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Watered-Down 'Public Plan' Emerges in Senate
New version of 'public plan' would have private insurers offer health coverage
They may still call it a "public plan," but private insurers - not the government - would offer coverage under a compromise Democrats are considering to win Senate passage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (C)(D-NV) speaks as Tom Harkin (L)(D-IA) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT) listen after the U.S. Senate voted to begin debate on legislation for a broad healthcare overhaul on Capitol Hill in Washington November 21, 2009. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts The latest idea bears little resemblance to the original vision outlined by liberals, and embraced by Obama, during the 2008 presidential campaign. That called for the government to sell insurance to workers and their families in competition with industry giants like UnitedHealthcare.
But instead of Medicare-for-the-masses, it would be Blue Cross Blue Shield or Kaiser Permanente, albeit with a government seal of approval from the department that handles the health plan for federal employees, including members of Congress. The Office of Personnel Management - OPM - would become an instantly recognizable federal acronym, like FDA and CDC.
"I think it's the right way to go because it's simple and the public can grasp it," Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said Monday, reflecting a general hope that a deal is close.
Lawmakers will be able to tell their constituents "you're going to get exactly what we have, and that every federal employee has, you can buy into it," Begich added.
Five moderates and five liberals tapped by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., planned to work on the compromise Tuesday as the Senate debated the 10-year, nearly $1 trillion bill. A vote on an amendment to tightly restrict abortion coverage by health plans receiving federal subsidies could also happen Tuesday.
Reid imposed a Tuesday deadline to complete negotiations on the government-run option, according to Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a participant in the talks.
"It's one of those kind of things in the middle that doesn't make everybody very happy but that's our compromise," Harkin said. "It's something I'm going to probably have to live with."
Said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.: "It's probably the closest proposal thus far that could get the support of 60 senators. It's got legs."
Word of a possible compromise on the public plan drew a wary reaction from liberals, who support a Medicare-like approach.
"We need a public option that is a government entity, or established by government," said Richard Kirsch of Health Care for America Now.
Insurance industry groups had little to say publicly, but privately some officials said the shift away from a government-run plan sounds promising. There was plenty of skepticism.
"This is a long, long way from the original public plan that was going to require providers to accept Medicare reimbursement at 20 percent less than the commercial market," said Robert Laszewski, a health care industry consultant. "What the heck the advantage is, I don't see."
Liberals are trying to extract a price for any compromise. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., has proposed allowing people 55 and over to buy into Medicare. Others would further expand the Medicaid health program for low-income people. Finally, if private insurers don't step up to submit bids to OPM, some liberals want to authorize the federal agency itself to set up a plan.
The Senate bill now calls for a government-run plan, with states allowed to opt out. The House bill includes a government plan available in all states. Ongoing talks among Senate Democrats are nowhere near a conclusion; nonetheless, senators and aides outlined a framework that could lead to compromise.
The idea is for the government to lend its seal of approval to private plans that would be offered across the nation. The plans would be available through new state insurance markets, called exchanges. New markets would create big purchasing pools for those who now have trouble finding and keeping affordable coverage - people buying their own insurance and small businesses. Most of the 30 million consumers in the exchanges would have government subsidies to help pay premiums.
Under the compromise, any insurer could approach the federal personnel office to offer a plan in the exchanges, but the plan itself would have to be nonprofit. Most Blue Cross plans are still nonprofit, as is Kaiser, the giant health maintenance organization.
Offered alongside other private insurance in the exchanges, the OPM-approved plans would carry a special designation certifying that they meet standards comparable to those in the federal employee plan.
Supporters of the idea say it would promote competition by creating new national plans that could immediately go into states in which one or two big insurers now control the market.
Skeptics say the OPM-approved plans would be pretty much the same as other private plans offered in the new markets. They run the risk of attracting sicker patients who might think the government's seal means less chance of insurance hassles. That would mean higher premiums for those who sign up.
Solving the impasse over a government plan would move Reid closer to the 60-vote majority he needs to push a final bill through the Senate. On Monday, one moderate whose vote Reid would like to have expressed satisfaction.
"I think the discussions are going in the right direction ... away from a government-run plan," said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.
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45 Comments so far
Show AllKudos to Jay Rockefeller for suggesting that Medicare be made available to Americans 55 and older. That move alone would create more jobs than all of the jobs incentives Obama has hinted at. Millions of Americans age 55 plus would open up jobs for young Americans by retiring tomorrow if they were not being held hostage in their jobs by affordable employer-sponsored medical insurance.
