ACTION: Senator Reid does the American thing, puts a public option in the Senate bill. Support him.
Harry Reid stood up for America today.
He put a public health insurance option in the Senate bill, the merged version of the two health care bills passed out of committee that will now go to the Senate floor for debate, amendments, and passage.
This is a huge victory. Putting the public health insurance option in the Senate bill that goes to the floor makes it much harder to remove later. Opponents will need 60 votes to amend the Senate bill, meaning a high bar will have to be cleared to take out or change the public health insurance option.
Why did Senator Reid do it? As he said:
I believe that a public option can achieve the goal of bringing meaningful reform to our broken system. It will protect consumers, keep insurers honest and ensure competition and that's why we intend to include it on the bill that will be submitted to the Senate for consideration.
For these reasons, the public option is what America wants. In poll after poll, in rally after rally, month after month, the American public has spoken. We want a public health insurance option to keep the insurance industry honest, to increase competition, and to give us somewhere to go if we don't want to be at the mercy of the private insurance industry any longer.
Click here to sign the petition thanking Senator Reid.
When the Washington Post - harbingers of cautious beltway conventional wisdom - has their polls showing 57% of Americans support a public health insurance option, you can be sure that this is a mainstream position.
Senator Reid deserves our thanks today for leading America forward. The fight is far from over, and to be sure, there is plenty in the Senate bill that needs to be fixed. We need:
- To make sure health care is truly affordable to everyone
- Ensure employers are responsible for helping to provide good health benefits to their employees
- Fairly finance reform rather than taxing higher-cost plans
However, Senator Reid stood up for America and he should be encouraged to keep fighting. Sign the petition below to pledge to keep fighting for a public health insurance option and quality, affordable health care for all.
Click here to sign the petition thanking Senator Reid and telling him that as he fights for us, we'll stand with him.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
I'm proud to work for Health Care for America Now
Follow Jason Rosenbaum on Twitter: www.twitter.com/j_ro
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Public option is good for the health of Big Government, but not for our health. It will be medicocrity for all, rather than strive for medical excellence. Will it cost more than they predict? Will it deliver less than they promise? Yes & yes! If it goes through, then pray for your good health. See www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com
Is it really a victory? At least half the states will opt out. Why is it, that we can put federal controls on alcohol, but giving the citizens of this country health coverage is just not possible?
0 states will opt out
I do not believe any states will opt out but I have concerns. The maximum number of those eligible to participate in the public option(estimated at 10 million) is insufficient to prevent cherrypicking by the large insurance companies and allowing them to load up the public option with more expensive subscribers may make the public option unaffordabe at worst and at best an ineffective way to hold down costs. What do we do to prevent this?Can we get expanded eligibility in this bill?
If this passes it will be interesting to watch the effect on the political landscape. I can imagine things polarizing even more, as people who actually want health care start relocating to get it.
We should just do what Canada does and be done with it. It's time for the U.S. to get a clue.
Maybe. Be aware that Canada has somewhat higher income tax levels to pay for their Social Insurance structure, when National and Provincial (roughly equivalent to US Sates) income tax levels are combined. I believe their National average is around 42% net for the broad middle class.
If you add in the cost of our medical premiums and then the high deductibles it'll probably exceed 41% for the average family.
Reid's rolling with tha punches and it looks like he's got the insurance companies on the ropes.
If Congress made sausage like they make laws, we would all be dead from food poisoning.
Or hunger, at the rate they move, starvation would set in before the food got to us. I am severely handicapped and I still move faster. I like the song from 1776 in which John Adams is singing about Independence and he says in one line and so you gave us Congress, Good God sir was that fair.
Wow, I think this is great. Let's put everyone on the public option and run insurance companies right out of business. Then we can raise unemployment while we wait for our healthcare. Brilliant plan!!! Oh wait, fine the businesses 750 per employee for not offering insurance...hmmm, let me think about this one for a nano second. If I was the employer, pay the fine baby!
Name one person who has been turned away from an emergency room today because they didn't have insurance!
Rush into healthcare reform today, put off Afghanistan for more thought!
$750 per month or per year? If $750 per year then no one would buy insurance until they got sick. Of course, we would all be sick of the healthcare system anyways, so everyone would sign up to be treated for anti-government nausea.
Raising hand! It wasn't that far back I was turned away, and it happens every single day. Private hospitals can turn away people they do it, a lot. Hospitals that are party funded by the government cannot.
Not to mention dumping after very minimal treatment. Not to mention putting uninsured people to the back of the list, because even at the emergency room the first thing they ask for is your insurance card. And it gets even better because those costs are passed on to all of us through county taxes and of course employer insurance increases. Also, they charge much more for those services delivered to the uninsured.
