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Donk and I are engaged in a dry, ultra-sivuhlized discussion of the feeble public option, inspired by this Friday AP news paragraph:
In one bit of sobering news, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that only about 6 million people would sign up and that premiums for the government plan could be higher than for private coverage. The CBO says sicker people with higher costs probably would be attracted to the government plan. By comparison, 162 million people would remain covered through employer plans.
Donkey, who can’t _handle_ the truth, insists AP and I have been pwned and that really the public option will cover 21 million people. Whatever, the 6 million number is widely reported. Here, for example:
Of the 30 million Americans likely to purchase insurance through exchanges created by the legislation, only six million — or one-fifth — would enroll in a public insurance plan, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House bill. Viewing it another way, the six million using the public option would amount to only two percent of the 282 million Americans under the age of 65 who are projected to have health insurance by 2019, when the legislation is fully implemented.
It’s a feeble public option, no way of getting around it. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden commented a couple days ago:
"The bottom line is that the public option can’t really hold private insurers accountable if it is only competing for 10 percent of the insurance market," Wyden said in an official statement, "because private insurance companies aren’t going to change their business practices if 90 percent of their customers can’t take their business elsewhere." . . .
"So picture what this means," Wyden said on The Ed Schultz Radio Show. "If your insurance company is abusing you, even if you have coverage from your employer, you are just tethered to that lousy policy. I don’t think that’s right. A member of Congress has access to more than a dozen good policies. I want all Americans to have all the choices. Because without that kind of leverage to hold insurance companies accountable, things aren’t going to change much."
Donkeytale doesn’t give up without a fight, so he posted this:
Non sequitor. You and AP have no idea what you or they are talking about
The blockquotes are the source from which the AP wrote the article. 6 million, if you read the blockquote, refers to the number of increased lives to be added under employer plans relative to current projections.
As the CBO source document truly estimates, 21 million people will be added to the public option. . . .
To which I was gonna respond with the following comment, but what the heck, here it is at the bottom of this diary:
Big social loss forcing working poor and lower middle class to buy over-priced crap
Of course, we _still_ don’t know how much the subsidies will be and who will pay them at what income level. Any rational person would balance that obvious social loss with the social gains of covering 5-6 million people and 12-15 million more on Medicaid, if those are what we get in a final bill. Perhaps we should acknowledge other social losses, as Jane Hamsher of firedoglake has regarding cancer victims and the killing protection the emerging bill offers cancer drug patent holders (‘House Health Care Bill: A Death Sentence For My Fellow Breast Cancer Survivors’). It is a 2000-page bill for a reason. And rational people would look back on the experience with a similar contraption in Massachusetts and acknowledge that the insurance premium subsidies in this first bill look much better than how they will look as gradually they’re forced to decline over the next decade or two.
In your writing on health insurance bill I get no feel that you are balancing the positives and negatives. The bill we will finally have in the end will not do great things, as I _think_ you are beginning to acknowledge, and will be a touch-up job on the insurance aspects of a failing, abusive, and vastly over-priced system. That said, it may have more positives than negatives. I’m worried, by the way, that some of the negatives may result from the impact of both the oversell it is getting and from the widespread pwoggie overlooking of its negative-in-the-wallet impacts on a lot of working class and lower-middle-class people, which are most of the Democratic Party’s traditional constituency.
This is what I’m getting at in the ‘oversold’ area:
Hugh
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:12 am 41
In response to selise @ 34there is no policy to provide universal healthcare and control costs that has the votes to pass.
This is correct and also why whatever bill that eventually passes (I do expect the House progressives to fold) will fail. Costs will continue to skyrocket, the system will become more and more unsustable, and we will be back discussing this in a few years, maybe sooner if the economy really tanks.
Sufilizard
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:22 am 43
In response to Hugh @ 41Sadly, I’m afraid you’re right. Initially I had hopes that even if we didn’t get Medicare-for-all we might still get a viable public option that would leave the door open for single-payer in the future.
Apparently I was naive, because I now believe as you do, that whatever ends up being able to pass will be so bad that it will actually make our horrible system even worse, and Democrats will be punished for it.
Leaving it up to Republicans. Which means they will strengthen the worst parts of this crappy reform and do away with anything that actually helps people.
8 Comments
Is it a distinction between how many people could sign on with the PO and how many would?
I think that’s where he gets his misinformation, but I’m not sure. It sure makes a big difference if really 21 million are going to sign up for the public option. That would’ve been a big number.
But still far short of the 45 million immediate enrollment figure assumed by Jacob Hacker.
fairleft, for what it’s worth, the recent cms report for the original tri-committee version of hr 3200 (since been watered down) predicts almost 11 million in the po by 2019.
the cms report is the best report i’ve seen yet on any of this year’s legislation (even if this one is for a bill published about 3 months ago and no longer current).
no one has explained to me how this can possibly work to do control costs, “keep private insurance honest,” etc.
what corporate boondoggle this bill is turning out to be.
As a Reagan respecting conservative and capitalist, I am all for a Government health care Option as long it does not deceive the public into believing it would be competition to private insurance with tax dollars. Many believe that government insurance would be cheaper because they are a not for profit organization. All the government option needs to do is to allow those that wish to have the public option should pay for it and those that want private insurance pay for that. Just do not demand that folks that want private insurance pay for government insurance and visa-versa. The choice would be simple, pay for what you want not for what you do not want. Let the profitable survive.
What about Ronald Reagan makes you respect him?
Well, can’t ask for a more crystal, clear “fuck you” than that.
i don’t know but maybe we should work on a cure for free market fundamentalism. it’s a deadly disease — in healthcare alone, causing over 40,000 deaths in the country every year.