Schumer Promises Public Option In Health Care Bill

The Hill:

The healthcare reform bill that emerges from Congress this year will include a government-run public health insurance option, regardless of the bipartisan negotiations seeking a compromise in the Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday.

"Make no mistake about it, the president is for this strongly. There will be a public option in the final bill," Schumer said on CBS News's "Face the Nation."

Read the whole story: The Hill

Comments

[Concerned American99]

Another "read my lips" moment.......lot's of promises these days.

[filo]

"read my lips" was Bush Sr. or did you conveniently forget that ??

[omeo2013]

Where did he/she attribute the comment to Bush Jr?

[Marcospinelli]

Even with universal coverage in this country, there would be a two-tiered system: Basic coverage for everyone and boutique coverage for those willing to pay for it. So you don't have to worry about poor Big Insurance & Big Pharma -- There will be work for all. Big Insurance & Big Pharma will just have to make smarter gambles, with no taxpayer bailouts.

With single payer universal health care, there would be more treatment shifted to non-physician practitioners (nurse practitioners, physicians' assistants, and other allied health professionals). Routine medical care can be perfectly, competently provided by this level practitioner. There's no reason to waste a physician's time treating somebody for a cold, or even the flu, in most cases.

Single payer universal health care is a jobs program. If single payer universal health coverage were to become an official reality, training programs for both MDs and non-MD providers would be expanded and that's a good thing. Money would be spent on patient care, and not bonuses to CEOs and employees of Big Insurance for denying claims.

[KQuark]

Duh that's what many countries have like Japan which is ranked 6th in healthcare around the world. They have very basic coverage and then you have to buy a private plan which can provide full coverage to 70% coverage.

[quiviran]

Doctors salaries are not the issue in health care costs. The issue is the 30% to 50% of health insurance dollars that are siphoned off before every paying for any medical treatment.

That said, don't be distracted. A "public option" is no substitute for real reform. All it does is provide an accessible dumping ground for citizens that the insurance companies don't expect to make a profit on. The issue is the existence of the for-profit health insurance industry.

Everybody needs health care, nobody needs health insurance.

[PiscesPrincess]

Spot On. I lived most of my life without proper health insurance so as a consequence, I did not receive the medical health care I truly needed.
Now I have heart disease and, as a consequence, its costing the government more now.
Prevention in the long term is key.

[Marcospinelli]

The public option Schumer&Obama&Dems talk about isn't single payer universal health care, & isn't health care reform: It's a slow con. They only consider it, as a "compromise", because support for single payer universal health care is growing & BigInsurance hopes a 'bait & switch'-operation will fool us.

Why would BigInsurance settle for it? Because it would let BigInsurance carry on, as usual, with the same result: End public health care completely, & leave BigInsurance as the only show in town.

Unlike the non-profit, single payer plans in the rest of the industrialized world, the SchumerObama public option would charge premiums & impose deductibles. Unlike SinglePayer, SchumerObama's wouldn't accept government funding after the initial infusion, & so it would have to be self-sustaining. Moreover, it would be saddled with the oldest, sickest, & thus most costly; it would have to offer higher fees than Medicare. So no cost savings, none of the cost efficiencies of a single risk pool. It would be competing with 1,300 private HMO risk pools, which would aggressively market the youngest, healthiest (& thus cheapest & most profitable).

Public option plans have been tried in several states, & in every case they've failed to reduce costs or increase coverage. The only proven way of accomplishing both goals (based on a half-century's track record in Europe & Canada) is a nonprofit, single payer approach.

For a detailed analysis of the pitfalls of the public options:

http://www.commondreams.org/print/43440

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php#public-option

[quiviran]

Bingo.

[PiscesPrincess]

well worth the read. You are spot ON>

[JZ735]

HEY CHUCKY...

No PROMISES...get it DONE...

No time for bi-ching from health insurance business or lobbyists or Repubs...

Let's stop the BS and have this finished.

[iceage7]

If the insurance industry had been listening they would have kept their profits if.
Lowered their insurance premiums to affordable rates..like car insurance companies do.
-That way you get more people insured and make more money.
-Cover all pre-existing conditions.
But they are too greedy

[TeeLolly]

They could afford to cut their premiums and still cover pre-existing conditions ONLY if they cut the multibazillion dollar salaries of their top execs, ans slashed their lobbying budget, which is totally inconsistent with their greed mentality ...

