Obama Open to Creation of Health Cooperatives, DeParle Says

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aBKMHXigiNMM

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama may accept nonprofit health-insurance cooperatives in place of a new government-run plan as long as consumers are guaranteed more choice and competition in buying insurance, a top aide said.

“We would be interested in that” if those conditions are met, Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Conversations with Judy Woodruff” airing today.

......

Two weeks later, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, told the Wall Street Journal it was more important for health-care legislation to inject competition among insurers than to create a government-run plan.

“The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest,” Emanuel said.

Statement From Moscow

Within hours, the White House issued a statement from Moscow, where the president was attending meetings, to reiterate Obama’s support for a public plan.

Read more: Bloomberg

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I wonder if they will keep the insurance companies honest in with the same vigor used against the financial industry.

honest.

They will continue to "look forward" also known as tunnel vision to the future.

Yes, a non-profit option would be an improvement, but why aren't we just demanding single-payer now?!?

Keep it simple!

And they won't have the power to negotiate prices like the government does with Medicare?

Though the analogy has been made to rural electric coops, it seems to me to be analogous to credit unions. The regulation of credit unions is up to Congress, of course, but the banks throw a lot of money at congresscritters to make sure they do not really threaten their profits. They do this, in part, by making sure that credit unions must abide to stricter loan standards than prevail in the banking industry, and "more profitable" lines of business.

The irony of this is that credit unions are sound today, whereas banks are in trouble, because the stricter regulations that bankers imposed on credit unions (through Congress) have also meant they largely stayed away from the feeding frenzy that the banking industry engaged in.

And yet here's the rub: will the insurance industry find a way to mandate coverage for everyone, but force less profitable customers into coops, even barring healthy people joining them? This system could lead a two-tier system, wherein insurance industry profits go up, while coops really would be forced to ration care because they will never get large enough to compete and because they will insure folks who are less healthy.

This co-op idea is largely new. Why use this model for health care when we have one available--single payer--that has been much more successful wherever it has been tried?

as I said, I lke the co-op idea because its members have ownership. I dont like insurance companies running the health care system, and am scared of the govt doing it as well.
As far as co-ops being too small, who said they had to be small?

One thing that I find disturbing is our healthcare system does not seem to be too efficient.
All these offices and overhead...Each doctor has an office and staff. Why not have a bunch of doctors, general and practitioners, on salary, working out of a single facility? Heck have the dentists there too. May not be as convienent for some but would sure cut down on overhead. We need more "wal-mart" efficiencies big time to help reduce cost. I heard somewhere that 25% or so of healthcare costs is dedicated just to the bureacracy. Thats nuts...

It's nuts to think that they can be trusted with the A-bomb, carrier battle groups, biologiacl weapons and an entire mechanism of global surveillance but not to trust them to pay the doctor who takes out your tonsils. I grew up in a military family, and we liked our government-run health care just fine, thank you. I you look at the CVs of many of the doctors at major medical centers across the US, you'll see many of them had their medical education paid for by Uncle Sam, courtesy of the Army, Navy or Air Force. Are these doctors suddenly better in a civilian hospital?

The co-ops could be a good idea, assuming we don't let the insurance industry write the regulations that govern them. That's the issue I was addressing.

You're right about the bureaucracy. What's worse, private insurers have folks who are paid to deny claims, not with an eye toward eliminating fraud, but simply to keep costs down, no matter what. In 1993, the insurance companies paid out 95% in premiums to pay claims. Today, that number is 80%. Some of that money has gone to profits, which have gone up several hundred-fold over that period, but much of it has gone to the insurance company bureaucracies, all of which feature the duplication you note in doctors' offices, and on a grander scale.

I wouldnt have objections. There is nothing stopping the govt with creating the same bullshit that
insurance companies are doing. The military serves the govt, to the govt pleasure. In healthcare, it would be the other way around. And I'm not to impressed with the way the govt serves the people these days. Like I said, put a public option out there, but create another way as well. Competition could be a good check and balance.

I'd be fine with that. Try both: it cannot possibly be worse that what we're doing.

insurance company enabler thy name is rahm!

I pray this is not true..

Source: Bloomberg

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama may accept nonprofit health-insurance cooperatives in place of a new government-run plan as long as consumers are guaranteed more choice and competition in buying insurance, a top aide said.

"We would be interested in that" if those conditions are met, Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s "Conversations with Judy Woodruff" airing today.

DeParle said she expected Congress to pass health-care legislation on a bipartisan vote "around Thanksgiving."

