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Throughout the congressional health care debate, considerable attention has focused on the Blue Dog Coalition - a group of House Democrats committed to fiscal responsibility and budget discipline.
We're Blue Dogs, too, and we believe in the group's core principles. But we've broken with our Blue Dog sisters and brothers over their lukewarm support for the public insurance option a concept we think must be part of a successful health care reform package.
Far from being an option of last resort or a government-funded takeover of the country's health care system, we see the public option as a critical market mechanism that will drive down costs, foster competition and expand Americans' insurance choices.
This is not just smart health care policy, it is smart economic policy.
A Gallup-Healthways survey has identified more than 290,000 uninsured people in our congressional districts alone. This is astonishing, and, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, their medical care cost local hospitals and other health care providers $65 million last year.
How can providers stay afloat in the face of such expenditures? By charging people who have insurance more. A recent study by the Center for American Progress found that more than 10 percent of the average Californian's premiums, approximately $500 each year, goes to covering the cost of caring for the uninsured.
Expanding coverage will greatly reduce the costs of uncompensated care and alleviate a major drag on the state and national economies. A public option is necessary to reach that goal.
If private insurers were already providing affordable coverage, there would be no need for this debate. But they are not. In fact, the profit motive has routinely trumped a customer's health and well-being. They set premiums at artificially high rates to compensate for the costs of the uninsured, drop people from their plans when they become sick, or use fine print to deny expensive but medically necessary treatments.
We understand the fear of many insured Californians that health care reform will take away their current doctors and coverage. However, the grim reality is that many more insured people will lose their coverage without reform.
In August it happened to Rep. Harman's 27-year-old son, who was dropped from his insurance after suffering a torn eardrum.
He's not alone. According to a recent report by the Treasury Department, without health care reform, nearly half of all Americans under 65 will lose their coverage at some point over the next 10 years. Additionally, health care spending in the United States will go from $1 out of every $6 spent to $1 of every $5 in the next decade.
Ultimately, our country and our constituents can't afford to wait for health care reform. Doing nothing means Californians will pay twice as much in premiums and out-of-pocket costs in the coming years and insurance companies will still call the shots, denying care to people with pre-existing conditions and walking away from families that need coverage the most.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 97 percent of all Americans would have insurance coverage if legislation that includes a public option becomes law. If this benchmark is reached, in our districts, more than 250,000 additional people would be able to count on quality, affordable health care coverage. Whether people choose a private insurer or the public option, all could count on a guaranteed standard and comprehensive set of benefits to ensure access to quality, affordable health care.
The health care debate in Congress will continue through the end of the year. The recent Senate Finance Committee defeat of two amendments to include a public insurance option in its health care reform bill is a disappointing setback.
Nevertheless, we remain hopeful that at the end of its process, Congress will have succeeded in passing a fiscally responsible health care bill that includes a robust public option.
This is our best bet to ensure Californians have access to quality, affordable health care without burdening future generations.
This post originally appeared as an Op-Ed in the Sacramento Bee.
Robert J. Elisberg: You Ain't Nothin' But a Blue Dog
I'm glad to know that Reps. Harman and Sanchez have joined the growing call for a public option. But for the life of me, I do not understand what took Jane Harman so long.
Anti-abortion Democrats get chance to amend health care proposal - CNN.com
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Let the record show that Loretta Sanchez (CA-47) OPPOSED the robust public when it came up for a final whip count on October 27, 2009. This corrupt hypocritical behavior is why Americans have no respect for their Congressional representatives.
Harmon/Sanchez/my former party don't really care about the people of America if they continue trying to do to our healthcare system what they've done to education across our land. I graduated from our famous Cal Ed high school system rated #1 at the time. As a teacher in that same system I've witnessed the expensive destruction of that once very honorable public effort for the Good of The People. Now Cal Ed is about 46th. In short, in our best Sacramento suburban high school, our wonderful German foreign exchange student suddenly went home after about 6-8 weeks, saying American education was a joke. Her comments were echoed by my polite Swedish foreign exchange student. Cal Ed is the future of your healthcare under Pelosi.
Obamacare is magic thinking by well-intentioned people who are trying to wash off guilt and to emplace blame, engendered largely by distortions of MSM which is connected generally to NY-DC's corrupt combine of wealthy Wall Streeters/money managers/corrupt big city governments/corrupt unions-community organizations, as MSM operatives try to establish their leftist professors' dreamland.
The best way to cover the most people (the fewest needing government help) is to grow the economy/education allowing all to earn their own place in this Greatest Revolution for the Common Man in all of history: America.
What’s broken about the American Health Care System is that American does not have a not-for-profit system that delivers medical services to all its citizens, and that is responsible to those citizens, not to a board of investors whose sole motivation is corporate greed. What’s broken about the American Health Care System is that *it doesn’t have one.* What America has is a number of companies that prey on its citizens in their hour of desperate need, and Obama’s current Health Care Reform Bill doesn’t change that.
In the film, “The American President”, there is a telling exchange between two of the characters over a crime bill the Chief Executive has just sent to the floor:
President: “Government is choosing, government is prioritizing; I made no secret of the
fact the Crime Bill was my top priority.”