Harry Reid stood up becuase this is what happens when progressives put Democrats feet to the fire. We are not done yet! Keep up the pressure!
Now we have to expand the number of people eligible for the public option. Without sufficient numbers it will not be a real counterweight to the health insurance companies. Some say only 10 milllion or so are eligible. That is not enough to compete with the insurance mafia. This is particularly upsetting since only those not eligible to get insurance at reasonable rates are the ones eligible to get the public option. This puts the public option at an immediate disadvantage. Lets have a real level playing field by greatly increasing the number of people eligible to at least 50 million or more, We need these numbers to create real competition and hold health costs down. Increase the numbers so our insurance companies do not continue to cherrypick and cripple the public option.
> Ensure employers are responsible for helping to provide good health benefits to their employees
I favor a Medicare for all plan. Single-payer is the way to true reform. I don't favor any mandate of any kind because a true public plan would immediately be cheaper and an over all better deal than any privately run, for profit, insurance plan. One of the cornerstones of true health care reform should be to remove employers from any kind of responsibility to provide health insurance benefits to their employees. We need to become more competitive if industry is ever to return to return to these shores, and forcing employers to do the job of a hybrid economy government is just inefficient.
Create a true public option and you don't need employers playing the middleman in any way.
Make the United States and the Middle Class strong again! Stop trying to weaken our nation by continually passing the buck from where the responsibility truly lies.
Well said, and I agree 100%
Who decides whether to opt-out or include the public option? The state's governor &/or legislature, I assume.
So if I live in a state who's governor &/or legislature doesn't want the public health care option to be available, neither I nor anyone else in that state will have the opportunity to take advantage of that option.
Are those elected officials prepared to deal with the problems their decision will create? I seriously doubt it. And I'll bet none of them are without health care themselves.
vote 'em out
protest
write letters, phone, email
Fantasy: Public option sets up a "competitive" market participant that will force insurance companies to become more efficient and/or reduce profits.
Reality: Public option sets up a basis for monopolistic control of the health insurance market. Just the fact that the the endeavor, though currently projected to be deficit neutral, can be backstopped by the zero-spread borrowing power of the US government is an advantage against which private insurers would not be able to compete.
If we are serious about controlling costs, why isn't tort reform even on the table? Is John Edwards too powerful in the party? It would seem to me that deregulation across state lines is another no-brainer cost reducer in that you decrease barriers-to-entry for new players in new insurance markets.
Why are these concepts not really part of the debate? Because this health care "reform" effort has nothing to do with actually controlling costs. I'm all for insuring more people, but we have to be honest with ourselves about whether intent is to really control costs or to just spend and borrow like we've been doing for the last eight years.
No to the PO.
there may end up being tort reform in the final bill
When 30-40% of health care costs are wasted by insurance companies, it's absurd to talk about tort reform or interstate barriers. Malpractice awards are less than 1%. But if you want to give up your right to sue for injuries, I'll pay the notary fee for your signed document.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091026/hl_nm/us_usa_healthcare_waste_4
Are you referencing this article? I wouldn't actually say that it's the "insurance companies" that are wasting this money.
If there's 200mm in Medicare fraud, go after the fraud and show me the money. If there is identified fraud, why doesn't the President get up and say, "I'm going after fraud. My team is going to spend the next six months identifying and prosecuting these cases of fraud. After we've shown results, we'll come back to you, the American public, and show that we're serious about cutting costs."
I, mistakenly, thought President Obama was that kind of leader, but it turns out that he's just another politician.
Ending the insurance industry's exemption from anti-trust IS a no-brainer and in the sights of progressives as well. You can't even get some Republicans to go for even that even thought they live in states/disctricts that would benefit enormously from de-regulation. Which tells us what? They are paid------ you fill in the blank. Tort reform is NOT a no-brainer and hasn't been very successful in the states that tried it.
The smart negotiating point would be to promise serious debate on a tort reform bill...AFTER the obstructionists get behind the health care reform that the majority of their constituents want.
Give 'em hell Harry.
You can count on my support.
My, Harry actually did stand up for something!! Who would've thunk it??
Some progressives are still saying that it's not a true victory because the Weiner Amendment isn't included in the bill.
My God is right.
The Headline read: "ACTIVISTS: "HUGE VICTORY""
Except the only activist listed is the author of this blog posting.
I'm an activist too. And I can tell you this, we're not ALL happy.
why the hell not?
You want to go through debates on health care in the state legislatures??? I don't. Not here in bass ackward Kansas.
You may not have gotten everything you wished but any form of public option was dead only weeks ago. Grassroots brought it back from dead is huge. We have the power to make things happen. Instead of whining, we should keep the momentum and take it to other reforms we need. Lobbyists may have money but voters hold their job.
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