[mrh3]

Sen. Schummer if you think this is bad wait till you see what happens when you try to pass off a sows ear as a silk purse.

[antmousie]

We need to keep letting electeds know that we only want what they have. No less, no more.

[VikingQuest]

LOL, if you think that is going to happen you need to wake up.

Stop waiting for someone else to give you something and go work for it. You can run for office, you can get a real job and then you can pay for it without needing welfare from others.

[TeeLolly]

Then so can our elected representatives. Why do they deserve benefits paid for by their constituents, when they deny those benefits to their constituents?

[Nancy84]

You need to find some compassion..... Do you really think that only people who are not working do not have good healthcare? If that is your reality, you need to take a back seat or go and walk in someone else's shoes for awhile. I personally have good healthcare but I still fight for others. The insurance industry is ripping us all off and until people like you join in the fight, the execs will continue to give themselves 700k raises and laugh in our faces, You really side with them?

[Cunningham]

You only show your ignorance when you post on this subject.

[dems08]

Are public schools 'welfare'?

[unite4change]

What good will it be if it is watered down like the credit card bill?

[LemonMeringue]

A public option will not help at all unless Congress is willing to let insurance companies let go of some of their profits.

[LeftCoastLarry]

Well, I think that's what a public option does.

[KQuark]

Exactly the public option will make no profits.

[jodshott]

The politicians are not listening to their constituents. WE WANT AFFORDABLE QUALITY HEALTH CARE COVERAGE, AND COVERAGE DURING PERIODS OF UNEMPLOYMENT. A PUBLIC OPTION IS GOOD. LET IT MORPH INTO A SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM.
As the owner/operator of a small family business I would gladly accept a public plan like the one that federal employees have, if I can pay a premium or tax less than the amount I'm paying for my family now. Each year my premium goes up 12-15% (I'm paying approx. $1800 per month for my family alone), and in order to minimize the increase, I increase my deductibles and co-pays. Right now we pay $60 for a brand name prescription drug. A generic alternative is not on the market yet. Also in 1 month when my daughter turns 19, our premium will go up $300. So if I can get a good plan for my family, like the federal employee plan, for $1200-$1500 per month or pay a tax which is less than the total annual premium, I'm all over it, especially if people will have coverage when they are unemployed. Any savings in health care would go directly to my salary, which has been significantly cut due to a decline in business. Most businesses could improve their employees' salary structures with stable or reduced health care costs. That in itself would be an economic stimulus.

[freshnotbitter]

The chance that a good business plan will emanate from committees of Congress staffed with K St wannabe's is effectively zero.

Obama should appoint a Team B composed of talented business people and tell them: Pretend you are in B School and writing a thesis but this time you have a big budget to hire staff and you are simply building a business model for universal health care for the USA that:

1) Covers everybody
2) Charges everybody a premium they can afford
3) maintains the present system for all who want their present insurance arrangements
4) Does not decrease the quality of medical care where it is good while increasing quality in areas where it is possible to do so
5) Places a maximum effort in realizing efficiencies by decreasing administrative costs and creating an electronic system for records and auditing that can be a model for the whole system if desired
6) takes into account human nature/psychology including politics and culture and leaves doctors in charge of triage in the broadest sense of the word.

They would never come up with the plan that is wending its way through congress. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Meg Whitman, and any number of other talented people would think our congressmen are nuts and wouldn't hire them to clean the floor

[Kassandra]

I believe reconciliation should be used on nearly all the bills congress is passing now. They are all so bad, we WILL need to revisit them in 5 years or so anyway.

The public option, so far, is going to be set up so as to NOT compete with private insurance and be VERY difficult for the average American to get. There will be gateways in the states screening folks. It's not going to be a matter of choice, but of income. If you have a certain income, you won't have a choice, you'll HAVE to buy from the insurance corporations.
This is about as far away from single payer as they can get and still seem like they're doing something. Just like the "Credit Card Reform" that did not cap the usurious interest rates...this will NOT keep the insurance corporations "honest"; as if they ever were.

