The Healthcare Deal: "White House is laying the groundwork for dumping the public plan option"

July 29, 2009
Public Plan Option (Bill Press)

Don’t look now, but Democrats are about to abandon their commitment to a public plan option, if they haven’t already done so.

In every public appearance, President Barack Obama continues to push the public plan option as an essential element of any healthcare reform legislation. But, from the White House, different signals are being given.

For the second day in a row yesterday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters the president was open to all options for providing more choice and more competition, including the insurance cooperatives proposed by the Senate Finance Committee. In fact, Gibbs told NBC’s Chuck Todd that at this point the president had “no preference” between the co-ops and the public plan option.

What’s going on? I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on: The White House is laying the groundwork for dumping the public plan option in order to win a few Republican votes for healthcare.

If so, it’s a total betrayal of what the president’s been talking about. Regional, nonprofit insurance co-ops may be a good idea, and they have worked in some rural parts of the country, but they’re no substitute for a national, Medicare-like, affordable public plan option that would make health insurance instantly available to all who can’t afford it.

http://pundits.thehill.com/2009/07/29/public-plan-option/

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House Democrats make a healthcare deal
By Noam N. Levey and Janet Hook
Los Angeles Times
July 30, 2009

The deal, worked out between a group of fiscally conservative Democrats and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, changes the way a proposed government-run insurance plan would operate in order to allay concerns that it could crowd out private insurers.

"I think they've had an inordinate amount of input," Rep. Pete Stark (D-Fremont) said of the more conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats. "And every time people have given them some consideration, they want more."

Under the agreement between Waxman and the Blue Dogs, House Democrats retained the idea of creating a government insurance program, which they believe will help drive down costs and give many consumers a new insurance option.

But the deal takes steps to ensure that the government plan would not gain advantages as a result of the federal management of Medicare, the insurance program for seniors that can negotiate low rates because of its massive size.

Originally, the government insurance plan would have paid doctors, hospitals and other providers a rate set slightly higher than Medicare's. Insurers and hospitals, as well as many lawmakers, feared that arrangement would mean the government plan would incur lower costs than private insurers and could charge low premiums -- driving companies out of the market. Consumers, critics said, ultimately could be left with only one choice for health coverage: the government.

Under the deal struck Wednesday, the government insurance plan would have to negotiate with hospitals and other providers apart from Medicare. That could make it harder for the federally run plan to charge very low premiums.

Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), a leading Blue Dog who worked on the House deal, called the changes to the government insurance plan "a huge win."

But more-liberal members protested. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.) said that by limiting the government's ability to drive insurance rates lower, the deal "lets insurance companies off the hook" for savings they had already promised the White House.

"It's a sop to the insurance companies," he said.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-healthcare-house30-2009jul30,0,4773886,full.story

We shouldn't just throw our hands up in the air and give up.



Go to this link for more information on todays rally and lobbying in Washington, D.C.

http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/single-payer-rally/

:-(

ability to drive insurance rates lower, we're screwed. We will be saddled with mandated insurance with little to no control over premiums. Isn't this the elephant in the room to begin with? Premiums for pre-existing conditions could theoretically be over the top so how does this help? Personally, I'm praying to stay healthy enough for the next 37 months until I can get Medicare. Sorry to be so selfish. Please someone tell me I'm missing something here!

Obama's poll numbers will sink like a stone and the Dems may lose control of congress.

And the republicans are counting on this to happen! The republicans will come up with some BS plan next year to use for the elections, and then if the do win enough seats to take control of the senate, they will do "NOTHING" to implement any changes that would help the people of this country. It would be terrible for the country and the democratic party. It would keep many democrats from going to the polls to vote next year, and that could spell big trouble not only for congress, but for Obama trying to get a second term in 2012!

deserve to lose. simple as that and painful as that is.

The Democrats deserve to lose if they are willing to settle for being slightly less hateful Republicans.

that it only effects the Energy and Commerce verison of the bill which is tilted with blue dogs compared to the other committees. The progressives are larger caucus they'll cary more weight on the floor.

As for premise this post people have spewing this BS for months that Obama was getting ready to drop the public option. IMO it has not point than cause outrage over some very suspect speculation.

I think I'll believe what is coming out of the President's mouth,
as opposed to Bill Press' "evidence" or lackthereof.

Here are some other Bill Press Tea leave "analysis" :eyes:


:shrug:



:eyes:



:wtf:



:rofl:



:wtf:

that they all KNOW that the problem with healthcare is the insurance companies, the hundreds of billions they skim off the top, and their need to maximize profits by increasing income (premiums) and decreasing expenses (benefits) . . .

House members know it . . . Senators know it . . . K Street lobbyists know it . . . and the president knows it . . . and not one of them is willing to do a damned thing to correct it . . . or, for that matter, to even publicly acknowledge it . . .

whatever is foisted upon us as healthcare "reform" will therefore be nothing but a palliative disguised as something new . . . whatever it looks like, it won't change the fundamental flaw, which is control by corporations and the resulting obscene profits they realize by monopolizing the industry . . . and as long as they continue funneling some of those profits to House, Senate, and presidential campaign chests, our chances of getting any REAL healthcare reform are slim and none . . .

this is as backwards and irresponsible as anything I've ever seen