W.H. backs away from public option - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

LUVMBDiesels · #1 08-16-2009, 08:52 PM

W.H. backs away from public option

Carrie Budoff Brown Carrie Budoff Brown Sun Aug 16, 3:02 pm ET
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President Barack Obama and his top aides are signaling that they’re prepared to drop a government insurance option from a final health-reform deal if that’s what’s needed to strike a compromise on Obama’s top legislative priority.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that the public option was “not the essential element” of the overhaul. A day earlier, Obama downplayed the public option during a Colorado town hall meeting, saying it was “just one sliver” of the debate.
He even chided Democratic supporters and Republican critics for becoming “so fixated on this that they forget everything else” — a dig at some liberals in his own party who have made the public option the main rallying cry of the health reform debate.
At the same time, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of six senators involved in bipartisan Finance Committee negotiations, all but declared the public option dead in the Senate.
“Look, the fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option,” said Conrad, who has pushed an alternative proposal to create a network of consumer cooperatives, on Fox News Sunday. “There never have been. So to continue to chase that rabbit, I think, is just a wasted effort.”
A White House aide said in an e-mailed statement Sunday afternoon that the president is not backing away from the public plan.
"Nothing has changed,” said Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform. “The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals."
But taken together, the remarks from Obama, Sebelius and Conrad suggest the White House is preparing supporters for a health care compromise that may well exclude the government option — which could help Obama win enough votes for a sweeping overhaul but touch off a nasty battle inside his own party between liberals and more moderate members who have resisted a bigger government role in health care.
It was only in June that Obama said in a letter to Senate Democrats that “I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.”
A month ago, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that “any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans – including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest – and choose what’s best for your family.”
But in the face of hardening opposition to the idea — even inside his own party — Obama appears ready to retrench. Obama and his aides continue to emphasize having some competitor to private insurers, perhaps nonprofit insurance cooperatives, but they are using stronger language to downplay the importance that it be a government plan.
“What's important is choice and competition,” Sebelius said on CNN’s State of the Union. “And I'm convinced at the end of the day, the plan will have both of those. But that is not the essential element."
The reaction in the liberal blogosphere and beyond was swift and negative Sunday.
“Ultimately, if the president decides he’s going to go with a reform effort that doesn’t include a public option, what he will have done is spent a ton of political capital, riled up an incredibly angry right-wing base that’s been told this is a plot to kill Grandma, and he will have achieved something that doesn’t change health care very much and that doesn’t save us very much money and won’t do much for the American people,” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said on NBC’s "Meet the Press." "It’s not a very good thing to spend a lot of political capital on."
One diarist on the Daily Kos said the “public option is in the ICU. ... When you call something that once was the central tenet of reform is now a ‘sliver,’ it is very difficult to argue it is not being de-emphasized.” Another diarist wrote this headline: “Told you so: Public Option, Meet Underside of Bus.”

LUVMBDiesels · #2 08-16-2009, 08:54 PM

“It would be very, very difficult without the public option,” Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on whether she could support a bill that dropped the public option. She spoke on CNN's State of the Union.
Liberals say a health care bill without a public option would fail to actually reform the system. They view the public option as the best way to hold insurance companies accountable and provide affordable coverage, and they say nonprofit cooperatives are an unproven model.
“Health Care for America Now believes that all of the elements that Secretary Sebelius spoke in favor of – a public option, insurance reform, making health care affordable to all – are essential to effective reform,” said Richard Kirsch, campaign manager of Health Care for American Now, a liberal organization pushing the government option. “There is no ‘the’ essential element – all are key to health reform that will work.”
Sebelius, following Obama’s lead Saturday in Colorado, sought to shift the focus of the debate from the public option to more popular reforms such as prohibiting insurers from denying or dropping coverage because of a preexisting condition. It’s a subtle, but potentially telling, window into the White House’s latest strategy on reframing the terms of a legislative victory.
“Those are really essential parts of the program, along with choice and competition, which I think we'll have at the end of the day,” Sebelius said.
At the Saturday town hall meeting in Colorado, Obama defended the rationale for establishing a public plan, but he also raised eyebrows for suggesting the final package may not include one.
“All I'm saying is, though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform,” he said. “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it. And by the way, it's both the right and the left that have become so fixated on this that they forget everything else.”
On CBS's Face the Nation, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked if the government option had to be included in the final bill. He repeated the standard White House line that the president wants to "inject some choice competition into the private insurance market."
But then, he appeared to hedge.
"The president has thus far sided with the notion that that can best be done through a public option," Gibbs said.
"Is that a hedge?" asked host Harry Smith, referring to Gibbs's use of "thus far."
"No, no, no. What I am saying is the bottom line for the president is that we ought to have choice and competition in the insurance market," Gibbs responded.

NOW FINALLY MAYBE WE CAN TALK ABOUT REAL REFORM OF THE ENTIRE SYSTEM...

MS Fowler · #3 08-16-2009, 09:08 PM

Interesting development.
Is it a white flag, or a strategic withdrawal?

Palangi · #4 08-16-2009, 09:14 PM

Strategic retreat.

Single payer remains as the target, regardless of whatever lies Dear Leader Obama is currently telling.

kerry · #5 08-16-2009, 09:17 PM

Insurance companies are winning.

Palangi · #6 08-16-2009, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry

Insurance companies are winning.

Quentin Young is losing......

MS Fowler · #7 08-16-2009, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry

Insurance companies are winning.

Didn't the President meet with a group of unidentified insurance execs a few weeks ago? What do you think that was about?

LUVMBDiesels · #8 08-17-2009, 07:06 AM

It would be nice if we could change the direction of this 'reform' from 'screw the insurance companies' to actually reforming the problems, which I have stated several times. To quote Ronnie "There he goes again..."

