if the public option doesn't

1) save money,

2) eventually run the profit-motivated insurance companies out of business, and

3) then morph itself into a universal single-payer system of health care in this country (that quickly becomes the state-of-the-art model for the world thanks to american moxie)

then we aren't doing it right...

If health care reform:

1) Prevents insurers from rating insureds based upon pre-existing conditions.

2) Prevents insurers from rescinding coverage based upon pre-existing conditions.

3) Requires all individuals and families to have coverage (with subsidies, if necessary).

4) Requires insurers to provide primary care coverage.

5) Causes insurers to pay health care providers based on outcomes instead of processes.

6) Provides competition (i.e. a public option) that forces insurers to have to keep their costs down and service level high.

Then we'll be off to a good start.

It is quite obvious that the CBO can NOT be trusted with this analysis. When the CBO is not in agreement with our talking points, it becomes clear that they are a bunch of partisan, socialist hacks under the spell of The Chosen One.

Occasionally, when they do break the spell and deliver clarity, it is always in agreement with what we say and can therefore be trusted.

A scientific analysis of CBO reports, performed by the unbiased Lewin Group, shows that they are correct when they agree with us and untrustworthy when they do not!

So, because the Right is, as usual, dominating the framing on the health care debate, we have the Speaker of the House bragging that the public option is bad enough and access to it is limited so that only a few people will actually use it, and won't threaten the insurance companies, even though that is ostensibly the point, which is to provide competition.

Let me put it in verse:

The bureaucrats at the CBO
know that their jobs depend on kowtowing to BHO.

What Neil said.

Any decent public option will drive private insurance out of business, based ENTIRELY on basic principles of competition. This is what a basic public option would include:

1) Claims will not be disputed. The plan you see is actually the plan you get.
2) Your rates won't rise because you are sick (I hope!).
3) You will get to keep the plan your entire life.
4) Your plan will not be tied to your employer.

But we have to pretend that the public option won't kick ass ... people are nervous about losing their private plans, even if the only reason they will lose them is that private plans will be massively unpopular.

Health Care Reform: So complicated that even blog comments come with bullet points.

Health Care Reform: So complicated that even blog comments come with bullet points.

It doesn't have to be that complicated. The problem is that Congress seems to be think that the primary objective of health care reform should be to maintain high insurance company profits, rather than actually providing universal health care.

Actually, inkadu, claims would sometimes be disputed under a public option, just as Medicare claims are sometimes disputed today. After all, there are crooks who set up fake clinics that bill Medicare as well as private insurance companies for services not performed.

It is quite cute (not in the sense of, like, pretty, but in the horrifying and sickeningly perverse sense) that the Repugs and the conservatives are all Darwinists when it comes to weeding out the sickly through economics and the god of the marketplace, yet there are a ton of 'em who are "Praise Be to Jeebus" in many of their other senses of morality and existence.

It is the secret Christian doctrine of hate that keeps 'evolving' over the centuries, i guess

LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY. (Thomas Paine)

We have the 37th worst quality of healthcare in the developed world. Conservative estimates are that over 120,000 of you dies each year in America from treatable illness that people in other developed countries don't die from. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Insured and uninsured. Men, women, children, and babies. This is what being 37th in quality of healthcare means.

I know that many of you are angry and frustrated that REPUBLICANS! In congress are dragging their feet and trying to block TRUE healthcare reform. What republicans want is just a taxpayer bailout of the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance industry, and the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare industry. A trillion dollar taxpayer funded private health insurance bailout is all you really get without a robust government-run public option available on day one. Co-OP's ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR A GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION. They are a fraud being pushed by the GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance industry that is KILLING YOU!

YOU CANT HAVE AN INSURANCE MANDATE WITHOUT A ROBUST PUBLIC OPTION. MANDATING PRIVATE FOR PROFIT HEALTH INSURANCE AS YOUR ONLY CHOICE WOULD BE UNETHICAL, CORRUPT, AND MORALLY REPUGNANT. AND PROBABLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL AS WELL.

These industries have been slaughtering you and your loved ones like cattle for decades for profit. Including members of congress and their families. These REPUBLICANS are FOOLS!

Republicans and their traitorous allies have been trying to make it look like it's President Obama's fault for the delays, and foot dragging. But I think you all know better than that. President Obama inherited one of the worst government catastrophes in American history from these REPUBLICANS! And President Obama has done a brilliant job of turning things around, and working his heart out for all of us.

But Republicans think you are just a bunch of stupid, idiot, cash cows with short memories. Just like they did under the Bush administration when they helped Bush and Cheney rape America and the rest of the World.

But you don't have to put up with that. And this is what you can do. The Republicans below will be up for reelection on November 2, 2010. Just a little over 13 months from now. And many of you will be able to vote early. So pick some names and tell their voters that their representatives (by name) are obstructing TRUE healthcare reform. And are sellouts to the insurance and medical lobbyist.

Ask them to contact their representatives and tell them that they are going to work to throw them out of office on November 2, 2010, if not before by impeachment, or recall elections. Doing this will give you something more to do to make things better in America. And it will help you feel better too.

There are many resources on the internet that can help you find people to call and contact. For example, many social networking sites can be searched by state, city, or University. Be inventive and creative. I can think of many ways to do this. But be nice. These are your neighbors. And most will want to help.

I know there are a few democrats that have been trying to obstruct TRUE healthcare reform too. But the main problem is the Bush Republicans. Removing them is the best thing tactically to do. On the other hand. If you can easily replace a democrat obstructionist with a supportive democrat, DO IT!

You have been AMAZING!!! my people. Don't loose heart. You knew it wasn't going to be easy saving the World. :-)

God Bless You

jacksmith — Working Class

I REST MY CASE (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/)

Republican Senators up for re-election in 2010.

