Krugman: Why The Public Option Matters

New York Times:

Most arguments against the public option are based either on deliberate misrepresentation of what that option would mean, or on remarkably thorough misunderstanding of the concept, which persists to a frustrating degree: I was really surprised to see Joe Klein worrying about the creation of a system in which doctors work directly for the government, British-style, when that has nothing whatsoever to do with the public option as proposed. (Forty years of Medicare haven't turned the US into that kind of system -- why would having a public plan change that?)

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[M1]

Profit making in health care is immoral. Single payer is true health care reform. The public option will provide real cost relief but not true form. No public option,well, we are just screwed.

[castlerider]

Granted, there's a lot of things our government’s done, and done badly.

BUT THIS IS DIFFERENT... It’s a call to arms in a great battle against a very formidable foe.
This requires we all pull together, make an effort, and believe.
Believing in our government the same way President Kennedy believed we could get to the moon, and we did it. The space program wasn't just some kid's dream. It pushed us, and gave us greater technology and incredibly advanced engineering on the way. So many great inventions and better means for living were inspired, started, and continue with the space program. THAT’s America, at her best. That's what our government can do, and needs to do now… FAILURE’S NOT AN OPTION..

That’s why it's so important, even to the point of being patriotic, believing our government can do this, even to call out those that say we can’t as unpatriotic..
We don't have a choice. Our economy’s on the ropes, and will get MUCH WORSE…
We need to grab a hold, gut this pig, and start over with a clean slate, dropping off the excess fat and greed that's been strangling our nation...

It must be done. Those saying it can't be done must be ignored. They’re cowards, or they dwell in ignorance. Cautiously, we must believe, and move on.

America must have the best, most inexpensive healthcare in the world. That's the mission.
This mission makes us better. A nation where healthcare’s a right, not a luxury.
.

[JFaye]

Short of the federal government stepping in to break up huge insurance conglomerates to force competition, public option is the only road back to competitiveness in the health insurance agency. Why so many consumers and beneficiaries of health care reform aren't willing (or lack the wherewithal) to comprehend the ultimate savings across the board, is mind-boggling.

To force our citizens into health care without the public option, makes all of us more vulnerable to insurance companies who are more accountable to their boards and stockholders for profit than us ... their clients for maximum health coverage.

Perhaps in the end, the headline may read education reform should have been our first priority.

[JFaye]

Correction .. health insurance industry (not agency)

[jmpurser]

Competition has never helped in this field before so why should it start doing so now? The very idea of health insurance is deeply flawed in both an economic sense and a moral one. Why are we trying to save an industry that doesn't actually provide a service?

[max hp]

Will you support a bill without a Public Option?

NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

What don't YOU undersrand?

[CTtransplant]

We should have NO trigger!!! And NO waiting five years !!!

Never ever ever give up!!! Folks, do not forget the marches on September 13th!!!
If not now, when? If not us, who?

Kennedy was one of our greatest champions of health care reform. He carried the torch for a long time...and now it is up to us to continue to carry it!

Our elected officials in Congress receive health care mostly paid for by us tax payers, yet many are trying to make it impossible for us to purchase an affordable plan of our own :

While many of us are struggling to afford medical insurance/medical bills.
While Congress people try to stop healthcare reform.
While Congress people accept large contributions from lobbyists to prevent health care reform.

Please sign these petitions - and by all means, spread the word! Thank you!

http://www.petitiononline.com/PubOp676/petition.html
http://www.democrats.com/honor-ted-kennedy?cid=ZGVtczQ0MTA5OGRlbXM=
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5649/t/4922/content.jsp?content_KEY=2763&tag=hk1_typ-e1

[freshnotbitter]

A public option run by a board insulated from politics and staffed with reps from doctors/patients 50/50 can do what nobody else is doing at the moment: Institute responsible measures to increase the amount of medicine delivered per dollar for their insured after analyzing why American medicine costs twice what it does anywhere else.

I would call it the public "complement" not public option.