1) Change the way nurses are treated so that more people train to be nurses and we do not lose the ones we have to burnout or frustration.

2) Change the way we train our doctors (I do not want some wet behind the ears kid who has been up for 32 hours treating me in a life or death situation)

3) Make doctors actually do their jobs instead of fobbing it off on a nurse practitioner. If I am paying to see a DOCTOR I want a DOCTOR!

4) Reform the malpractice laws. Put in a set amount for each injury. Lose an eye you get $X. Lose a kidney you get $Y, etc take the caprice of the jury out of it.

5) Fix the way new drugs are submitted to the FDA. We can cut off years of lag time getting a new drug into production if we streamline the process and modernize the submission process.

These things will have the effect of lowering costs

Then I would open the EXISTING federal plans that federal employees can get to people without insurance who want it and can pay for it.
It seems to me that by doing this, we could increase the group size and lower costs for the entire group.

As for people who cannot pay for it, isn't that was my MedicAid taxes are ALREADY going for?

OK, debate open

MS Fowler · #9 08-17-2009, 09:18 AM

There you go again, trying to discuss other ways to achieve the stated goal. ( Sometimes it makes me wonder if the stated goals are the real goals)

LUVMBDiesels · #10 08-17-2009, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MS Fowler

There you go again, trying to discuss other ways to achieve the stated goal. ( Sometimes it makes me wonder if the stated goals are the real goals)

Exactly... the goal should not be 'stick it to the insurance companies' but to reform the system....

MTUpower · #11 08-17-2009, 10:40 AM

Hi! I'm smarter than the people that elected me, and if those people don't want what I want I'm not gonna listen because I'm sure sometime later they will change their minds. Oh, by the way, I'm also smarter than the people elected to congress so I won't listen to them either. I'll pretend to listen, but if what they say does not agree with my plan then it'll just go in one ear and out the other.

davidmash · #12 08-17-2009, 11:10 AM

Not sure about 'screwing the insurance' company thing. We have been getting screwed by them for so long I am not sure how to stand up straight any more. Insurance companies have been depriving care, dropping policies and jacking up rates. If regulating that is screwing them over, lets get too it. Not looking to put them out of business but they sure as hell need to be accountable.

As for caps on malpractice. Not sure about that. I would rather see penalties be a percentage of income/net worth. The amount needs to be enough to leave a mark but not enough to put someone out of business. Someone who makes $100k a year will look at a $100 fine and laugh at it. Someone who makes $20k a year will look at $100 fine and think twice about doing what ever it is that they did.

Definitely like the other ideas but they will cost a lot of money. Having one doctor working a 48 hour shift (or what ever they work) as opposed to 3 doctors working 8 hour shifts will cost substantially more. I am not opposed to that idea but there are cost involved with these reforms. Same would go with nurses as well.

The whole cost structure need to be brought down. Everything from drug research to hard ware development needs to be spread out so the cost are not as focused. There is no reason my hernia surgery (4 hours in the hospital from check in to bye bye) should cost over $15k.

No idea how to do that without a whole bunch of people feeling that they just got bent over and reamed.

Squabble · #13 08-17-2009, 11:13 AM

i can't really see what the problem is with this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimesopinion

my wife is an RN and making plans to continue her education to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner. as explained by her, someone with actual experience in this field, it goes a little like this:

we pay more for health care than any other civilized nation. that's all of us taxpayers. but somehow we have more uninsured than those same civilized nations who are paying less in total to have coverage. we have under regulated middlemen around every corner of our health care system, jacking up prices. we already have "death panels" that deny people with insurance all the time, every day, in order to make more money for the company. because we don't have basic health care, we wait until the symptoms get out of control and that then costs us more money. an example:

treating diabetes with regular exams and check ups costs very little; the least in the long run. when someone has diabetes and no way to pay for regular check ups, exams, and tests, they get worse. they become obese, leading to new problems. they end up in the hospital for long term care, costing us more money. they loose their jobs and go on welfare. if this continues, they could possible need amputations, costing us the most. and by then the diabetes is out of control and will cost us more and more until this person's death.

if they had health insurance to begin with, the regular exams and preventative care would have, obviously, prevented this and cost me and you less.

the point is: we're already paying out the a$$. it's not being spent well. people are dying or barely living. ignoring problems for years and then ending up in the emergency room costs all of us more money than expanded health care. these are americans we're talking about, don't you care enough to take care of fellow americans? compassion, christian ethics, empathy? what does it take? what would jesus do?!?

i'm not a fan of the government either. but i can't see how spending my money to send my countrymen to some b.s. desert to shoot people and get shot at is money well spent. explain that to me, please. because everyone i know who's against spending money on sick fellow americans is okay with spending money to send healthy americans off to die in some b.s. foreign country for some b.s. religious war with b.s. people who should just be left in their back-assward country to kill each other.

and yes, mtupower, i like it when the president is smarter than me. we all know what happens when the president is dumber than us, that didn't work out too well. let's try smarter and see how it goes. no need to feel threatened or defensive at his intelligence. he went to harvard, he went to columbia, he was president of the harvard law review, he's smart, he earned it, it's all gonna be okay.

Honus · #14 08-17-2009, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squabble

...and yes, mtupower, i like it when the president is smarter than me...let's try smarter and see how it goes. no need to feel threatened or defensive at his intelligence. he went to harvard, he went to columbia, he was president of the harvard law review, he's smart, he earned it, it's all gonna be okay.

My feelings exactly.

WVOtoGO · #15 08-17-2009, 11:30 AM

I'll second the whole post.

-Shelby