As Ian Welsh points out, what passes for a public option in the bills now being considered (a "public option" that isn't even guaranteed to pass, nor should it in its current state) is not scaring Big Insurance or Big Pharmaceutical companies. Why is this? In an earlier blog entry, Welsh describes the reasons why (I've boldfaced the most relevant points):
Because it has no built in customer base, which increases its upfront expenses for advertising and a sales-force significantly. People who have company healthcare plans can't join.
Doctors, hospitals and so on are not required to accept it, and providers will not accept it if it provides below market rates unless it also provides large numbers of patients, which it can do because it isn't pre-populated and isn't a good buy for insureds unless it can provide a low premium, which requires it to pay low rates.
It must make a profit in order to return the money up-fronted to it, and it has only 10 years to do that, but it has to start from scratch, as noted above.
The most that can be said in favor of the weak "public option" is that it MIGHT be used as the dumping ground for the poorest patients, who for various reasons aren't qualified to receive Medicaid - and even then, it's unlikely that such patients will be granted access to adequate health care under the program.
This is unacceptable. The same things the owner(s) of Open Left have done to foist the pretense of health care reform on us all could and should have been done to relentlessly push for single-payer - so far the only piece of legislation actually drafted that would bring Americans the reform we so desperately need. Certain persons know this, yet they dishonestly act as though we ask the impossible of them by demanding that they use the voice they have to push for something they know is better. The mantra from the gatekeepers and other party apologists is, "don't complain. Accept what you're being given. Don't ask us to fight for something better, because we don't think we can get anything better - never mind that we never even try."
But let me ask you something: when is the last time you heard the leaders of the far right telling their followers that they shouldn't try to fight health care reform, that the Democrats have too big a majority and the best they can hope for is that in thirty years' time they can find a way to privatize it once they've built up their movement? The answer to that question, of course, is NEVER. Not once have you heard any such talk of giving up on the fight to kill health care reform. The GOP's strategy has been to stop any health care reform from passing at all, or failing that, to ensure that whatever does pass is so weak and ineffective that it won't help anyone. So far, the Republicans have enjoyed tremendous success. It's unthinkable, even among self-proclaimed progressives, to even think about going to single-payer as a starting point and bargaining down to something close to it and still workable.
We lost health care reform, just as we lost every other battle in this ideological war, because while our enemies go for 100% of what they want and absolutely refuse to accept "no" for an answer, we on the left insist on meekly asking for crumbs and accepting nothing but "no" as the response. Indeed, we'll even offer up more of what little we have remaining in an attempt to apologize for asking for even the tiny bit we have asked for. It's stupid and it hurts Americans.
Why is it that the far right gets virtually everything it demands, even when its favored political party is nominally out of power, never being made to accept "no" for an answer, but we on the left always have to be the ones "compromising" (read: surrendering)? Why is it that we're the ones who have to ask for anything less than one hundred percent of what we want, but no one ever asks or expects the far right to do likewise? Why must we always give while the other side always takes? Haven't we seen this week that when a Democrat actually stands up for what he believes in, takes the fight to Republicans and makes them fight on his terms instead of fighting on theirs, it's the Democrat who wins? Why aren't we all doing that?
I asked this of Mr. Bowers in a comment, and he never replied, either because he didn't see it or he didn't want to expose himself by publicly refusing, so I'll ask it here and now: Mr. Bowers, will you cease pushing this weak and ineffective "public option" and use the same methods you've been using for that to promote and push for single-payer? You know very well that the same things you've done to promote and push for this sham that plays at being reform can easily be applied to single-payer. No, the end result may not and probably won't be single-payer, but at least you'll have tried - and at least you'll have demonstrated that you really are serious about being a progressive. Will you do this?