If Rockefeller does not prevail, contact your two senators ASAP and tell them to vote against health care "reform".
As much as I don't look forward to continuing to suffer with the broken US health care system, the corporate welfare program being disguised as health care "reform" will make the current broken system look good.
Tell your senators that you don't want to pay more money for less health care and that you will not vote for them in the next election if they support this travesty.
You want us to support bill even though is does nothing but force 50 million more to buy corrupt insurance.
You want us to write the paid actor politicians who enslave us.
I don't think anyone could make up news funnier than this...a private public plan...no wait or is that a public private plan? You see it is a better public plan, according to the same people that deep sixed single-payer, because this public plan is more private and less public! The less public the public plan is, the more support it will garner in the senate! :)
And that is what is important to the Democrats. Nevermind that it won't help most Americans...it can pass the senate.(ie make their insurance company backers happy)...did you read the part about how happy the lobbyists are with this one?
Yes, and Senator Nelson's comment (the very last sentence of the article) says it all: "I think the discussions are going in the right direction ... away from a government-run plan."
From my cynical perspective, I believe that was their intent all along. They knew it, the lobbyists knew it. Any of their comments to the contrary were just smoke and mirrors for the masses.
Agreed. Utterly Hilarious.
"I think it's the right way to go because it's simple and the public can grasp it," Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said Monday, reflecting a general hope that a deal is close.
Thanks, buddy.
"It's simple and the public can grasp it," Poor stupid public, not smart and savvy like me and my corporate bribe accepting buddies up here on the Hill.
A two thousand plus page bill is SIMPLE?
Single payer could have been enacted with a twenty page bill...that IS simple.
Contact your two senators and tell them that if they support this bill they will lose your vote. No reform is better than deformed reform.
Lol. They privatized the pubic option.
Government seal of approval!!!
First the Democrats compromised everything away; now they are using a gimmick to sell this sick legislation to the public.
Of course it is watered down, how could anyone think that reid, or even pelosi, would do anything for the people in america other than f**k them/us over and it is just another ploy to keep the current state of affairs in health insurance.
AND, it brings to light how adamant the insurance companies are in making sure they get their share of the pie with a mandatory participation of the people whether they can afford it or not.
It also shows how horribly wrong the lobbying in government is to the people who somehow are conveniently unable to BRIBE their elected representatives in washington and at the state governments.
President Obama may go into history as the greatest "executive hole digger" ever. He is the only executor the Constitution recognizes and should have told congress this past spring exactly what Health Insurance/Care package he can execute and what he cannot execute. Apparently his choice is: "I will sign any new law that appears on my Oval-Office desk, no matter how castrated the thing is". With every day of shilly-shallying and zig-zagging since the spring he disappears deeper in the Health Hole and I am not even considering the Afghanistan/Pakistan war-hole.
You can be sure they will pass nothing that will affect the profits of the insurance companies and healthcare providers. If anything they will play the same old bait and switch shell game that results in sticking it up the ass of the American People, leaving us worse off than before.
The bill WILL affect the profits of the insurance companies and drug makers. The bill will give them higher profits and less accountability!
The smart money is finding its way into insurance and drug stocks right now !
Single-payer OR SINGLE TERMINATE DEM!
Royce
It must have been the "ro-" that confused them. All we get is a "-bust"-ed plan.
Begich sez: "Lawmakers will be able to tell their constituents 'you're going to get exactly what we have, and that every federal employee has, you can buy into it.'"
***
So, I get to "buy into" the same plan that you have ... which I'm coincidentally also "buying".
Very generous.
I like the assumption that we can afford the kind of plan they have. What a joke. It's like a new form of no-income home loans. Can't afford healthcare? No problem. We'll just mandate you buy it, and whatever the difference is, the taxpayers will pay. No reform of the system that is producing these runaway costs. No protection from bankruptcy. No guarantee that you can obtain health CARE, just mandatory insurance. Do I get guaranteed federal wages, too?
Industry flack Robert Laszewski sez: "This is a long, long way from the original public plan that was going to require providers to accept Medicare reimbursement at 20 percent less than the commercial market."
***
What a coincidence ... 20 percent is almost precisely the amount of the vig your industry skims off from potential patient care.
