Support Consumers Health Care Act (S. 1278). Rockefeller 's bill for Public Option

**PRESS CONFERENCE CALL ADVISORY**

ROCKEFELLER, JACOB HACKER, HOLD CONFERENCE CALL TO DISCUSS IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC OPTION
Tuesday, September 15th at 3:10PM

Washington, D.C.—Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV will join health care expert Jacob Hacker from Yale University for a conference call with reporters to discuss the public option in health care reform.

Senator Rockefeller is Chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care, and is the leading proponent of the public health insurance option in the Senate. He has introduced the Consumers Health Care Act (S. 1278) to provide a public option to consumers participating in the health insurance exchange.

Jacob Hacker is the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University and the author of several Institute for America's Future reports on the necessity of a public insurance option, including the recent report “Public Plan Choice in Congressional Health Plans: The Good, the Not-So-Good, and the Ugly,” which is available online at

http://www.ourfuture.org/files/Hacker_Public_Plan_August_2009.pdf

WHO: Senator Rockefeller, Jacob Hacker
WHAT: Conference call with reporters on the public option in health care reform
WHEN: Tuesday, September 15th, 3:10 PM

http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/09/13/sullivan-publicoptionin3200unlikemedicare/

"...We need truth in advertising about the “option”

When Jacob Hacker began promoting what is now called the “public option” in 2001, he referred to it as “Medicare Plus.” Given the enormous size of this version of the “option” (Hacker predicted it would enroll at least half of the non-elderly population), Hacker’s comparison of his proposed program with Medicare was not misleading. But after the Democrats introduced draft versions of the Senate HELP bill and HR 3200 last June, “option” advocates should have immediately ceased comparing the “option” to Medicare.

They did not do that. They continued to barrage the public with statements linking the “option” with Medicare. For example, in an interview posted on AlterNet on July 8, Howard Dean responded to a question about what the “option” looks like by saying, “In a nutshell, it looks like Medicare.”

One would think “option” supporters would have an especially strong motive to stop misleading the public about what the “option” will look like. They risk serious embarrassment if the “option” they keep comparing to Medicare turns out to be a hodge-podge of small, ineffective insurance companies created by private corporations. But I am aware of only two instances in which “option” advocates have so much as hinted at the possibility of this outcome. In a paper posted on August 20, Jacob Hacker conceded in a parenthetical remark that “the HELP bill appears to leave open the possibility … that the public plan could be contracted out to private insurers or at least established on a state-by-state basis, two undesirable approaches that should be clearly ruled out in subsequent legislation.” (page 2) The other instance was the September 1 comment by HCAN’s Richard Kirsch, which I quoted above, in which Kirsch agreed with Sen. Reid that the “option” might be administered by a private-sector firm.

“Option” advocates need to do better. They need to tell congressional Democrats the “options” in the HELP bill and HR 3200 will be no match for the insurance industry and that unless the Democrats rewrite the “option” sections to create “options” like Hacker’s original Medicare Plus, they will urge members of Congress and the public to oppose the “reform” legislation."

Please tape the entire thing so those of us who missed it can watch it and comment properly. I would kill to watch it---but I won't be able too.

just over 3 minutes.

Health Care For America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-J9ZgCRiD8

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-1278

Cosponsors:

Sherrod Brown
Debbie Ann Stabenow

for a "public option"

"Rockfeller said he'll sponsor an amendment in committee to add a public option to the bill, and will have other amendments as well."


Rockefeller won't vote for Baucus health bill

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/58845-rockefeller-i-wont-vote-for-baucus-health-bill

"There is no way in its present form that I will vote for it," Rockefeller said during a conference call co-hosted by the liberal Campaign for America's Future..."

I'm proud to see my senator Debbie Stabenow supporting this