Like the cowards in the Senate need an excuse.

This 'lack of priority' for the PO is due to a lack of education as to what things it will do, and how it will do them. Americans just don't know the general benefits to them, and they certainly don't know the particulars and nuances.

And the blame for this lack of education lies solely at the feet of Democrats and supporters of the PO. Heck, this is why all the tripe about 'death panels' and 'government takeover' has gained purchase.

Surveys show that a majority of the public supports [the public option]. But those supporters value other objectives of a health care overhaul, like lowering costs, even more.

Similarly, most of the public supports the plan of expending more calories than one consumes. But those supporters value other objectives, like losing weight, even more.

(bangs head on worktable, considers crying)

for those who can sustain their attention to this matter over the weeks and months, it is an excellent lesson in how corporate america can bleed justice and decency out of anything and everything thru propaganda,misinformation, loads of cash and influence, etc.

i'm sure every high school i the land is staying glued to the process as a 'wonderful' civics lesson for the young. uh-huh.

just think, the public option is now for sicker and fewer folks. so its gonna be more pricey, and so we dont really care as much about it...uh=huh

whatta country!

Those who oppose a public option are saying that the cost of health coverage is will go down . . . just because they ask the insurance corporations nicely.

Without a strong public option, there is little competition in most states. The "Free Market" true believers tell us that competition keeps prices low. So if that's the case, the only way to lower premiums in the current system is to regulate the insurance corporations like utilities, with government setting the rates that they can charge.

To begin with, a public option would attract only a few million people, the Congressional Budget Office predicts.

Well, duh!

The proposed reform bills allow people to chose the public option only if they don't currently have insurance and if their employer doesn't offer insurance -- not matter how expensive and/or inadequate it is.

I would love to tell my current insurance corporation to take its crappy, tiny-network, high-deductible policy and shove it. But it looks like I won't be permitted to do that until I am eligible for Medicare.

The inadequate penalties for insurance corporations that drop coverage when a customer gets sick or who deny coverage for pre-existing conditions (not more than $25K total), will ensure that it will be business as usual if the bill finally passes. The main effect of health care "reform" will be that the insurance corporations will get hundreds of billions of dollars taxpayer dollars that they will be able to use to increase executive salaries and to lobby (pay bribes to) Congress to weaken even more the regulations that require them to actually pay claims.

The only reason to pass this bill is that the joke of a "public option" will be a foot in the door that will make it easier for Congress to expand it later on.

The administration's summer of mixed messages killed off any meaningful PO by August. This is what happens when the policies and politics fall between stools.

If Obama and the Democrats drop reform by the end of the year with a strong pivot towards jobs, their numbers along with the enthusiasm will go up, not down.

I really think the Dems' problems have to do with jobs, and the more time spent on a weak health care bill only reduces their numbers.

I know this is a contrary view, and despite what PPP says, the 25% enthusiasm gap recorded in the last Kos poll is due to not paying enough attention to jobs and the economy.

I disagree with the suggestion that we should shift our efforts from health insurance reform to job creation. First, our health insurance crisis will not disappear with a rebounding economy. On the contrary, the problems associated with an inadequate health insurance system will get worse, and will continue to be a drag on the economy. Second,I don't see how a watered-down jobs bill will do anything more for the economy than the watered-down stimulus package or any of the watered-down health care proposals currently on the table. And make no mistake, any jobs bill coming out of this Administration and this Congress WILL be watered down.

SteveT @ 9:53 "...with government setting the rates that they can charge."

You mean like how Nixon imposed price controls on domestic oil which led to the 1973 oil crisis? Did you find that effective? Did you enjoy waiting in those lines for gas? I sure as hell did not. One of the things that irks me about the brainiacs in congress is how little these morons understand the immediate effect of their actions, let alone the unintended consequences.

The low numbers for the public option are unfortunate, but they ultimately point to the fact that the grassroots work to keep the public option alive didn't complete the job of convincing Americans that is is *essential.*

Plus, the other side has too much money to win the air war.

After these regulatory pieces pass, maybe over time the access issue will become salient. In any case, HC reform is going to take place over the next decade, not merely this year.

The average American doesn't know or understand much about the public option plan or other components of bills for health care reform. The average American will care once a bill is passed and its immediate effects are evident with respect to the cost of his/her insurance and provider availability. If the cost doesn't go down rather quickly -or provider availability decreases-- Democrats will be punished at the polls in 2010 and beyond, especially if unemployment isn't noticeably decreasing. If that can be done without a public option, then most will not care. My reading of a bill most likely to pass at present is that it will make regulatory improvements at the edges of health care, but will not provide much, if any, immediate cost reduction or increased coverage. If so, and if it is viewed as a costly gift to insurance companies, then Blue Dog Dems will have an especially re-election prospects in 2010.