O'Bamba's healthcare "reform" is another mega-crime in the works. First, it's 100% illegitimate for business interests to have any influence on federal policy. Second, neither the Associated Press, nor nobody else, have put the numbers in context. The "reform" is going to add $1 trillion in taxes to a ten-year healthcare expenditure of $32 trillion. This figure assumes that the average yearly expenditure will be double the current expenditure, or more, given the industry's recent threats.
REAL healthcare reform HALVES the current expenditure to be in line with the cost in other countries. The US Congruss is going to let the industry DOUBLE the cost, instead. This is all about the economic growth rat race. It's pathetic.
"This is all about the economic growth rat race."
Self-evident, question being, is it a closed-loop
control system where growth cannibalizes the economy,
the poor and all our moral capital?
The senate enmasse need to stuff its bill up its collective ass.
**"I think it's the right way to go because it's simple and the public can grasp it," Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska...**
It is the right way to go BECAUSE it's so simple I can explain it to the dumb peasants back home. Medicare for All was soooo complicated. Expanding Medicare coverage even a little bit was complex beyond the ability of ordinary people to grasp.
Speaking of complexities, notice how the Republicans have been defending Medicare? I say strike while the iron is hot. Make the Repos turn on a dime and go right from screaming about protecting Medicare from cuts to not wanting that wonderful program extended to help others. Why is Medicare a GREAT program for someone who is 65 but an unacceptable gummit-run plan for someone who is 64?
Has anyone ever asked this question of even Obama at one his spurious town halls, or any member of Congress. I don't remember that happening. But Obama is the one you want to really nail with this question. Would love to watch and hear him dance around that question.
"I think it's the right way to go because it is simple and the public can grasp it."
Get the picture? They're smart and we're stupid. Maybe he's right. After all, we did 'elect' them.
Public plan here, G8 screwing of the climate conference in Hamletmark, get the picture? They think they own us. What is our response to be?
THROW US TO THE WOLVES ---- BUTCHER US FOR A PROFIT
The goal being a real Public Option run by a corrupt government bureaucracy,
the purpose of this knife in the guts is to make us lambs feel good that
government did not allow insurers to unmercifully throw us to the wolves
who love to butcher for a profit.
The medicines scam in the Medicare Part D made the US phamaceuticals extra billions. It was the warm-up excercise for this proposal to fleece the sheep of the nation on an even grander scale. We heard that the White House cut a deal with the pharmacy giants as part of the over-all scam. That they would give back a couple billion in lower drug prices is really a joke unless there is serious committment to lowering the outrageous price on many drugs. I have already called my US Senators and asked them to vote against the final bill because it will have been so watered down and full of poison pills, that it will be worthless. Yes these are the same two Arkansas Senators who have helped create a worthless bill in the first place. Kind of ironic.
I guess they finally legalized prostitution in all 50 states.
Prostitution has been legal on Capitol Hill since the Supreme Court made corporations legal entities. Thank Ronnie's boys.
You would be just as well off if Reid just passed a turd on the Senate floor, called it "Health Care Reform", and got the other 99 a-holes to vote for it.
camus13
Has anyone noticed that every member of the Congress and every member of the U. S. Goverment, Military Service and state and local workers all receive medical care insurance that is paid for by us TAXPAYERS.....
They are paid by the taxpayers and that comes from tax monies and some of this money goes to the much better health insurance than most of us receive.
I just found out that two friends of my are receiving after they retired their health care paid by the state until he is 65 and the second received his payment for his supplement insurance attached to his Medicare. Show me a business that does that.
And these SOB's in Congress have the nerve to sell themselves to the insurance companies while screwing us.
Democrat apologists -
After the first versions of the healthcare bills were passed, Democrat apologists were saying that we should accept them and then later it will get better. Well, since then, it got worse.
your point is?
As Chris Hodges said, "liberals (read: Democrats) are useless". Yet another gift to the privateers. I should change my name to "gladtohaveleftamerica".
If you quit you are part of the problem.
Congressman
Why are you in favor of bankrupting millions of Americans? Don’t you realize that without at least a robust public option we risk not only our health but also the very fiber of this once great nation? How can we pay the ruinous fees demanded by the insurance industry? How can you ignore the deaths caused by people not having access to basic health care? Are you deaf and blind to the peoples suffering or do you just not care?
I know that you won’t see this but perhaps one of your minions may give this a thought.
