I favor supporting the Public Option for a couple of reasons, or maybe three:
o Realistically, it’s all we’re going to get this time ’round.
o NOT having it would make a total mockery of healthcare reform, imho. There are those that argue that even without the Public Option, there are many provisions that we need, and that’s true (more comments on that below). I believe, however, that without the Public Option, we will simply be putting our finger in the dike, and not making any fundamental changes to the way we do business. It truly is only a camel’s nose under the tent flap; still, it’s an opening…
o There is a strong argument for gradual, evolutionary change in a system that is such an important part of everyone’s lives. Medicare Part B is a perfect example of the disaster that can strike when a sweeping change is put into place overnight. Setting aside that it was a bad program to begin with (the donut, the windfall for the drug industry, etc., etc.), the lesson I took away from it was that a drastic change in something so important as whether people can or cannot obtain the drugs they need can cause not just confusion and inconvenience, but very likely some deaths as well.
These thoughts are obviously only distilled versions of long conversations I’ve had in my head.
The example that pertains to my second point is a hearing that takes place tomorrow at the State House. For those who care to know the details of the bill that made me aware of this hearing, see below, between the lines (literally!).
The Financial Services Committee is hearing a bunch of bills that have been filed to require (“mandate”) insurance companies to provide coverage for certain things. I seem to remember that one of my colleagues told me there are 140 mandates altogether, and that none of them is frivolous; all of them have merit, and are examples of how the insurance industry does not exist to do the right thing, but to make money. Further, I am told that if the President’s proposals are all signed into law, all of these mandates now being discussed will become redundant, because they will be mandated at the federal level.
So, my point in bringing this up is that it supports the argument that there is much in the current healthcare proposals that is good, whether or not the Public Option is included. My counter to that, however, again, is that it seems to me to be simply adding to the patchwork quilt that is our healthcare system, and not making the fundamental change that we need to move to Ted Kennedy’s dream of “Medicare for All”!
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I am working with a large group of Autism advocates to support H 3809 (known as ARICA — “An Act Relative to Insurance Coverage for Autism”), sponsored by Rep Barbara L’Italien and Senator Fred Berry.
Here’s the essence of it:
o The legislation would require insurance companies to treat autism as a medical condition, not as a mental health condition, as they currently do.
o The science behind this (autism is a neurological condition) is 30 years old and well-established.
o Insurance companies would rather stay in the past because they fear it would cost them lots of money.
o The truth is, autism affects a tiny fraction of the population, and studies show the cost to insurance companies (passed along, presumably, as higher premiums) would be minimal — for the typical insurance policy, an increase per individual of about $2.28 per month.
o On the flip side, the monetary savings to the Commonwealth (in terms of support services) would far outweigh the increased cost of treatment.
o As it stands now, physicians cannot, for insurance coverage, prescribe treatments that are know to be effective. This leads to great discrimination against lower-income families (others can afford to pay for these treatments privately).
o The treatments that are used today can return a child or an adult to a full and productive life in the community. Lack of treatment will likely leave them at a severe and lifelong disadvantage, and represents a terrible waste of potential.
There’s more, but one quickly descends into the jargon of psychobabble and SPED-speak.
I hope you will agree with me that this is an important piece of legislation for an often-neglected part of the disability community. So far, 15 states (most recently New Jersey and Connecticut) have passed similar legislation, and 20 others are considering it. Massachusetts prides itself (and rightly so) for being at the forefront of healthcare initiatives, and this is one we should adopt.
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Michael Wilcox
Member, DSC Disability Outreach Committee
Alford & Springfield
That’s my stance. While I completely agree that reform is public option, or bust, I’d rather bust than pass “reform” requiring people to buy insurance, without an option. There is no way we can require Americans to buy private insurance that, in many states (perhaps most states) is or will be practically worthless for people who are forced to buy it. It is a massive form of corporate welfare without tying any strings to it — which is taking our already-bad health insurance system and making it much, much worse. We need to stick to our guns, here, because we can get a public health option — but it’s going to take some guts, which Harry Reid doesn’t have yet.
this is likely to happen.
Something must be very very wrong.
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p>Those two facts add up to one thing: Health insurance and health care in this country is a problem and needs fixing.
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p>However – fixing health care before fixing the economy has created a major distraction and red herring.
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p>It is not easy or effective to fight on two maor fronts and two major issues.
We can’t walk and chew gum at the same time?
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p>Why are these thing mutally exclusive? In fact, wouldn’t spending less of our resources on (bogus) healthcare expenses better redirect our economy?
These things are mutually exclusive because there is compelling evidence that the forces blocking single-payer and the public option are motivated by greed. The priorities of those forces are clear and work against any meaningful progress on reducing healthcare expenses, because such progress will of necessity take money out of their wallets.
