They are still PUMAs to me.

and a high pool of customers to exert downward pressure is junk insurance?

All stated with the same old typical Blue Cross, Republican, junk buzzwords and no mention of what the junk "benefits" are going to be.

Shame on Mr. Dayen for a junk article.

So is Medicaid. Has been for decades. The actual provisioning is done by private companies.

Original Medicare = public insurance
Medicare Advantage = Private insurance companies approved by Medicare provide coverage.

I also thought Medicaid has traditionally been a public insurance but states have been privatizing (contracting it out) in the past few years. (http://www.alternet.org/story/152245/is_your_state_stealthily_privatizing_medicaid_and_putting_patients_at_risk)

That could be wrong I guess.

The actual taking of premiums and payment to providers.

contracted out to the cartels.

Never the less, as long as the patient didn't have to actually deal with the private insurance cos or their bullshit, and as long as they were not rationing care for profit, I could probably live with that.

Shhhh!!!

Big Secret

So, obviously, its not single payer, how could it be?

So it wont save money, it will cost tons, and collapse in four to five years on schedule, just like all the others.

A true public option leaves the cost containment strategies of health insurance companies that wreak havok on quality of care. That is the true value of the public option. Harpers ranks medical errors as the third leading cause of death in the U.S based on old data I suspect. However, it's probably at least the 2nd if not the 1st leading cause of death and only a fraction of that is the result of deaths due to lack of health insurance.

Another big advantage of the public option is cost containment which is achieved by reducing insurance company paperwork that accounts for about 30 cents on the dollar in US health care.

Obviously, the Federal plan doesn't have these characteristics so in this case the FireDogLake article has a point.

The entire health care "debate" in 2009 was a diversion to keep the country from discovering the facts on health care which are extremely damning to both (political) parties. This is resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who are being denied health care to satisfy a global trade agenda. Americans are being sacrificed on the altar of trade policy that they know wont work in the end because jobs are quietly going away due to automation. So privatization and the alleged prosperity that is supposed to emerge from 'progressive liberalisation' by developing countries and the US is shameless cow-pie in the sky.

Instead trade deals, especially GATS and TiSA intentionally and systematically block everything that can save money in order to prevent single payer and virtually everything that would save money- to maximize the value in the supply chains so to speak. It seems they want a crisis that only the bitter medicine of letting them sell us out will be proposed as a cure. A similar attack is being mounted against public education - globally!

This extreme dishonesty raises serious questions for me about all incumbents fitness to lead.

The radical neoliberal agenda is not aimed just at us in the US, no, we are collateral damage in a global campaign to export the 'succeessful' privatized US health care and education models.

On the eve of the massive economic changes caused by automation which will raise the skills requirement to find employment tremendously, they are trying to end affordable public health care and education.

Here are two papers that tell the story, one new one old..

Read this one first: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.405.5725&rep=rep1&type=pdf

The second one is about TPP and Canadian health care but much of it applies to the US as well, and the parts that dont are educational -

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/major-complications

i would also encourage people to check out other writing on trade by Scott Sinclair, its author, he's very good and his writing on trade subjects is among the best out there.