Woolsey: Public Option Too Potent to Ignore

[ProSense]

Woolsey: Public Option Too Potent to Ignore

By Rep. Lynn Woolsey
Special to Roll Call
March 8, 2010

The public insurance option is the Lazarus of the health care debate. Time and time again it has been pronounced dead, only to rise again.

Even now, though it was not included in President Barack Obama’s heath care plan, it remains part of the debate. The public option is included in the House bill, and momentum is building in the Senate, where more and more Members are announcing their support for its inclusion in a reconciliation bill.

The resilience of the public option is due to a simple reason — it is a very good idea. Short of a single-payer system, it is the best way of making health care available and affordable to those who don’t have it, and keeping it affordable for those who do. That is why it is supported by a majority of Americans.

The power of the public option lies in the lower-cost competition it would offer to an industry dominated by regional monopolies. Insurance companies like to appeal to free-market principles to argue against the public option, but their market is anything but free. A recent Urban Institute study found that concentration in the insurance and hospital industries has created markets that “by and large are simply not competitive.”

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[drm604]

1. Everything she says is obvious to anyone who looks at this objectively.

It should not be necessary to have to fight so hard for this.

[cilla4progress]

2. Agreed -

Feel somewhat abandoned by WH on this. Can't understand their lack of pushing for it. Political calculation, apparently. But misguided. I would think BO is too smart for that. Must be swayed by Rahm.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

3. Don't kid yourself.

He is to smart for that. There is only one reason there is no PO in the bill -- O did not want one or find one neccessary. The fact that he sicced Rahmbo on the Progressives to get in line and not the BLud Dogs tells you everything you need to know.

[CTyankee]

4. Well, that wasthen. This is now. Obama might just be thinking the whole exercise

got him into a worse place than he ever anticipated. And think of the consequences to his presidency: most people I know would LOVE to have Medicare and would be HAPPY to pay for that option! THe only people who would hate it would be people in the hc insurance industry and pharma and some insane tea partiers (even THEY will come to love it,tho).

I think Obama has got to be sadder but wiser now than when he started out and must be looking for another way...

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. I hope he rethinks his opposition.

What a fucking wasted opportunity. :cry: If he had started from the place of Medicare for All instead of making a deal with PHARMA -- Americans would have been onboard in droves, the GOP critics would be somewhat hamstrung, and we would be looking at genuine healthcare reform.

[CTyankee]

8. At the time that all of the Dems running in the primaries were writing their proposals

for hcr, they were hearing from people who said they wanted to keep the insurance they had. I truly believe that they thought "OK, so we'll propose a plan where they can keep that but also get the public option which will result eventually in people preferring it." People were nervous about change. Remember, this was in 2007. Things have really changed since then.

We have now come out the other end of this whole process and the bill in Congress is worse than any Dem would have believed back then.

I think you have to view this in terms of how the issue "evolved" in terms of public perceptions. You and I may have known that the PO or Medicare for all was the way to go but lots of other people were just plain scared of the idea of ANY change.

[HughMoran]

5. Keep pushing this - it ain't gonna happen without a fight

[jenmito]

7. Does Jane Hamsher still want Woolsey to resign?

Hmmm...