[einstein10]

Only a member of the privileged elite would recommend mandates for the 47 million uninsured.

[freshnotbitter]

Yes, I'm so angry that the state mandates auto insurance. I wan't to pay for everybody else. Why won't they let me. Thos darn elites, I just want to wring their collective necks. I'm so angry I could throw a tea bag but I don't want to get my double wide dirty.

[policyhack]

Paul you haven't watched enough Scrubs! Hilarious health reform ad by Scrubs Stars.

http://axisofreason.com/2009/09/09/health-reform-worries/

[pontesisto]

Now is the time to make our voices heard...If you would like to help pressure Congress to pass single payer health care reform please join our voting bloc at:
http://www.votingbloc.org/Health_Bloc.php

[wdw505]

no thanks

[sueinmn]

Suppose your all for continuing corporate control.

[SingingGuy]

We need the public option whether or not there is an individual mandate, we need to stop linking health insurance to employment, especially with unemployment at stratospheric levels.

It never ceases to amaze me why most businesses are not out there pounding the pavement for reform. What little we still manufacture in this country is surcharged by the fact that most of our competing country's manufacturing does not have the added burden of providing health insurance for their workers.
Why do you think so many automobiles have been manufactured in Canada in recent decades?

[sueinmn]

The small businesses do not have a voice just as we do not. The Chamber who carries a loud voice represents global business and non American cheap labor. Until many American businesses accept the facts that they are NOT represented by the Chamber, they will continue to be silenced. Large business represents the Wallmarts and all the foreign workers so healthcare is not an option. Will reform force places like Wallmart to actually provide coverage? Will the less than 32 hour worker benefit from private insurance even being affordable? What is affordable if you already make minimum wages? Too many barely survive paycheck to paycheck now and this needs to change. Only the single payer could change this but people refuse to acknowledge that as too much government control.

[wdw505]

"Only the single payer could change this but people refuse to acknowledge that as too much government control." because it is too much government control

[freshnotbitter]

"It never ceases to amaze me why most businesses are not out there pounding the pavement for reform...."

Because nobody wants trouble from the gummint. Squawk and you might get a visit from the heavies. And they can do anything they want.

[Giordano Bruno]

Now the prevailing practice in the insurance industry is to try to select those who need services the least at the highest possible price. This assures that the scamming continues in the best tradition of American Corporate culture. Continuing to promote the mythology that government is intrinsically evil while ignoring the disgraceful practices of the health insurers in the name of vague platitudes is simply another form of demagoguery.

The current plan being considered by Senator Block us Bacchus is ridiculous. It will only prop up an industry which deserves to fail. Much like the bank bail out, it is designed to further business interests over those of the citizens of this country who still cannot purchase affordable health care in the name of "free enterprise". If free enterprise were free, that would be a different think, but it costs us dearly, and is responsible in large part for our inability to compete in the new global economy. Our employee health insurance costs are so high, that labor costs are no longer sustainable. Cost containment, quality goals, Hedis measures be damned. Full speed ahead and business as usual, with government subsidies no less!

[sueinmn]

They parade their capitolism or free enterprise while they monopolize themselves forcing competition out and it is not capitolism at all. People are simply dumbed down and will always believe the lies and remain poor and under employed. We get what we deserve as the minority seems to be heard over the best interest of the country. Go figure, the squeaky wheel gets greased. WHY?

[PaxEterna]

A second comment:

Previous so-called "bright" administrations were eventually shown to be "stupid" because their intellectual arrogance made them blind to what they thought they knew, what they thought didn't matter, what they thought was true. (EG Kennedy et al and Vietnam).

This administration is making a HUGE mistake in assuming that a bill, any bill, will give them a platform for claiming victory on this issue.

They grossly underestimate the basic intelligence of the American people, notwithstanding some of the right wingnuts who give new meaning to STUPID.

We the people are way ahead of the WH on this one, and we are not amused.

Obama et al will be shown to be pretty stupid about health care reform.