The continued conflation of health care with health insurance is the culprit in poll results like this.

"In a November survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, released last week, they ranked it seventh in importance, far behind "affordability" and "accessibility" of medical care."

Is anyone really surprised that being able to afford health care and having access to health care is more important than who you buy your insurance from? Srsly?

I am still waiting for any of the "journalists" out there to write about what's happening on the Democratic campaign front.

It's now less than a year until the mid-term elections. As someone who's given $30K in the last two cycles, I'm on the receiving end of a lot of phone calls. My answer to every one of them is the same: Come back to me after health care reform has been enacted into law.

The answer I get back is that I am typical of a lot of non-lobbyist donors. I will be very interested when a "journalist" (something this country once had in much larger numbers than today) decides to report about this.

I can't imagine that the Democrats are doing anything but very badly in their fundraising for the midterms elections. I am far from the only donor who is sitting on his wallet. The Democratic Party has been a real disappointment. I'm not going to send my money to these slackers.

Chopin said:
SteveT @ 9:53 "...with government setting the rates that they can charge."

You mean like how Nixon imposed price controls on domestic oil which led to the 1973 oil crisis? Did you find that effective? Did you enjoy waiting in those lines for gas? I sure as hell did not.

Well, I wasn't driving yet in 1973 . . . .

What I said was that under the current system of private, for-profit insurance corporations with near monopolies in many states, that the next most effective way to bring down the cost of health insurance without a strong public option would be to regulate the insurance corporations like utilities.

I didn't say it was a good idea. I was trying to point out that any other method of bringing down the cost of health care will be worse than the "evils" that conservatives warn us will come from the public option.

The so called public option is just a back door way to a government take over of all of our health care. Then all we will have will be a single payer system that rations care to everybody, especially the elderly and the disabled. The public option will end up running all the private insurance companies out of business.

If this bill passes, the only way for patients to avoid government rationing of their medical care will be to go to one of the cash only doctor practices that are already being set up in our town.

"Trigger" the most progressive public option of them all (Medicare for all), give the Liebercrats what they want for now and them fuck them all in the ear in a year's time, all it takes is for the insurance industry and the medical industrial complex to not reduce costs; how much more dimple could it get?!

Americans support the [a|the] [strong|robust]? public [health insurance]? [option|plan] insofar as they believe -- wrongly -- that it's like Medicare. So, the "progressive" bait and switch tactics have now infected polling. Yay!

How confusing. Of course lowering premium costs and accessibility ranks higher than a public option...but they aren't being offered along with many other things people consider more important than a public option. But the PO is being offered AND the most important reason for its inclusion isn't even mentioned in your piece or in most of the news articles reporting on the issue and that is........

It opens the door for government involvement in the HC ins. industry...

AND can be expanded later to cover more people and allow for even more competition on keeping costs down.

Nothing else in the bill does this so of course other issues are more important and we hope to get them included...but without a PO...even a watered down version...there is no real reform at all....and a "trigger" option is no PO at all.

btw...Why is it no dem senator has proposed to expand Medicare's budget to cover everyone 5yrs old and older and since being a budgetary issue could be passed via reconciliation requiring only 51 votes (you know, a majority like how the senate is supposed to operate...a 51 vote majority to pass).

With everyone covered we could focus on fixing any problems with Medicare and even get it to include dental. Why why why???

"...The so called public option is just a back door way to a government take over of all of our health care. Then all we will have will be a single payer system that rations care to everybody,..."_Sheri

You've been brainwashed girl...first the PO has nothing to do with the elderly and rationing as they are already covered by Medicare...2nd) paying $7.2million/yr to CEOs of priv. ins and profiteering from our HC needs has not stopped what you call rationing...it still takes a month to get in to see a specialist...but 45,000/yr are dying from lack of HC ins. Over population leads more to rationing than a PO would ever come close to. Gov involvement in HC ins would be something you would have a say in...with your vote...right now private ins just says no whenever they've a mind to...and if you don't have the money to cover your HC needs you don't have the money to sue them in court for yrs.

Wake up...the ungodly profiteering has got to stop...single payer would not affect the medical care you receive just cuts out the profiteering middleman so you can afford that care (without $2-5000 deductibles, pre-existing conditions, or caps on how much ins will pay)

You mention the "cash only Docs"...it's because they don't want to deal with all the ridiculous ins. companies forms and rules...single payer eliminates all that.