Each house of Congress has already missed the president’s deadline of passing a version of health-care legislation by its August recess. Obama says he wants to sign a bill before year’s end.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/abkmhxiginmm

This answer is not revealing....and the body of the article provides old information as to what the President said.

what is obvious is that three committees have incorporated the plan of a public option...
and the Senate hasn't.

I think the media is trying too hard to determine what the White House will do. They are fishing, and coming up with Bait for readers, IMO.

And while three House committees have incorporated that approach into legislation, the Senate Finance Committee dropped the Medicare-like plan during bipartisan negotiations between three Democrats and three Republicans on the panel. The six met with Obama at the White House yesterday.

The president has championed a public option even as he’s left himself room to be flexible.

When asked in a June 23 press conference whether his desire for a public plan was non-negotiable, Obama replied:

"We have not drawn lines in the sand other than that reform has to control costs and that it has to provide relief to people who don't have health insurance or are underinsured."

Get the system set up so the residents aren't always in hospitals. Assign them to community clinics ala Northern Exposure. I'm willing to bet the majority of people only need an occasional shot or anti-biotic. Even if someone breaks a leg or arm, that could be treated at a neighborhood clinic.
Stock these clinics with the vacines children need to have before going to school. Put at least one in every zip code. All children enrolling in school get these shots at age 5 or whenever, at no charge.
Save the hospitals and ER for car crashes, heart attacks etc.
Ever doctor serves 2 years or whatever with supervision provided by one on-site doctor with at least 5 years experience. The same thing could be done for nurses too.
I realize there are lots of unanswered details in my off the cuff plan, but sometimes we tend to overthink things..........
Thoughts?

reform to insurance and necessary. Many people with policies can't think beyond to how easily they could lose it if sick, unemployed or too expensive.

I'm sure if some Republican came up with some RomneyCare privatized scheme, Obama would say publicly that he was "open" to that too (for about 5 minutes).

I think it's just part of his MO: look like you are being flexible and willing to compromise and keep the enemy guessing as to what the big picture is.

I like the idea of the members of the co-op (the patients) "owning" the system and having them decide what they want to cover, pay for etc, instead of a third party such as insurace companies and/or the govt who have their own agenda, calling the shots. Credit Unions run the same way and are very successful. No reason we cant have a "public option", "private insurance", and a "co-op" available for everyone. Lets see which system works the best.

I used to belong to Group Health Cooperative, and the only reason we stayed with it during the late Seventies and the early Eighties was because they couldn't figure that my wife's pregnancies were all in her head.

Any sort of organization can be wasteful of money, and stingy with service, all at the same time. I accept that fact, and would just as soon that we go to single-payer, if only to cut the cost of advertising that goes down a bottomless pit.

I have belonged to Group Health for 25 years...worked for them for 17.

I really liked both my care and the working situation when they were still a co-op....

They were bought out by Kaiser Permanente...and, IMHO, the change both as an employee
and as a consumer, was dramatic. Number crunching became the game, and the co-operative
spirit went out the door....along with a lot of employees who couldn't stand the change.

I have recieved good care from the organization,
but it helps to know the inside scoop,
i.e. who are the good docs, etc.

as a kid in high school, they really were lousy. I haven't had anything to do with Group Health since the early Eighties, but combining them with Kaiser would only make them worse.

My ex-wife had a really wonderful delivery experience for the first two kids, she had a truly great doctor. She was unfortunate to have to go into labor with the third child while we had a Chinese immigrant doctor who barely spoke recognizable English. It would have been quite frightening if that had been her first labor and delivery.

research

ruse to stop the public option. Smaller coops will not have the market power to reduce costs.

just replace 'cooperatives' with
1994-era 'health care alliance'.
............................

yah, dat going to work real good

that all his chosen advisors suck

I'm sure there must be others. Not For Profit companies were bought up by for profit and public funded hospitals have been bought up too!

Even Emanuel has said things that the White House retracted.

A single payer plan where the government collects fees and pays costs is the best IMO. The government does fine with education, social security, Medicare, police/fire, etc. Problems only arise when people, especially the rich, refuse to pay a little more in hard times to keep up funding. Under single payer, administrative costs are cut out. And the focus is on need - not ability to pay. There would be free choice of doctors and hospitals. Doctors' incomes would change little; they would be well compensated. And the government could let doctors help define need to reduce political interference.

A strong public option, though, is acceptable to me as a first step. Co-ops have not been so successful, and I don't see them competing. They are too beholden to private insurance.