This is a huge deal. It's Obama using some of his massive political capital to take a crucial stand. And it's going to make a bunch of Republicans and insurance company lobbyists pretty angry at him. In fact, they're spending $20 million to crush this key part of his plan. A public health insurance option is the heart of real health care reform.
The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee — a moderate who is seen as the leading figure on Congressional proposals to create a national healthcare mandate — says that his bill is almost certain to include a public healthcare option, in a blow to the managed care industry and a possible major victory for progressives.
“I think a bill that passes the Senate will have some version of a public option,” said Montana Sen. Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Chairman. His remarks come two days after President Barack Obama signaled in a letter that a public competitor to the private health insurance companies was a key part of his agenda.
Of course, the measure will still have to pass the full Senate. Republicans are vehemently opposed to a public healthcare plan, saying it will interfere with the markets and handicap existing private insurance companies.
“Despite the happy talk from the four Senators about progress and compromise, Baucus’ concession that a government-run, public insurance option will likely be included in the reform bill could sink its bipartisan support,” Roll Call’s David Drucker wrote late Thursday. “Additional items are also making compromise difficult, including the issues of government mandates and how to pay for it.”
“Our caucus is very much against [a public plan.] It’s kind of a litmus test,” ranking Senate Finance Committee Republican Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said. “That’s all you can say. There’s no follow-up question that you can ask me. There’s no further statement I can make about it.”
The creation of a public healthcare option could revolutionize health care in America. As the President also said yesterday, "In 2009, health care reform is not a luxury. It's a necessity we cannot defer."
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If President Obama has his way, America could actually see a major move toward providing some form of healthcare to families and individuals at affordable rates within the next six weeks. Standing in his way is the usual pre-paid corporate backed flunkies in Congress dedicated to maintaining the status quo, no matter how many Americans are driven from coverage due to skyrocketing cost.
ReplyDeleteBoxing the Republicans into fighting yet another indefensible battle, the single payer/public plan options is gathering steam among the 46 million Americans managing with no coverage at all and many more making do with less than needed because of preexisting conditions. With escalating cost to individuals, families and the businesses that employ them, the only plan the Republicans have is to resurrect a minimally tweaked private insurer option that has all but broken the backs of struggling Americans to date.
We are eagerly awaiting those on the so-called Conservative Right to make their best case for allowing the current gangster of healthcare providers continue to offer substandard care and watered-down benefits while cherry picking only the healthiest to insure. The business model of the AMA and the Healthcare industrial complex has finally been exposed for what they really are; a money-grubbing hoard, dedicated solely to their profit margins. Providing coverage only to those who are least likely to access it has been a win-win for the healthcare industry and the puppets they have purchase to represent them.
We think the upcoming debates is going to make for some of the best political entertainment witnessed in years when those corporate sponsored congressional losers stand on the floor of the Senate and House of Representative and lament the possible loss of the private health insures in this country because of “unfair competition by the government. These second and third time losers are going to look even more like corrupt coconspirators when they try to label the president’s efforts as nothing more than “socialized medicine.” The more Republicans fight the force for true healthcare reform in this country the more they will appear to be out of touch with the American people.
After the public is fully educated about what the president and progressive groups are proposing, the Republican’s warned over but dead on arrival alternatives will be yet another embarrassment to explain to their toothless Dixie crew. With options like a government back plan coming online, private providers are going to be forced to treat the insured and those seeking healthcare coverage more like people and patients and less like profit making opportunities.
The Republicans have failed to realize, that the nation has left them behind and few are even looking back at their demise. Those on the Right have sadly miscalculated how Americans feels about the corporate medical and healthcare delivery system in the country. In fact when asked, a clear majority of Americans are quite fed up with they way they have been cheated, lied to and robbed by the American corporate culture. Most Americans are aware private insures are in the business of providing care for making obscene amounts of money and the patient is merely a means to achieving that single solitary goal. There is very little sympathy if any for insurance companies/ healthcare providers these days and woe is the Congressional asses that just do not get it!