Night of the living public option
At Reason, Peter Suderman asks a good question: Why won’t the public option die?
And don’t start by telling me that it’s oh-so-popular and yet somehow Republicans have just scared too many people –including a number of Senate Democrats — about it. If the public option is so darn popular, why is Nancy Pelosi trying to rebrand it so that people think they’re getting something other than what we’ve been discussing for months?
If it’s so popular, why has President Obama remained non-committal about it all this time? The fact is that the hypothetical public option in which millions of Americans magically receive new health coverage from the insurance fairy is popular, but a public option in which people are specifically asked to help pay for other people’s new coverage is not. Thus Speaker Pelosi’s attempt at trickeration.
The new “opt-out” idea from Harry Reid, in which states could decide not to participate in the new federal government insurance plan, is cut from the same cloth as Pelosi’s maneuvering. If the point were to give states a true choice in the matter, an “opt-in” plan would be far more intellectually honest since the easiest thing for state politicians to do is to not to deviate from the default option that Washington gives them. But Reid’s point, of course, is to set a public option in motion while giving the appearance of flexibility. Don’t fall for it.
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178 comments Add your comment
Churchill's MOM
October 27th, 2009
7:28 pm
Wingboy.. looks like you have been over run by “Axelfraud”, better luck tomorrow.
Linda
October 27th, 2009
7:48 pm
Dear Peach Lover, If you think no politician can make you do what you don’t want to do, just wait until this DC bunch passes cap & trade & try to sell your house without bringing it up to their energy-efficient standards.
What gets me the most are seemingly intelligent people who buy organic foods & toxic “green” light bulbs & who believe politicians can alter the climate.
David Axelfraud
October 27th, 2009
7:49 pm
Linda, actually………I am kin to the late William F. Buckley.
Peace Lover
October 27th, 2009
8:35 pm
Linda,
Who said “How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.”? for this reason, multitudes will be deceived and never know it.
Don’t look on the surface for true meaning. Why do our leader want socialize health care? It’s not the health care, the answer lies beneath surface.
Never think that politicians are concerned about your well being when they allow millions to die daily by illegal imported drugs and then stand up to say they have declared war on drugs. The truth lies beneath the surface.
Our biggest fear should not be cap & trade, health care, climate or the economy but rather the politicians!!
Ask your elected officials to stop the “war” in Iraq and Afghan. Stop killing our young men and women!!! Bring them home!!
artatlarge
October 27th, 2009
8:42 pm
D.A.
If you are a model conservative, I’ll be a liberal all my life.
wrf
October 27th, 2009
8:52 pm
So Kyle, you still offer no solution. However you did limit the fear element to only one use of “scare”. Maybe there is hope for you yet. Keep trying.
Orangelo Moulde
October 27th, 2009
8:56 pm
You’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American…you’re a great American
David Axelfraud
October 27th, 2009
8:59 pm
artatlarge, fine with me comrade. No skin off my back!
David Axelfraud
October 27th, 2009
9:01 pm
wrf, there is an alternative. It’s called tort reform and state competition.
Also, I love when President Obama says that hundreds of thousands of Americans are losing their health insurance.
Well………they would not be losing their health insurance if they THEY WERE NOT LOSING THEIR JOBS!!!!!!!!!
David Axelfraud
October 27th, 2009
9:12 pm
Linda, I did not mean to ignore your post. I was too busy responding to some other lame comments from two bloggers who were busy lying to Kyle. Anyway, I wanted to write that famous Gump line but never got around to it. Anyway, thanks for writing to Kyle about my comments. Kyle should take a look at some of the rhetoric written over on Bookmans blog.
Linda
October 27th, 2009
9:47 pm
Mr. Axelfraud, We are lucky ducks to have neat relatives. I thank God every other day, at least, that I ain’t kin to that Chuck fellow from NY, that dufus from Mass. or that Reidy guy from Nev. I would put myself up for adoption if any of these senators showed up at one of our family gatherings.
Linda
October 27th, 2009
10:31 pm
Peace Lover, I agree with you except for stopping the wars. One of the major differences between liberals & conservatives is peace thru appeasement vrs. peace thru strength. Radical muslims have been attacking & killing Americans since the ’70’s. Appeasement has not worked & never will. We all knew they wanted to blow up the World Trade Center because they had ALREADY tried in ‘93. It was just a matter of time before they tried again, which they did & succeeded. Our pres. & congress at the time declared a war on terrorism. Mistakes have been made & the strategy has become political, especially this year, even with the ban of calling it a war on terrorism which it still is.