If you want to be active in these processes, stop looking at Palin and Sanford and Michael Jackson. They are the same media distractions Bush used to take our eyes off the ball.

We need to gt ahead of these bills and keep calling our Congresscritters, because , by the time these bills get to the floor, they are a done deal.

Real healthcare reform is one of the only ways we're going to get this country off it's knees. So, if anyone wants semblance of recovery start calling.

[Chernynkaya]

Yes, yes, AND YES!

[jonbw]

stop spreading this foolishness from Conrad. A much better bill can be passed using reconcilation. It will have some problems and leave somethings out. (regulation on current and employer insurance would be stripped, but insurance from the exchange would need to follow a good set of rules)

[Kassandra]

I have no clue what you're talking about. I think my own thoughts, dearie. didn't I SAY we should use reconciliation?
Is your knee still jerking?

[ChampLessFuzzy]

To paraphrase VP Biden, my butt is on the line, meaning, I'm part of OFA out there trying to get healthcare reform passed, and sooner than later.

Please I ask, do not get so headstrong about single payer that it defeats healthcare reform altogether. The president wants to get affordable healthcare to everyone, that is priority.

I will tell you this, there will not be a single payer program at this point. It is not because we do not want it...it is indeed the best way to go. But please understand that at this point single payer will not pass. As much passion as is behind it, now is not the time.

If we were starting from scratch with healthcare reform, that would be where we would be putting our efforts. But trust me, now, today, the public option is what is doable and this is what a whole bunch of hard-working volunteers are out trying to get done. Educating the public is first priorty, as is pressuring elected officials.

We want change now, public option is doable with enough support. Circling firing squads ALWAYS are detrimental. Once reform is begun, we can work on the next, more aggressive phase.

July 11 is another opportunity to volunteer and also get the word out for healthcare reform. Please consider action. I'd put OFA website link here, but it gets deleted. Hint, Barack Obama dot com.

[zakon]

Just like the Republican Party FOR GENERATIONS have always promised that they would eventually ban abortions, or bring prayer back in school, or amend the constitution to ban gay marriage, the Democratic Party is pulling the same trick.... just wait, give us some more time.

Do your damn job and pass what the majority of VOTERS (NOT MONEY) wants!! -- universal healthcare like the rest of the industrialized world.

[weatherwaxx]

If you've got a brilliant scheme to neutralize the half-billion $ that the insurance industry is using to push its propaganda, by all means speak up.

Very few systems change overnight, and some change has to be incremental. Do you remember Bill Clinton's attempt at health care reform? No? That's because the insurance industry effectively demonized it.

There are too many chickens voting for Colonel Sanders on this issue. The thing to do is to get a system in place that at least helps those Americans in the greatest need -- the 50 million with no healthcare.

I think a single-payer option is the way to go, too. But I don't see any way to (a) get it through Congress and (b) convince those brainwashed folks who think it's better to have their medical access controlled by corporations than the government. Neither is ideal, but at least you can vote changes in the government.

[miriamfl]

Completely agree with you. We need a public option similar to Medicare and get that passed maybe down the road a few years from now there might be additional changes, but right now as much as we would like to get rid of all for profit ins companies it cannot pass.

[Marcospinelli]

There is no phase 2 reform.

The last health reform was in 1972, more than 20 years of trying to get single payer universal health care. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/02/20/a_towering_record_painstakingly_built/

Given what Bush (a back door bankrupting of the country, spending us into debt for generations so that social and progressive programs would have to end, including Medicare and Social Security) and the Republican Party has done these past 3 decades, Obama's "public/private"-plan is the next step in a Bush 3rd term.

It makes it possible for Big Insurance to starve out the competition, which in this case is the US government. Big Insurance will lock in healthy young Americans at dirt cheap rates for multi-years (that's what will make it into the bill, out-options only every few years), leaving everyone else on the government plan. Then Republicans will do everything they can to block money for Medicare, ration the care for those on it, and, well, we've all seen this movie before, haven't we?

This is the method that Bush and Grover Norquist had for ending Medicare and Social Security -- Bankrupt the country into not being able to pay out anymore.

