We Won a Robust Public Option

[Mithreal]

. . . on College Loans

by Jeff Cohen

When President Obama signs the healthcare reconciliation bill on Tuesday, we can crow about a robust public option - en route perhaps to a more inclusive, cost-effective single-payer system. Soon, private profiteers (and subsidies to them) will be sidelined, and the government will save taxpayers billions by providing service directly to Americans in need.

Instead of moving to subsidize a bulky private industry and its waste, profits and exorbitant executive pay (as the new health bill does by mandating that millions become new customers of corporate insurers), the college loan reform reduces bureaucracy, profit and streamlines the system.

It's a far cry from the backroom deal-making Obama and top Democrats engaged in with lobbyists as healthcare reform got watered down, as even a weak public option got jettisoned and as private insurers and big pharma deepened their control over the system.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/27

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The Democrats deserve praise for cutting out a wasteful middle man for student loans. Earlier in the week this aspect of insurance reform received well deserved attention at the top of the greatest page. Highlighting it again along with the irony.

Maybe we can get a robust public option in a banking reform bill.

Posting this but hoping someone with a lil more prestige posts it as well.

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. Excellent way to frame the argument.

It's too bad nobody applied that strategy to health care reform a year ago, and maybe that bill would have been as worth celebrating as this one is.

[Mithreal]

3. Framing sometimes seems to be a bad word, Lakoff marginalized.

[stray cat]

2. How about the increased number on Medicaid - from 20% of poverty to about 122% of poverty

level in Texas - thats a robust public option for many who need it most

[Tumbulu]

5. That is true and very appreciated (nt)

[Mithreal]

6. Until EVERYONE has access to quality affordable comprehensive health care

the fight is not over.

[Mithreal]

4. shameless kick

[bvar22]

7. K&R Had me going.

I though this was going to be a thread trumpeting the glory of the Community Health Centers, or equating the increase in Medicaid (a 2nd tier system) with a true Public Option.