Open Left:: Progressive Caucus Draws a Line on Health Care

Progressive Caucus Draws a Line on Health Care | 25 comments

Good politics, good policy (4.00 / 5)

A plan without a strong public option isn't worth passing.

I wonder if this will lead Obama to actually meet with the Progressive Caucus.

I'm confident that Obama would be willing to bargain away a public option in order to pass a bill, so I guess we'll have to see if Rahm can bust enough kneecaps.

by: david mizner @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 17:50:33 PM CDT

If Rahm wants to bust kneecaps (4.00 / 3)

This is probably the worst issue to do it on and we know he's been in bed with the Healthcare Denial Industry for many moons now. I haven't seen a poll with less than 60% support for single payer in many months now. As the economy continues to crumble, people lose their jobs and their healthcare... so when the Senate does it's typical, "leave us alone and shut the fuck up" whining while it caters to corporate lobbyists, the public reaction will be most sour when "reform" fails. They'll polish a turd, call it "reform" and will proclaim, "It's the best we can do." But it won't do much of anything except further enrich that industry. That's all this is really about in the Senate anyway.

Obama will probably prove weak on this issue. He doesn't want to piss off his major medical industry donors. He doesn't want to piss off the Senate leadership. He doesn't want to piss off the Republicans or the "moderates" who are all busy making major bank on the "deliberations." So he'll say, "Well, we tried and this turd polishes up real nice."

So reform will likely die a quiet death in the Senate shredding room.

All this will happen while millions of people become more desperate than they are now. If the CPC sticks to their guns, they will be staking out valuable territory when people get really pissed off. So anyone who stakes out the high ground on this will look a lot better in the next election cycle. Blue Dogs beware!

"In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State" -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

by: Emocrat @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 20:09:24 PM CDT

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I disagree... (4.00 / 1)

Sibelius just said she wants a public option, the house wants a public option, even friggin' Baucus wants a public option...

What is MORE likely to happen is that the definition of "public option" will change... Several house leaders are already hinting on this... Instead of a medicare-type plan, the "public option" will allow us to enroll in the federal employees and congressional health plan. Of course that health plan is nothing but a smorgasbord of private plans that allow people to pick and choose, so I don't see what the real benefit or difference is... In defense of the move, those plans are really, friggin' good plans, with better coverage than what a medicare-type public plan would provide. What I don't understand is how that would save anyone any money, nor does it specify how much it would cost...

I think that is what the likely end result will be... the public option will actually end up being privatized.... Something like this could be framed very well to the public and be quite popular in theory.... If the costs are reasonable for the policy holder, then they might benefit too... but, there is no way the taxpayer would... it's still a mega giveaway to the insurance industry, which is why it's extremely likely to happen.

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

by: lord_mike @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 21:49:04 PM CDT

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Right, which points to the real problem, or one of them... (4.00 / 2)

In the case of Baucus, what he actually said is he wants a public option solely for the purpose of keeping the feet of the insurers "to the fire." Now, to my mind and maybe I'm wrong in interpreting it this way, that's a pretty hollow position. Indeed, Baucus is also against using the reconciliation process and instead wants to let the Rethuglicans filibuster. Somehow, I don't think he's playing for our team.

What lobbyist (or massive group of lobbyists colluding on this process) would bother to take the "public option" seriously if this is the attitude of the committee chair that will put the bill to the floor? Baucus has also publicly stated that single payer is off the table, so that doesn't give him much leverage when he's already flushed the big stick down the loo. I can't really speak to Sibelius, but if this is just a matter of hollow posturing, it doesn't count for much in real terms.

Lastly, if the "public option" is in fact privatized, how is that a public option?

I agree that the corporatist model can be sold, but I also hope your scenario turns out wrong. I just don't think it will work in any appreciable way. It will just be business as usual and I think most people who have to deal with that industry will find this out rather quickly. Healthcare will still be denied, rationing by spreadsheet will continue to get worse and the only real "reform" will be the size of public subsidies of private profits (wait, where have we heard that before?). I realize I'm being pretty cynical here, but I just can't help thinking the key people in the Senate (Reid and Baucus) are vastly more cynical than I, especially after their recent STFU remarks to "whining liberals."

If the final bill ends up looking like the Massachusetts program, which is rumored at times, then look out. Individual mandates w/ obscenely high premiums, taxing employee based insurance and a declining economy with mass unemployment will not have pleasant results, methinks. Issuing fines to unemployed people for not getting insurance won't go over too well either.

Better to sink a bad bill and get people mad in time for the next election cycle than let a porcine lipstick model get onto Obama's desk. I'm happy the CPC has taken a stand. If nothing else it lays the groundwork for Reform 2.0, but maybe it can have a positive impact on Reform 1.0.

"In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State" -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

by: Emocrat @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 22:38:44 PM CDT

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I'm trying to figure out... (4.00 / 2)

...what the benefit of a "privatized" public option would be... how would that be any different than anything else.

Many large companies don't pay insurance premiums for health care clams(i.e. self insured), but pay for the health care directly--they only have insurers run the administration of the plans for a fixed fee. In most of those cases, the resulting coverage is much better than if the plan was purchased directly from the insurer 'cos the employers aren't nickle and diming their employees with denied benefits. The insurers have no incentive to challenge claims 'cos it's not on their dime, and denying coverage and making life hell for the employees who could make them demand a different plan from their employer in the future. So, I guess the one big benefit of such a "public option" would be that the government pays directly for all the costs with the insures only acting as an administrator.

I do not know if that is how the federal government administers their plans, but if they are the direct payer, then, we kind of do have a public option with this setup. Remember, that the administration of medicare is also farmed out to third parties in the private sector, so it might not be as bad as we assume...

I will get some more info...

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

by: lord_mike @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 22:48:25 PM CDT

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The devil is in the details, as they say (0.00 / 0)

I don't know much of anything about the congressional healthcare thing. If they use private carriers, then it doesn't really seem to be a very public thing, except that the USG picks up the tab on a large portion of it. How it works is unknown to me.

ONe of the reasons I'm particularly strident on the health care issue is that it speaks to many of our nation's ills. Single payer would be a huge boon for the economy, creating jobs...it would also make US companies much more competitive in the global economy. It would ruin this notion of privatization, which is now and always has been a neo-liberal scam to seize the public goods and turn them over to private interests. It would also be the most democratic of all solutions and would make healthcare accountable to the people.

So I'm open to any option that makes significant steps in that direction. My own sense is that once private industry has to compete with the public option, they will be done soon enough.

"In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State" -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

by: Emocrat @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 12:34:26 PM CDT

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