[Chernynkaya]

Champ, I worked hard for Obama. I volunteered last month for OFA. But no more- I have lost faith.

it's not just health care reform in which Obama has disappointed me. It's actually everything. Don't get me wrong- he's much better than the Republicans, but he's not a liberal. I feel betrayed on the half measures he's taken on the stimulus, on transparency, on cap and trade legislation, on torture prosecutions, on DADT- in short I no longer think he is about true change. I will now work my butt off for a real Progressive, when and if we get the chance to vote for one.

[LemonMeringue]

I feel betrayed too.

The only one who speaks the truth consistently and fights for what is good for all Americans is Ralph Nader.

I have not even heard a peep from Kucinich of late.

[Marcospinelli]

If it isn't single payer universal health care, it isn't health care reform: It's a slow con. Obama&Dems are only considering it, as a "compromise", because support for single payer universal health care is growing & BigInsurance hopes a 'bait & switch'-operation will fool us.

Why would BigInsurance settle for it? Because it would let BigInsurance carry on, as usual, with the same result: End public health care completely, & leave BigInsurance as the only show in town.

Unlike the non-profit, single payer plans in the rest of the industrialized world, the SchumerObama public option would charge premiums & impose deductibles. Unlike SinglePayer, SchumerObama's wouldn't accept government funding after the initial infusion, & so it would have to be self-sustaining. Moreover, it would be saddled with the oldest, sickest, & thus most costly; it would have to offer higher fees than Medicare. So no cost savings, none of the cost efficiencies of a single risk pool. It would be competing with 1,300 private HMO risk pools, which would aggressively market the youngest, healthiest (& thus cheapest & most profitable).

Public option plans have been tried in several states, & in every case they've failed to reduce costs or increase coverage. The only proven way of accomplishing both goals (based on a half-century's track record in Europe & Canada) is a nonprofit, single payer approach.

For a detailed analysis of the pitfalls of the public options:

http://www.commondreams.org/print/43440

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/singlepayer_faq.php#public-option

[Marcospinelli]

The Public Option by Obama&Schumer&Dems is a ruse, a delaying tactic to fend off the movement for SinglePayerUniversalHealthcare. Once delayed, to starve the competition (in this case, the US government).

If Obama's plan (public & private health care) were to pass instead of SinglePayerUniversalHealthcare, BigInsurance would cherry-pick, take the youngest&healthiest, lock them in at dirt cheap rates for multi-years (windows to get out only every few years), leaving everyone else on the government plan. Then Republicans will do everything they can to block money for Medicare (Obama started that a couple of weeks ago), ration the care for those on it. We're already seeing that in state budgets, the end of programs because there's no money to pay for them.

This is the method that Bush & Grover Norquist had for ending Medicare & Social Security -- Bankrupt the country into not being able to pay out anymore. When Bush says he think history will vindicate him, this is why -- He thinks he served conservatives well, ending FDR's social programs by back-door bankruptcy.

This is "death by a thousand cuts". Contrary to what the proponents of Obama's plan claim, the result won't be the end of private health insurance but the end of Medicare, public health care, & people's lives.

SinglePayerUniversalHealthcare now. We'll never have the numbers, the enthusiasm, the organization that we have now. It's time to get these villains out of our lives, so that we can get on with our lives.

[Mikeeee]

I'd feel more confident if O would come out strongly on this. As someone else said, it should be single payer.

[miriamfl]

Pres O was never for single payer. He never camppaigned for single payer. He always said he would like to see a public option similar to what they get as government members.

[loveobamas]

Of all those I don't trust "to their own devices," Chuck Schumer would be very near the top of the list. I'll believe it when it's signed, sealed, and delivered, not one second sooner.

[Mugzi]

Where is it to read? Of course, by the time the Senate gets through with it....blogging with our European cousins, when they first got healthcare, it wasn't what they have today, so it is a beginning. Of course, single payer should be ultimate option, regardless of "the govt has no cost of capital". Healthcare should not be a for profit business when people's lives are at stake.

[chronic]

Good! I'm going to drop my HMO like a *hot potato*!

[sviolette]

You won't have to. They will drop you first. Previous condition= Not Too Bright.

[chronic]

You think you have guaranteed insurance sparky?

Please continue to post your !gnorance.