"Public option" can't be option for only the old and sick
The army of hospital and insurance company lobbyists occupying Congress (and writing the health insurance “reform” legislation for them) has gutted the “public option.” The “public option” is supposed to keep private insurers honest by giving us a government-administered insurance option. But most healthy Americans will be prohibited from choosing this so-called “public option.”
On a level playing field, private health insurers can’t maintain their fat profit margins while competing against a revenue-neutral government plan. But this legislation has been written to tilt the playing field heavily in favor of private firms: by sending the oldest and sickest Americans to the government insurance plan while trapping young, healthy (read: the most profitable) Americans in private plans.
Someone at DemocraticUnderground.com argues persuasively that “You should hope the Republicans and Lieberman filibuster it to death”:
There’s no definitive form of this thing yet, so I hope my assumptions of what will be in it are wrong, but consider the following:
A LAW 1) Mandating health insurance policies + 2) No binding fee schedule for standard procedures and drugs
EQUALS – Unparalleled profiteering opportunities for insurance & health sector companies – Further bankruptcy of working class and poor people.
FURTHERMORE, A LAW 3) With a weak public option not available to all + 4) Restricting availability only to the people insurance companies don’t want to cover (i.e., the sick and at-risk) and/or 5) Including state triggers or opt-out clauses
EQUALS – Rigged game in which public option plans appear to fail in comparison to private insurance – Republicans get a potentially winning issue for 2010. – Reinforcement of the “Red America vs. Blue America” paradigm, just when it’s on the ropes
Posted by James on Thursday, October 29, 2009