So unless you're just a troll,go see why the majority of Docs want single payer (yet all we are offered due to the huge ins lobby is a watered down public option...which we all hope will eventually lead to single payer.) Please remember...ins companies don't provide health care...they just take your money to pay for it if, god forbid, you ever need it...then they will do everything they can to keep from paying for it to maximize profits if they can find a way...remember the billion and million dollar CEOs have to pay for an army of lobbyists to prevent single payer because they know how happy you'd be if you had it.

We already have two "Public" health systems. Military and Veteran's care. Both have recent high-profile failures involving patient care. The testimony of those systems totally refutes the claims of you "Public Option" kool-aid drinkers. Even a job as simple as delivering flu shots is too hard for this administration. Epic fails that prove the Public Option would be disastrous policy.

Surveys show that a majority of the public supports [the public option]. But those supporters value other objectives of a health care overhaul, like lowering costs, even more. -- NYT

Well, of course! The public option I support would be *truly* public -- available to everyone who wants it. It would also be available within 3-6 months after the bill was signed. Such public option -- through having a large pool of insureds, both healthy and less so -- would, *automatically* lower the costs.

Unfortunately, that's not the "public option" we're looking at. What we're looking at will be, *at best*, severely limited as to who can join the pool, as well as much postponed -- both 2013 and 2014 have been mentioned as the "goal date".

And that's if it happens at all, what with the opt-outs, opt-ins, triggers, etc.

We have all seen what has happened when the Congress put a muzzle on the credit card issuers, but left it full of loopholes and postponed the application -- the banks went hog-wild raising the rates, inventing new fees and using every trick in the book to fleece its customers, in anticipation of future losses. The same thing will happen with the insurance companies; they'll crank up the premiums even faster than they've been doing so far (and they've been doing a *heroic* job of it already, the past 8 yrs).

So, it's only natural that, without having the back-up public option to look forward to, my priority will be cost-containment in whatever shitty *private* plan I have now.

The current bill is suspect, and indeed does not try hard enough to curb costs. The insurance companies were able to taint it with lobbying. I don't know if PO is enough to save it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) released a merged version of the Senate comprehensive reform on 11/19/09,
which Mike Oliphant, whom manages www.benefitsmanager.net for Utah based health insurance plans for employers could get
behind and support some of it (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or H.R. 3590).
This should encourage the private sector health insurance carriers to form INSURANCE EXCHANGES which is what we have
done here in Utah. They carry the risk and burden, not the tax payer. See more about this at www.utahhealthplans.info
You would be surprised about the willingness of carriers to co-share risk amongst their immediate competitors. They simply
focus on profit from the 4 to 5 percent administration fees. A government run public option could not achieve this.

The fact remains that big insurance by refusing care to patients and reimbursement to doctors over typos has ticked everyone off. They have a monopoly over the whole process and a well financed lobby team (including Lieberman's wife) and representatives on both sides of the isle.

A friend of mine recently laid off just he and his spouse is paying $2,500.00 dollars a month for his COBRA. Health insurance costs more than his mortgage. Anyone taking up the insurance industry's cause doesn't know what they are talking about.

If you think the insurance companies are going to voluntarily lower their cost while having a monopoly over the process – you are being disingenuous …Over 60% of all US bankruptcies are attributable to medical problems. Most victims are middle class, well educated and have health insurance - (The American Journal of Medicine)

The insurance companies and their representatives in Congress would love to perpetuate a business model that is crippling our overall economy – a bunch of great Americans aren’t they?

90% of the wealth concentrated in 1% of the population is no way to run a country but a heck of a way to establish a royalty ruling class. Yacht sales can not sustain 350 million people. I'm for the public option, competition and a level playing field or break up the big insurers like we did AT&T.

A slavish focus on profit margin might be good for the individual or a business, but it is one helluva lousy way to "govern" a Country. The GOP being a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America has a hard time with that concept.

Paul Burke
Author-Journey Home

The public option needs to be the highest priority. The reform bill hangs on it. It will be robust and will really help those who are struggling so much without it. It's already working in Ohio and it WILL work on a larger scale. http://cli.gs/z3AtaY/

Actually, I have imagined the so-called "public option" to be pretty much as described, that is, a non-profit insurance plan administered by the government, maybe even by Medicare. But it would be something for which the individuals who "opted" for it would pay premiums. They would ostensibly be lower because of the lower administrative costs and lack of need to show profit and pay shareholders. In fact, I have such a plan offered in the state of Arizona to small business and self-employed people. It has been the only way for me, a 50-plus year old woman with diabetes to obtain health insurance at all. Unfortunately, the costs have been skyrocketing- an increase of 30 percent this year, and it is getting tough to see how I will be able to afford it much longer.

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