Let me ask you this. If Islam terrorists from the Middle East had been killing Americans, especially servicemen & women, for 30 yrs. all over the Middle East & then came to the US & killed over 3000 more, what would you do? Is bringing our troops home the answer? Wouldn’t you sit down & try to analyze their motive & how to change it?
I don’t know the answers to the problems in the Middle East but it’s possible that bringing peace to Iraq, one of its largest countries & one with the most potential, surrounded by oppressed countries, could set an example & turn around the entire region.
Our military is comprised of volunteers, brave men & women who are fighting & dying for the freedoms our Constitution represents. They don’t WANT to come home without accomplishing their mission. Right now they don’t even know what their mission is.
StJ
October 27th, 2009
10:35 pm
The “public option” will NEVER die…even if it was completely removed from the current bill tomorrow. Once the government gets their proverbial foot in the hospital door, they will continue to find “injustices” and pass health care “remedies” until they have complete control.
Once they have control, freedom in this country will be nothing but a memory. After all, who is going to vote or speak out against the people in power when those same people have the authority to make your healthcare decisions…including whether you live or die (and how much you will suffer in the process).
Orangelo Moulde
October 28th, 2009
12:16 am
ANSWER: The US Constitution.
Though some problems and shortcomings may exist, recipients under Canadian, British, US Medicare, US Veteran’s Healtcare and other govt healthcare programs like it and would never give it up. They would all argure that they are entitled to it. Of course no one is going to pick a fight with veterans or the elderly so “govt run health care is bad” falls flat. The truth is some people hate all entitlements and they will be darned if they are going to sit back and allow another, probably the biggest ever, to be created. To them entitlements are just socialist redistributions of wealth from the most productive to the least productive. The problem is that under the Constitution, the least productive get the same vote as the most productive. Why stop at secession threats? Viva la revolution!
Tea
October 28th, 2009
7:27 am
America spends many times over what other industrialized countries spend on health care per capita. Our current health care system is bloated and inefficiant to the point of absurdity. The only way to create sustainable health care reform is to spend less money on it, less money that we currently do. Under such a reform plan, there will be less profit. Some business will fail. Others will be less profitable. Meaningful reform is the last thing “the health care industry” wants. The only chance of sustainable, meaningful reform is through a public option. That’s why, regardless of the fearmongering and propaganda to the contrary masquerading as “pro free enterprize”, the public option has not gone away.
Shawny
October 28th, 2009
8:16 am
States wouldn’t opt out. That fact that there is even an opt out clause is a ruse. It is to confuse those that aren’t really paying attention. It is sleight of hand. And Pelosi rebranding it doesn’t make it less of a govt ran healthcare.
Do not be fooled.
Anita Mao Dunn
October 28th, 2009
8:36 am
Go Joe Lieberman !!
Death to government run healthcare !!
Harry Reid knows the voters of Nevada are furious and going to replace him in the next election.
Ayn Rand Was Right
October 28th, 2009
8:41 am
Users like free plans…providers do not. Medicare recipients on the whole really like their plans. Doctors do not. Why, you may ask. Because doctors on the whole are paid 40 cents on the dollar for Medicare filings. Not because Medicare does not provide a fair payment structure, but because they refuse to pay…regularly. If a doctor hires a consultant (read: former employee of The System), he or she may receive around 70 cents on the dollar.
If all the programs are “free” – by this I don’t mean just in costs, but no restrictions such as the ability to buy insurance once you are sick — the quality doctors will leave their practices like rats from a flood. People who spent the first 1/2 of their lives being trained and excelling against the best of the best, will not work for free. Enjoy your online degreed medical care.
Road Scholar
October 28th, 2009
9:06 am
Did Afraud run out of meth?
saywhat?
October 28th, 2009
9:19 am
Linda wrote “There’s no way private health care co’s can compete with gov-run health care. Businesses can’t compete with govt., non-profits & charities.”
Why is it then that despite free public education, there are thriving private schools throughout the country? Why is it that Federal Express, UPS, DHL, etc all exist despite the US Postal service? Most importantly, why do you care if private health insurance companies exist, if they prove to be obsolete or unable to compete? Are you shedding tears over the horse and buggie industry, the type writer industry, the companies that made ditto machines too?
saywhat?
