Just What Is The Public Option and Who's Idea Was It Anyway?

[berni_mccoy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_option

A public health insurance option (public insurance option or public option for short) is a proposed health insurance plan offered by the federal government that is present in America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200) as a Qualified Health Benefit Plan. Barack Obama promoted the idea while running for election. Democrats have tended to support this idea as driving down premiums and providing choice where few options exist, while Republicans have tended to oppose the idea claiming that it would cause the private health insurance industry to collapse. Since the Qualified Health Benefit Plan would initially keep rates for services between medicare and most private insurers, private insurers have complained that this will result in cost-shifting to them. An alternative that has been proposed is to pump federal money into various private non-profit health insurance cooperatives (co-ops) to get them to become large and established enough to provide cost savings and into setting up transparent health insurance exchanges that would host them among health insurers. These co-ops would likely be statewide. Howard Dean and other liberal Democrats have been critical of abandoning a public option in favor of co-ops, questioning whether the co-ops would have enough negotiating power to compete with private health insurers]. Those desiring more radical reform than the public health insurance option have complained that a single-payer system is not being pursued, but the Democratic leadership contend that a federal single-payer system is currently politically infeasible.

Just so we're all on the same page. Obama Wants A Public Option. He Promoted The Idea. He is open to other ideas that are just as good, but as of yet, there are none. The Republicans have no ideas. Obama has already rejected co-ops as they shut down Baucus's Bill. HR3200 is, and has been, the closest thing to Obama's plan. This is what will be passed and signed into law.

I felt this post was necessary because I've actually seen DUers say and believe that HR3200 is supported by the Health Insurance Industry and Opposed By Obama.

[enlightenment]

1. "This is what will be passed and signed into law."

What are you, the Oracle of Delphi?

[berni_mccoy]

2. Ok, it's this bill or nothing. And I don't think the Dems can afford to do nothing.

[enlightenment]

4. Politically, no, they can't really afford to do nothing.

What sort of something they end up doing is still pretty much up in the air, I think. There is still time for plenty of red-lining and addenda, so the final bill may or may not end up looking familiar to what's floating around at the moment.

[kid a]

3. straight forward, without hype or hyperbole, logical & probable...a DU post worthy of K&R

nt

[Junkdrawer]

5. First of all, both Hillary and Obama followed Edwards lead...

...

The rest is history. Following Edwards' lead, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton picked up on the public option compromise. So what we have is Jacob Hacker's policy idea, but largely Hickey and Health Care for America Now's political strategy. It was a real high-wire act -- to convince the single-payer advocates, who were the only engaged health care constituency on the left, that they could live with the public option as a kind of stealth single-payer, thus transferring their energy and enthusiasm to this alternative. It had a very positive political effect: It got all the candidates except Kucinich onto basically the same health reform structure, unlike in 1992, when every Democrat had his or her own gimmick. And the public option/insurance exchange structure was ambitious.

...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=6456383

AND Obama ran against Individual Mandates - which he now embraces as absolutely necessary.

[berni_mccoy]

7. Obama has always been for PO and not for Single Payer, even before Edwards/Hacker.

[slipslidingaway]

10. Hacker wrote two papers, one in 2001 and the second in 2007...

Edwards was the first to pick up on the idea followed by Obama and Clinton.

All the major candidate plans were some variation of the Hacker plan.

http://www.ourfuture.org/files/documents/evolution-of-the-healthcare-debate.pdf

CAF Blog Chronicles Impact of Hacker Health Care for America Plan on the Evolution of the Edwards and Obama Health Proposals
Health Care for America

By Roger Hickey on January 11, 2007 - 4:14pm.

"The great debate over how to fundamentally fix our broken health care system just got a lot more interesting.
Today, the Economic Policy Institute released the Health Care for America plan – a simple yet sophisticated approach crafted by Jacob Hacker, author of “The Great Risk Shift.” Health Care for America, which you can find at www.sharedprosperity.org, comprehensively tackles the major health care problems holding back our society and economy: the 46 million uninsured, the skyrocketing costs and the uneven quality.

My organization, Campaign for America’s Future, will be launching a nationwide effort to discuss and debate how to get good healthcare coverage for all Americans while controlling spiraling health care costs. The best way to start that debate is to put a simple, clear and progressive health care plan on the table. Health Care for America is that plan, and it will be a benchmark by which all other plans can be judged.

How? By creating a Medicare-style system for all Americans under 65. The uninsured and underinsured could buy into the Health Care for America plan, with federal or state government assistance if necessary. Medicare and Health Care for America would then join forces and wield enormous bargaining power, driving down costs and raising the bar on quality...."

[Davis_X_Machina]

6. It is, or was, Jacob Hacker's idea...

...a Cal Berkley health economist, and advisor to the Edwards campaign. The history of the public option is here, and Hacker's original paper written for the Economic Policy institute is on line here

[berni_mccoy]

8. And Obama picked up his idea from the get-go. He never followed in Edwards footsteps on this

Even as early as Jan 2007 Obama was talking about concepts in the Public Option.

[Davis_X_Machina]

9. You will notice that although I mentioned that Hacker...

...was an advisor to the Edwards campaign, I did not say that Obama got the idea of a public option from the Edwards campaign. Two different things. The EPI is widely respected and their publications are widely read in progressive circles.

[slipslidingaway]

11. Link to your other post on this subject...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6517852&mesg_id=6517852

"...Why are Insurance Companies Fighting It as if their LIVES depended on it if it's such a gift?"

They are not, in fact the insurance companies and drug companies have been running ads in favor of health care reform.


What did HCAN do with the 40+ million???
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=369101&mesg_id=369101