work that needs to be done to counter the "folks who have spent decades inside Washington." There could be a lot of reasons for the apparent lack of guts: a desire to be popular, threats against family, personal ambition, who knows.

What I'm still hoping for is something like a political "trap" play, Obama lets the right think they're plowing through a weak offense, he lets them put themselves into an unsupportable position then he springs the right health care proposal for a TD.

At 57 you'd think I'd have gotten past being a hopeless optimist but I guess I'm incorrigible. Of course if I'm wrong and Obama is either not up to the job or the dems show themselves to simply be pawns of the corporate oligarchy then I'm done with both parties and will start working hard for the Greens.

[Coyote_Bandit]

44. I think

we agree on some things. The administration has lots of political skills when it comes to dealing with citizens and motivating them. But they don't have what it takes to accomplish anything meaningful in the political trenches. You call it guts. I call it skill and lack of intestional fortitude. In any event, the end result is the same.

Healthcare reform is my line in the sand. I will be veruy surprised if anything of substance is accomplished. Like you I'm becoming considerably more Green.

[Old Time Pagan]

47. Yep, I think if we were sitting down having a cuppa

we'd be substantially on the same page regarding President Obama.

In his defense however for over 30 years now I've believed that shortly after the inauguration ceremony the new president is ushered into a space that doesn't officially exist on any building blueprints and is briefed by people who don't officially show up on any personnel roster or payroll. These people inform the new president of the "reality" of his situation and make it very clear what will happen if he oversteps his bounds. I seem to recall reading about the existence of some pictures taken of Obama that are claimed to be before and after something like this might have happened to him back in January.

If I'm correct in my belief it would take a lot of courage to try to try and buck that sort of power. Of course I could just be talking out my ass, wouldn't be the first time.

That said, I'm with you. If health care reform is put aside or worse set up so those greedy pricks get to suck more out of the citizens of this country then it is time to find a new group to hang with. Green always has been my favorite color.

[Time for change]

36. That's why we have to put pressure on them

If they believe it's in their political interest to pass meaningful health care reform, they will do it.

[Coyote_Bandit]

42. I've written

everyone I vote for and told them that healthcare reform is my line in the sand. If they can't deliver then I do not intend to support or vote for their re-election. There is absolutely no reason for me to advance the interests of some politican who does not protect or advance my needs and interests. Fuck 'em.

Unfortunately, I cannot finance a campaign. But the corporations to which they are loyal can. And odds are my principled opposition to their re-election won't mean much. There are likely to be only two viable candidates for any given office and in general voters will either choose a candidate based on party affiliation or they will choose to vote for the best of what may be two bad choices. I refuse to do that anymore. I will vote FOR a candidate or I will abstain from voting. Pretty simple.

[Life Long Dem]

8. The part about the wondering White House?

What are they wondering exactly?

[Time for change]

39. I think it's a matter of taking the support of liberals/progressives for granted

It's a form of tunnel vision IMO. They think that we should continue to support them no matter how much they veer to the right.

But liberals are beginning to realize that by allowing the Obama administration and conservative Congressional Dems to take them for granted, we just continue to veer to the right as a nation. We have to draw a line in the sand and refuse to support Democrats who act like Republicans.

[waiting for hope]

19. These were the nails in the coffin

on any serious Health Reform:

White House releases list of health executive visitors / Secret memo confirms White House sweetheart deal for Big Pharma

He was meeting with them in February ... any question on why single payer wasn't invited in March?

K&R

[Time for change]

29. Making deals like that with pharmaceutical companies was very disappointing to me

It appears that he's turned out to be much less "transparent" that he said he would be when he was a presidential candidate.

Well, there's still time for him to hold firm for meaningful health reform. But I wouldn't bet on it.

[waiting for hope]

30. I'm not betting on it myself. Not to be pessimistic

but I find it hard to believe that after a brilliantly run campaign, the ball was so erroneously dropped here.

[Jakes Progress]

22. Time to call voting against the public option what it is.

A vote against the public option is a vote for Insurance Company Subsidies, more welfare for the corporate elite.

[nightrain]

24. depending on what the "public option" consists of, that corporate welfare door

swings both ways, as far as I'm concerned...

[Time for change]

46. That's exactly what it is

[MisterK]

26. Great post

If the Dems do the coward thing again Im not gonna be surprised. They do it all the time. Same as it ever was.

Personally I would be shocked if they didnt cower at every chance they get

[HughMoran]

27. If. Dems> Coward. Cower.

Paraphrasing your negativity. Welcome to DU :eyes:

[MisterK]

28. Yea, Im negative

But after years of watching them bow to the repukes ,its become expected.
Thanks for the welcome btw.

[Time for change]

34. Thank you -- and welcome to DU

:toast:

I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what's wrong with our Democratic Party.

Is it just that many of them want to please their big donors, to increase their campaign funding, or avoid losing it?

Is it because they're afraid of being lambasted by our corporate media (and they will be) if they appear to liberal.

Are they being blackmailed through information obtained through the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance system?

Or are their lives or family's lives being threatened (remember JFK, RFK, Paul Wellstone, and many others)?

[Individualist]

55. It isn't cowardice; it's complicity.

[MisterP]

45. well, according to the new conventional wisdom, even primaries are out

let alone 3rd parties
so we'll be cowed into ensuring that the wrong cat doesn't get put in charge of Mouseland

[Time for change]

49. I think we're going to have to have a 3rd party

[Autumn]

48. No public option ? Then it's

time for change.

[mzmolly]

51. "Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours"

:kick:

[KoKo]

52. +1

[Overseas]

54. Kicking! Wrote my Senators and Rep to say-- The Triggers have already blown off their hinges.

Headline: The triggers have already been blown off their hinges.

Last time they defeated Democratic attempts to introduce national health insurance, the private insurers told us they could do better. They have failed miserably.

The triggers for fair behavior have blown off their hinges-- millions more are uninsured and millions more are bankrupt from medical bills.

Private insurers have been given decades to show us they could manage things better than the government. Enough is enough. They have definitely failed. And yet they have gone ahead and spent millions on very reckless professional bullying to protect their private profits. I'd say professional bullying is blowing another trigger of decency and should not be rewarded.

I need Medicare now. Age is a pre-existing condition. My premiums cost employers 300% more than those of a 30-something. So my 25 years of experience and good references have a lot to overcome in this job market. Even if those expenses are later deductible for companies, the monthly cash outlay is tough to handle.

I sincerely hope President Obama stands strong on the public option. I want Single Payer, Medicare for All who choose it, as the public option.

Sincerely yours,

I love Thom Hartmann's idea of "Medicare Part E" with the "E" being Everyone. When I attended a health care reform demo recently I was chanting-- "Open Up Medicare; Single Payer Now!"

I'd love it if Democrats said they would not reward the professional bullying by delaying reform again with triggers or cockamamie coops-- they'd just expand Medicare. And since age is a pre-existing condition for which private insurers have been mercilessly jacking up the premiums over the past decade, they'll start by lowering the Medicare age to 50 in 2010, or letting us buy into it starting in 2010.

I don't like other public options because they could involve agonizing years of planning and debating their format-- further torturing those of us who are desperate for affordable health care.

It is amazing to keep hearing Democrats talk about making things fair for the private insurers who have been so unfair to so many millions of their constituents.