Sydney: “Well then, congratulations! It’s only taken you three years to put together
crime prevention legislation that has no hope of preventing crime!”
President: “Sid, please, I don’t wanna lose you over this.”
Sydney: “Mr. President, you got bigger problems than losing me. You just lost my
vote.”
Congratulations, President Obama. You have just put together Health Care Reform legislation that has no hope of delivering Health Care to the American people. And, Mr. President, you’ve just lost my vote.
It amazes me that Americans mistake Health Care for Health Insurance. The two are poles apart. Health Care is the delivery of actual medical care. Health Insurance is nothing more than a lottery; you are not paying for the delivery of a service but instead purchasing the possibility that the insurance company (after taking a substantial profit, of course) might pay for some of your medical bills. One is a service, the other is a profit-taking corporation who certainly doesn’t have the interest of the patient as its bottom line. Seems pretty hard to confuse the two. Yet in his attempt to reform American Health Care, that’s what President Obama has done.
Obama let the insurance corporations set the terms of the debate; he’s invited them to the table. Not unpredictably, the result is a Health Care Reform bill that does not serve the interests of the American people or their health. The bill that has escaped the Senate Finance Committee is worse than useless. It takes a discussion of America’s health care needs and turns it into a wrangle over corporate monopoly. It is a sop to the insurance companies and a burden to those it was meant to help. And without the “public” plan option, the Health Care Reform bill is meaningless, because it simply doesn’t address what’s actually broken in the American Health Care System: for decades, decisions about the health of Americans have been at the mercy of out of control profit-taking corporations.
Obama should have traded the escalation of the war in Afghanistan for Blue Dog support on the public option.
Obama should have traded Russian support for Iran sanctions for getting rid of the missle defense system, but he didn't.
Obama can't make a deal.
Listen dahlings, all these color symbolics are confusing. I am still trying to understand the meaning of pinko commies, so do help Tierra out. Who and what are these blue dog democrats. Is there a published list? Is there a website I can go to? Or do I assume these are a group of southern democrats who have a special breed of dog that sits up begging and has big eyes that turn blue when they see a corporation lobby rep approaching.
Nice going Jane and Loretta. I don't even know who these blue dogs are, but I know that they have had a lot of cover from Obama as he is trying to round up Republicans like Bill Frist to support his plan. This gives the blue dogs the ability to act like the broker between the "sides".
Hey all you Obama people, you got exactly what I said all along you were going to get. Obama is quickly morphing into Bush III. He's Republican Gen X'r, who is out to wreck Medicare (oh, I mean he's going to fix it by eliminating the half trillion dollars of waste), he's fighting his "smart war" in Afghanistan, and he's let his banker pals off scot free after they looted the banks and left them in the dumpster. Obama is not now and never was a Democrat. Are you people on this once useful progressive web site beginning to wake up yet? I doubt it. TV has turned America, and especially liberals into a bunch of dummies.
Let me remind you that President Obama was opposed to the Bush war. You cannot now label it Obama's war.
If Obama had been Prseident instead of Bush, we would not need to discuss the best way to withdraw, without giving comfort to the enemy.
Moreover, the first trillion dollar bail-out was during the Bush administration.
Lastly, the notion that Obama wants to wreck Medicare is rediculous on its face. On the contrary, he wants to provide health care to all US tax payers.
The only problem I have with the current plans of both houses, is the fact that all want to keep the For-Profit aspect in the administration of Health Care, which is the only non productive part of health care delivery. Why should an insurance CEO pocket millions of dollars in bonuses, where that money could be used for actual health care delivery to people.
Profit and Healt Care are mutually exclusive.
You are so full of it. It's easier getting a country into war as GW did, than it is to pull out. There have been a number of Democrats who have been involved in wars (Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson). The really tricky part is either winning or withdrawing in such a way that will not destabilize an entire region.
The war in Afghanistan was a war that was needed (so they say) to roust out Al Qaeda and get bin Laden. It was Iraq that was a war for GW, Cheney and their pimps at Halliburton and Big Oil to rape an pillage both Iraq and our national treasury for generations to come.(That mission was actually accomplish
And let us not forget who came in begging for the first enormous bailout (Bush)insisting there be no "strings" attached (after insisting for months that the economy was sound while ignoring the fact that foreclosures were at levels not seen since the Great Depression).
There are virtually no nationally elected officials who don't have either banks or insurance lobbyists in their back pockets. It's the unsavory reality of capitalism and democracy.
So, please remember that liberals have pretty clear memories of who did what and when and why.
We are not the ones who voted for the greedy bastards and/or fools who got us into this mess.
I did not vote for Bush. Not the first time nor the second. I may be liberal, but I am certainly no dummy.
I am on Medicare and I can see waste and fraud in Medicare that needs to be addressed. Did you not see that the Mafia has decided there is more gain in defrauding Medicare than in selling Drugs? They own their own Therapy Companies, etc. and file false claims for one thing.Do you not know that it is tempting for doctors who own their own high-tech Medical equipment, own their on therapy companies, own their own surgery centers to prescribe these these things when it is not necessary. Medicare Advantage Plans that were touted as being able to administer their plans more cheaply than the Government has totally failed? There is waste, fraud, and abuse that needs to be sought out, fines levied, etc. to make the system function leaner. It does not mean that Old people will not be taken care of. The Insurance Companies are spending millions with false claims. Why not, they stand to gain millions of new customers with no changes if they win.