October 28th, 2009
9:24 am
Ayn Rand was right wrote “Users like free plans…providers do not. Medicare recipients on the whole really like their plans. Doctors do not. Why, you may ask. Because doctors on the whole are paid 40 cents on the dollar for Medicare filings. Not because Medicare does not provide a fair payment structure, but because they refuse to pay…regularly. If a doctor hires a consultant (read: former employee of The System), he or she may receive around 70 cents on the dollar.”
but forgets to mention private insurance companies do the same thing, but more frequently and with less cause. Then, they rescind people from their rolls whom they determine might cost them more in benefits than they bring in premiums. Does Medicare do that?
Ayn Rand Was Right
October 28th, 2009
9:39 am
Good point saywhat? however, with private companies there is recourse via the BBB or the Insurance Commission. Ask any doctor who has filed a complaint with their elected representatives against Medicare/Medicaid how that worked out for them.
Ayn Rand Was Right
October 28th, 2009
9:41 am
And yes, saywhat? Medicare does…they don’t rescind the patient from care, they simply rescind the payments to the providers. In a big city, no problem for some time, in a small town…BIG PROBLEM.
David Axelfraud
October 28th, 2009
10:01 am
Road Scholar, meth? I’m not a trailer trash baby like you and Stupid.
David Axelfraud
October 28th, 2009
10:02 am
The Godfather speaks. VDH
All Falling Down . . .
Obama’s mega-borrowing is predicated on a rather thin margin of safety. We can service nearly $2 trillion in additional debt this year—on top the of the existing $11 trillion—only because interest rates are so low.
But as a veteran of the near usury of the 1970s and early 1980s, I see no reason why interest rates won’t shoot up to 10% once the economy recovers and the U.S. has to convince lenders to buy our paper in an inflationary spiral. In other words, we could fork out each year about $150-200 billion in interest costs on our annual red ink, in addition to paying annually another trillion dollars to service the existing debt. (We forget that many of us young people in the 1970s and 1980s simply never bought anything new due to high interest: my first new car was not purchased until 1989 when interest was only 7.2% on it; my parents bought a small condo in 1980 for the unbelievably low rate of 8.8%, due only to redevelopment incentives in a bad neighborhood of Fresno. Inflation will be back, even in this quite different age of globalized competition and low wages.)
When Obama talks of a trillion here for health care, a trillion there for cap-and-trade, it has a chilling effect. Does he include the cost of interest? Where will the money came from? Who will pay the interest? Has he ever experienced the wages of such borrowing in his own life? Did he cut-back and save for his college or law school tuition, with part-time jobs? Did he ever run a business and see how hard it was to be $200 ahead at day’s end?
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/allfallingdown/
Road Scholar
October 28th, 2009
10:06 am
Afraud: Wow, that hurt. Do you feel better now? Wow, a whole hour between posts! Ooops! Your verbal diareaha is back!
Linda
October 28th, 2009
1:04 pm
Saywhat, the reason we have private schools is because the government is inefficient & ineffective in almost everything it does. Private schools are considered to be superior in quality of education. Only rich & moderate-income people can afford them & receive no tax rebates. Only 11% of our children attend them.
The post office & the 3 carriers you mentioned are not in the same category. Since DHL, FedX & UPS don’t deliver our mail door to door, they are able to make a profit as global delivery companies. They are also more efficient & effective than the PO. The PO doesn’t even have its own aircraft. Although the PO has started to pick up packages, pickups are made only during normal mail delivery. Prior to that, customers had to wait in line at the PO. The delivery workers at the private companies are paid under an incentive program & don’t close their windows when it’s time for a break. DHL stopped all their domestic shipments 1/09 & laid off thousands of workers.
If there is socialized health care, there will still be a few private health care workers since the legislature, unions & federal employees will probably be exempt, allowing for the rich to also patronize them.
I think we should all care about our fellow Americans being able to keep their jobs. It’s sad when anyone looses a job, worse when a business goes under & devastating to our economy when almost an entire industry shuts down, especially when it’s replaced with more govt. bureaucracy. Personally I believe in capitalism & took an oath in my profession to preserve the free enterprise system.
PS The PO still uses typewriters & ditto machines but thankfully gave up the horse & buggies.
Public Awareness
November 4th, 2009
1:06 am
The opt-in plan is essentially how Canada did it. Following the success of the first universal health care plan in one of the provinces, the federal government offered to pay half of the cost (in a block grant) to any province putting together a plan for universal health care. Note that the federal government does not provide the plan itself, only the funding, leaving it up to the provinces to run their respective plans as they see fit.