[freshnotbitter]

When I read everything people post here it seems to me that the problem is lack of a clear explanation from the politicians about what reform consists in. Like Bromwich said in a blog yesterday, if you can't explain the policy well, maybe its the wrong policy.

The private insurance model isn't working, not in terms of running an insurance policy but in terms of distorting the system which now comprises 20% of GDP and therefore is just too big for these kinds of distortions.

If there is 1 trillion waste in health that reform can recoup and we garner another 0.4 trillion from ending Bush's wars, that is $10,000 per year for each employed person in America. O can go up to the Walmart checkout person and say here is $10,000 tax free, or to the person flipping hamburgers. What do you think that would do for the economy and the deficit?

It's a no brainer so why doesn't somebody do something?

[PaxEterna]

Newsflash: what is happening here, and is lost in the discussion, is that the DC insiders think that the INSURANCE INDUSTRY IS TOO BIG TO FAIL.

That is why there is no real reform in the mix, just moving around the players into slightly different positions while coralling all the peolpe (sheep, patients, what have you) into the pens of the medical industrial complex.

This isn't health care, folks, It's big business, pure and simple.

We will get mandated "insurance" for all and that will institutionalize the corrupt and unequal system already in place.

The US citizen will get a blatant new identity in the health care arena: where we were once considered a patient, we will now be viewed solely as a profit-center.

This will be worse than Waterloo for the Democrats.

[jmpurser]

Personally I think as Reagan led to Bush II who bungled Iraq and destroyed the GOP so Clinton led to Obama who bungled health care and killed the Democratic party.

We need at least a third party. Both the GOP and the Democrats now serve the wealthy, their corporations, and the status quo. We're at least a generation behind in this nation and we need to start moving forward but no major player in our political system wants to allow that.

[max hp]

A constant reminder that for demcracy to truly work, the people have to be ENGAGED.
A vote against a Public Option is a vote against you, me and the people's choice.
Target the Senate Democrats listed as ""Don't know" on the Public Option :

Source : http://standwithdrdean.com/where_congress_stands?chamber=Senate&party=D&state=&hc_status=0&commit=Filter

Sen Max Baucus D MT Phone: [phone]
Sen Evan Bayh D IN Phone: [phone]
Sen Mark Begich D AK Phone: [phone]
Sen Robert Byrd D WV Phone: [phone]
Sen Thomas Carper D DE Phone: [phone]
Sen Kent Conrad D ND Phone: [phone]
Sen Mary Landrieu D LA Phone: [phone]
Sen Blanche Lincoln D AR Phone: [phone]
Sen Bill Nelson D FL Phone: [phone]
Sen Benjamin Nelson D NE Phone: [phone]
Sen Mark Pryor D AR Phone: [phone]
Sen Jon Tester D MT Phone: [phone]
Sen Mark Warner D VA Phone: [phone]
Sen Ron Wyden D OR Phone: [phone]

[Periwinkle]

Two points. First, if the public option ends up being a horrible option, people will buy policies from big insurance instead. (That's the choice part.) Secondly, I think it's a myth that health insurance companies pay providers so much more than Medicare. Just yesterday I heard of a case where a lady had an $8,000 bill at the hospital and big insurance paid a measly $3,000. Big insurance ran my own doctor out of business because they underpaid him for his patients in his practice and then, when he himself was diagnosed with cancer, big insurance denied a significant portion of his claims. They ruined him coming and going.

[max hp]

We need to ask the Insurance companies:

Exactly, what is it that you do?

[ClarcKing]

This reform proposal should have been kept simple: expand Social Security and Medicaid. Re-enact the Hill=Burton Act, the general hospital system with the single payer feature. Those who would like to supplement their healthcare with private insurance have that option. Insurance companies and HMO's should not be involved in the delivery of healthcare.

[jmpurser]

That would have been REAL health care reform and it turns out not that many people in DC wanted that. Certainly our president and the health insurance industry didn't.