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p>Government-funded single-payer is the only approach that works. The public option is the only meaningful step towards that goal contained in the current legislation. Without that baby-step, the entire exercise is at best useless and more likely will make a bad situation worse.
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p>This is the time to draw a line in the sand and defend it.
… which is my normal state of affairs! š
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p>You say, “No” as if you’re disagreeing with me, yet your comments seem to support my original post.
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p>I don’t know what “drawing a line in the sand” means, but I think I was clear (I tried to be) that I support the Public Option. See the title of the post…
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p>And, I don’t know why we can’t make progress on healthcare reform and on the economy at the same time. Shall we put the rest of the world on hold while we deal with healthcare? Tell all those pesky wars to wait (I would be in favor of that!), ask everyone in the world to take a holiday while we figure out how to join the modern world in providing healthcare for all our citizens?
We agree in our support for a vigorous public option.
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p>Perhaps I am misunderstanding the thrust of your argument. I hear you asserting that:
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p>1. A health care reform bill without a public option will still control health care costs, and,
2. We can make progress in repairing our broken economy while caving to corporate interests on the health care bill.
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p>I assert that our broken health care system and our broken economy each spring from the same underlying problem — unrestrained corporate greed and inappropriately powerful corporate interests.
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p>What I mean by “drawing a line in the sand” is that I think we need to show corporate interests, America, and the world that our government does have the power and courage to stop this corporate abuse.
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p>I think we do that by refusing to accept health care reform legislation that does not include a vigorous public option. I think we do that by showing corporate interests (and the legislators that represent them) that if this bill fails, it will be immediately followed by a far more draconian approach.
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p>I think we strip every “blue dog” Democrat who fails to support the public option of all party seniority. I think that we make it clear that this issue is a “with-us-or-against-us” bright line.
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p>I think that corporate interests have been taking us to the cleaners for far too long. In my opinion, if we fail to stop them on the public option question, we will similarly fail to stop those same corporate interests on any of the other major issues that confront us.
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p>This is piss or get off the pot time.
I wrote:
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p>and
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p>You wrote,
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p>How can you “hear” what I didn’t say?
You titled your post (emphasis mine):
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p>In your thread-starter, you wrote:
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p>I read these, and your response to AmberPaw, as suggesting that you are receptive to health care reform legislation that does not include a vigorous public option. It would seem that RyePower12 had a similar reaction, hence the very first comment on the thread — “No option, no mandate.”
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p>Perhaps the easiest way to further clarify my apparent misunderstanding is for you to answer the following question:
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p>Will you vote for health care reform legislation that does not include a vigorous public option?
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My “plea for a band-aid” was to implement, at the state level, insurance mandates to get the insurance companies to do what is right. My point was that if Obama’s proposals are accepted, the state mandates will become redundant, because they will be federal mandates.
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p>My further point was that that was evidence that there are good things in the healthcare bill that have nothing to do with the Public Option.
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p>BUT — and I guess you missed this, I DO NOT SUPPORT a bill without the Public Option. It would make a mockery of healthcare “reform” — I said it in these words:
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p>Also, unless you’re purposely trying to distort what I said, how come you only quoted half of my statement? The other half was:
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p>Perhaps with time, my writing skill will improve. Meanwhile, I ask that you read ALL of what I have written, not just the parts that you find fault with.
I appreciate your willingness to pursue this. I agree that I misunderstood your comments. I apologize for seeming distrustful — I carry too much scar tissue from dealing with public figures who are careful to cover both sides of a contentious issue in order to provide quotable excerpts for audiences in each camp.
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p>This is the clear statement I asked for (pardon my edits and emphasis):
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p>Thank you for clarifying this for me.
Fixing health care would go a long way to solving our economic problems.
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p>Think of all the public employees who have been laid off over the past five years. Health insurance premiums. Ditto the private sector (though, they have a few more options in being able to cut benefits, change them or remove them altogether). Simply put, the rising cost of health care has expanded much faster than our ability to pay for it.
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p>How many tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs due to the rapidly increasing expense of health insurance — in Massachusetts alone? How many people think the economic collapse would have been anywhere near as bad if health insurance costs were kept in check and under control?
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p>People look at the government and all of the cuts that have been made and have wondered why it’s happened. They look at their own lives and wonder why, after all these years of work, they’re still having trouble paying for their mortgage and planning for their futures. These are not disparate problems — there is an underlying, systemic problem with our economy and it is the rapidly increasing cost of health insurance. Until that problem is fixed, we’ll constantly be at risk of falling into recessions — and each one is likely to get worse and worse and worse.
Cat got your tongue?
to a BMG member’s report that his Commonwealth Choice premium is about to jump by $110 a month. Not that hard to click on it, is it?
I fail to see its relevance, so would like that explained.
A recently unemployed friend reports that the COBRA subsidy doesn’t apply to married gay couples or folks who’d previously been covered under domestic partner benefits. It seems the feds don’t recognize gay relationships.