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.
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.
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.
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 Russian support for Iran sanctions for getting rid of the missle defense system, but he didn't.
Obama can't make a deal.
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.
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.
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 accomplished.)
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 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.
http://www.politicsandtechnology.com/2007/07/make-no-mistake.html
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.
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!
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.