Dear Senators,
PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS!!! If you vote for the big fat wet kiss to the insurance industry that is going about in the Senate I will personally do my best to make you unemployed. Mandatory health insurance without a public option is suicide for the budget, the economy, and health care. DO NOT DO THIS TO US. Bi partisanship be damned. The Repubelickins have been gutting the middle class for thirty years. If this bill is passed without a strong public option and without crap like a trigger or right to choose amendments then we are all screwed and congress is no more than a bunch of useless corporate shills only interested in sucking up to the public trough. This is the only chance we have to take the boot of runaway insurance costs from the neck of the people that we will have in this generation. This is the most important piece of legislation that you have ever voted on. The president shows no guts in this. Without it many people will die prematurely and the country will be bankrupted. GET WITH IT. GET THIS DONE RIGHT OR DON’T DO IT!!!!! IF IT AIN’T RIGHT VOTE IT DOWN.
Oh, and when you get this done here are some other things that you might spend some time on.
1. Campaign reform. No corporate donations and no private donations over 1000.00. Five dollars of every tax return used to finance campaigns. I don’t need campaigns to start a year before the election.
2. Repeal of the Reagan tax cuts. Even Greenspan now admits that this was stupid.
3. Get us out of NAFTA, or SHAFTA to be more accurate.
4. Ten percent tariffs on all imports. Get America back to work. Hell my sales tax is higher than that.
5. Reinstate the Taft-Hartly Act.
6. Get control of the Federal Reserve. Get the foxes out of the hen house.
7. Make Uncle Sam buy American and as local as practical. No public funding for imports.
9. Instate a surcharge on all stock transactions and use this income to enforce the regulations on trading and to finance bailouts. If Wall Street is going to screw up they should pay the price not the poor shlub grinding it out for minimum wage.
As a disillusioned voter, I remain, Courtenay H. Smith
begish says"its simple and hopefully the public can grasp it"
this is what these mfs think about us! i don't know about
you folks but his opponent is getting a check from me.
even if he is named bezelbub. because at least you
know what he is going to do. we have to pass on this.
then we can unelect those who voted against a true
public option then elect some lefties to get it done
for real. i have a friend who works for mike bloomberg
here is what he thinks about politicians and he deals
with these ass holes every day " these people are so
stupid that when it rains you have to take them by the hand
and bring them inside so they don't get wet" still makes me
laugh like hell when we get together and he tells stories
of total morons he deals with. every time we hang he's got a new one that's better then the last one!
ELECTIONS ---- INTELLIGENCE CONTEST
Most politicians are paid actors hired by the rich,
and their all in the top 10% of intelligence.
For elections are actually intelligence contests
as our self-absorbed majority always vote for the
one they feel is the most intelligent.
And you can always tell who the rich have scheduled
to win, the one they tell to act the most intelligent.
There is a small hole in this theory; R Reagan, G W Bush.
always money for war
But health care, that we need to water down and make simple so people understand.
What's to understand? Insurance companies control Congress.
The makers of weapons and the military control Congress.
Oil companies control Congress.
People dying without health care?
Well they get to pay for a program just like the Senators have.
Only the Senators get it free at taxpayer's expense.
"'I think it's the right way to go because it's simple and the public can grasp it,' Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said Monday, reflecting a general hope that a deal is close."
What Sen. Begich doesn't grasp is that much of the public knows that what our legislators are trying to fob off on us as health care "reform" is just so much crap. And they'll remember the crap legislators who were in on the fix.
"'I think it's the right way to go because it's simple and the public can grasp it,' Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said Monday, reflecting a general hope that a deal is close."
What Sen. Begich doesn't grasp is that much of the public knows that what our legislators are trying to fob off on us as health care "reform" is just so much crap. And they'll remember the crap legislators who were in on the fix.
We, the people, have once again been sold out. This new OPM is not a public option. It is a profit opportunity. And... the public has no options...
The Gov. of the USA has once again sold out the people to commerce. The insurance companies can and will deny benefits. Now they will increase their profits.
Unfortunate for the people of the USA. Too bad the majority of the people in the USA really do not understand the UK, France, Canadian health care systems. All emergencies are taken care of immediately.
Elective surgery eg. hip replacement may take a month or two. My bother's took 6 weeks, My friend's knee replacement took 2 months from 1st visit to surgery. Not bad. They did not have to contend with insurance companies.
The Doctors prior to insurance could only hope to be paid. The Doctors along with the insurance companies are against public health care. Reason$$$$$ hats off to the almighty god of the USA $$$$$$$$$. The ordinary person does not count over the rich insurance companies and the all-powerful COMMERCE.