* Richard Shelby of Alabama
* Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
* John McCain of Arizona
* Mel Martinez of Florida
* Johnny Isakson of Georgia
* Mike Crapo of Idaho
* Chuck Grassley of Iowa
* Sam Brownback of Kansas
* Jim Bunning of Kentucky
* David Vitter of Louisiana
* Kit Bond of Missouri
* Judd Gregg of New Hampshire
* Richard Burr of North Carolina
* George Voinovich of Ohio
* Tom Coburn of Oklahoma
* Jim DeMint of South Carolina
* John Thune of South Dakota
* Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas
* Bob Bennett of Utah

A public option that does not serve the public is no option at all. With 47+million people without healthcare or underperforming healthcare, how can only 10 or 11 million be expected to choose the public option and the rest private insurance? If they cannot afford private insurance, now, and their employers either don't share in the cost, or they are unemployed, how will they be covered? We don't need healthcare reform; we need healthcare transformation. If insurance companies cannot provide a reasonable option because their for-profit status precludes that, then they will go the way of buggywhip and horse-drawn carriage manufacturers.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation
peace,
st john

Looking at the members of the Senate Finance committee, the likely result will be 10 to 9 or 11 to 8 to release the gutted compromise. That is - the 8-9 opposed are the Democrats and I am assuming all the Republicans vote to send it on to the floor.

Therefore, the Finance Committee bill becomes the Republican health care proposal and needs to be run through the CBO. Nate Silver pointed out that the Finance Committee bill is near identical to the incomplete bill CBO priced at over $1 trillion for half the coverage of the HELP bill.

Tie Baucus's bill around the Republican's neck and let them sink with it.

This may be the reason there was such confusion and denial when a Republican let slip that the was no Republican plan for health care. Some of them realized that they were going to be stuck with Baucus's travesty.

Or the Republicans outside the working group will block the Senate Finance bill and have nothing to use to sabotage the reconciliation.

Any decent public option will drive private insurance out of business, based ENTIRELY on basic principles of competition. - inkadu

The obvious solution then is to hijack the label "public opinion" and stick it to some cobbled up hack that .0000624% of the population could possibly qualify for IF they could find assistance to attempted the labyrinth of paperwork, dust their hands off and announced "mission accomplished*".

What is fascinating to me is to review how some other countries do this and we insist on refining the square wheel (an improvement over a triangular wheel in that it eliminates one bump).

*pushing the problem down the road for another 20 years whereupon it will be "reformed" once again into something equally unsatisfactory.

For what it’s worth, the drug cartels down in Brazil are setting up clinics to take care of their own.

And some of the Mexican drug cartels are beginning to develop a Robin Hood approach to gaining support.

It’s only a matter of time before the cartels, which are not stupid, put two and two together and start providing alternative healthcare.

And I, for one, would like to see what answer smarty-pants Bill Kristol and FOX News would have to that one.

3) Requires all individuals and families to have coverage (with subsidies, if necessary).

Then we'll be off to a good start.
Posted by: Chris on July 28, 2009 at 12:49 PM

Watch Marcia Angell on Bill Moyers last week explain why a mandate is a BAD idea:
~~~~~~~
BILL MOYERS: The President, as you were saying a moment ago, is saying to everybody who's not covered, we're going to mandate that you exercise that right. We're going to mandate that you buy some form--

MARCIA ANGELL: We're going to deliver the private insurance companies a captive market. That's right. And they love that.

BILL MOYERS: Say that again.

MARCIA ANGELL: They love that.

BILL MOYERS: The-- his policy does what? His program?

MARCIA ANGELL: Delivers to the private insurance industry a captive market.

BILL MOYERS: By the mandate.

MARCIA ANGELL: By the mandate.

BILL MOYERS: It says "Marcia Angell, you've got to--"

MARCIA ANGELL: For whatever price they want to charge. Right. And so, this will increase costs.
~~~~~~~
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07242009/watch.html

If there is no public option I don't see how we have any systematic reform here. Sans this, we're just tinkering with the margins.

@jacksmith---just trivia-----a number of the names on your list of Republican Senators up for re-election in 2010 are retiring.

here are the races that i'm pretty sure will be for open seats that the gop currently holds:

Mel Martinez of Florida
Kit Bond of Missouri
Jim Bunning of Kentucky
Sam Brownback of Kansas
Judd Gregg of New Hampshire
Richard Burr of North Carolina
George Voinovich of Ohio
Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas

Rachel Maddow last night had a whole montage of Republicans saying, "The Lewin Group says this", "According to the Lewin Group..."

She then said the Lewin Group was funded by the Insurance Industry. So much for Republican "talking points"...

Now some of the blue dog democrats are teaming up with the GOP to stop healthcare. Could we, as progressives make a vow (and be sure they know it) to work our hardest to get them kicked out in the next election if they do not start to cooperate with the Obama plan?

The Lewin Group, however, is part of a larger group owned by an insurance company.

Republicans hand Maddow a baseball bat to beat them with and that is what she comes up with!? Read the damn report. It says the public option will save $2500 per year for family coverage. It says you can pay for a family plan for every 4 people who switch to the public plan. Buy 4, get 1 free. They published a report for the Commonwealth fund in Jan. that said Pete Stark's single-payer plan costs the least and covers the most people. READ THE GOD DAMNED REPORT. There is not one thing in that report that argues against the House bill.

Quick! Someone tell Malkiw!!

BTW Burr's seat will not be open--he's running unopposed in the primary and Dems are still looking for an opponent. His approval rating is low, but one needs an opponent to be unseated. The other ones are retiring or just quitting.

@ buck...thanks for the burr info..got confused...kay bailey hutchison is leaving the senate to run for governor of texas....cheers

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