All they have to do is scare people into a panic. I cannot believe all the older people that have given up their right to think for themselves.
Bravo, Representatives Harman and Sanchez. I always thought you were a reasonable persons, working for your constituents, rather than for the political power brokers.
I am a fiscally conservative progressive, and I am solidly for Universal Healtcare as a Right.
However, any program of that size must be managed with fiscal responsibility. We all agree on that.
But the greatest cost waste in the current system are the Insurance companies, where the unrestricted profit incentive enable insurance companies to pocket millions of dollars, without contributing anything and sometimes even actively obstructing needed care of the patient. What health care benefits does a person receive from lining the pockets of CEOs?
Profit and Health Care are mutually exclusive.
The basic starting point must be a Non-profit structure. I am not necessarily advocating a government run program, although the government has a pretty good track record in Medicare. Another, private or cooperative organizational model may be possible, but it cannot be For-profit. Even the insurance companies could create a Non-profit division.
I commend you for your support of a Universal Plan. If you are a fiscally conservative, you must address this basic problem. Work toward eliminating excess costs from the administrative aspect of health care. It will free up funds for actual delivery of health care and you will have the support of your constituents, guaranteed.
Thank you both, may your colleagues follow your lead.
I second that.
Blue Dogs don't seem to understand we can take them out the same way we helped put them into office. It's right to know how a program will be funded, it's another to screech when health is one thing all Americans need to be covered for. It never will pay for itself if it gets abused and frauded as Medicare has in the past 8 years with no oversight by Congress. Public Option has to be part of any bill because without it, the insurance companies will not be responsible toward their insured. Hammers are good things, so are regulations.
I guess it is OK for wars in the Middle East not to be funded, but when it comes to American's healthcare, we are on our own.
Who is 'we'?
I still have a difficult time believing someone who authored the home grown patriot act that allows the president to treat any of us like enemy combatants.
The Blue Dogs may well be the only democrats left after the massacre that willtake place in 2010;'
That was a paid announcement from the GOP.
http://www
........ I'm sorry, did you say that massacre that will take place in 2010 ? ?? I swear, I've seen so many people on the internet that love telling people their forecast for the future. Are you some type of prophetic internet sooth sayer ? Ok...... what massacre should we all know about, that you obviously only wanna take a few words to write about ? Is this the illuminate, or the reptilian race ? Does it start with Fema ? LOL..... someone always has to claim that they KNOW how the world will end.... They can't say a darn thing about anything current though, only the end, and they're generally so casual about telling people through blogs. Conspiracy theorists are pretty funny people....
That's the way things are shaping-up!
Funny. People are not as dumb as they were 8 years ago.
Well written article, thank you.
Fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets are now part of what being a Democrat is all about. It is the GOP which is dedicated to using government to make the rich richer, and the middle class poorer.
You are a democrat or you are not. Blue dogs are only place holders for the republicans.
The dialog seems to be about picking sides instead of what to do. What does the "public" option do to reduce costs that the free market is not doing?
It is self evident that doctors and insurance companies are in business to make a profit and that they over-charge the people and companies that pay to cover the costs of the people that don't pay. I have heard that as many as half the people don't have insurance. The article says that those of us that pay are paying 10% too much as a result of people that are not covered. Does the public option mean that we can reduce that 10% while dramatically increasing coverage? Where does the money come from or what services will no longer be offered in order to cover the costs for those that can't or won't pay? What is the great efficiency that a government program will generate that a free market cannot? If profits themselves are the problem, than let's have a serious debate about communism.
I am seriously under-employed and have been dealing with high insurance payments and a daughter that nobody wants to insure because she has a lingering shoulder problem that surgery did not fix. I still want to understand how and what the solution entails... I hope to have a good job again someday and I am wondering what my taxes and rights will be at that point.
How does the public option solve the problem? Thanks!
I disagree with the notion that health care professionals and hospitals are in "business" to make a profit. Their Hippocratic oath demands that they deliver health care to their patients, without consideration of cost. Many doctors and hospitals would reduce costs if they could do so without going broke. I don't see hospital administrators walk off with big bonuses. And if a brain surgeon with countless hours of study under his belt, charges an steep hourly fee for saving someone's life, I say that is well deserved.
Insurance companies are another story, they are a "business", but provide no service other than administrative and in fact often obstruct the delivery of needed care to individuals. To have that useless (in respect to providing actual health care) shuffling of paperwork and decision making as to who shall receive care, be able to make millions of dollars of profit is an insult to dedicated Health Care professionals.
Health Care and Profit are mutually exclusive.
Only a Non-profit structure, be it government, private, or cooperative, will be able to deliver maximum Health Care for the least amount of cost. If Universal Health Care is a Right, it must be NON PROFIT.
bluedog dems= moderate reps
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