The Public Option Is Dead, Dead, Dead
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Health Care, R.I.P., VideoYesterday, Obama positioned the public option as something that everybody was getting hung up on. Not only that Kent Conrad said he wouldn’t vote for legislation that had it in it and neither would Blue Dog Dems or moderate Repubs.
Well, now HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is continuing the meme that the public option isn’t necessary…and if that’s the case, well, it’s dead folks.
Here she is today, along with a clip of Obama…
If anything passes, and I bet it will, we’re looking at health care co-ops.
Count on it.
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August 16th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I’ve suspected from the start (and said so) that the public option might be “trade goods.”
To be clear: I favor a public option.
But my objective has always been portability, an end to pre-existing conditions, an end to cancellations, a national rather than state market, deductions for the self-employed and some system — vouchers with a mandate perhaps — for getting close to universal coverage. If I get all that I’m willing to trade away a public option.
Then we get busy fine-tuning it.
The left will scream, but they’ll shut up and vote yes in the end. We’ll get a couple GOP senators and Obama will have a “bipartisan” health insurance reform that allows you to keep your existing policy, is close to universal and taxes the well-off to pay for it.
I’m good with 75% of a loaf.
August 16th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Mike, you might get an end to pre-existing conditions, but the rest of your list is out of the question as long as democrats are in office. There is nothing revolutionary about what will pass, I doubt co-ops will be included and if they are, they will be very limited and won’t constitute anywhere near the majority of plans issued to Americans going forward.
All-in-all, there will be more regulations added to health insurance without any radical overhaul of the system. Costs are going up.
Republicans should jump all over this, carry the momentum into 2010 and 2012, and use the public’s newly found consciousness about heatlh care to get it de-regulated, so that employer-only tax deductions and state licensing are a thing of the past.
Countdown until the left starts blaming the lying astroturfing mobs paid for by big corporations ruining everything in 5…4…3…
August 16th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Meaningful Healthcare ReformThe Public Option Is Dead, Dead, Dead
Fixed your headline, Justin.
August 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Jimmy:
I think you’re wrong. In fact I think the GOP got gamed.
Opposition has crystalized around the public option which, as I said, I always suspected was trade goods. Killing it gives the Maine women and the Blue Dogs a way to claim victory and sign on.
We still achieve our central goal, giving up ground we can afford to give up. Ground we never really thought we’d take.
You need to understand one thing about Obama: he doesn’t care what you say, he only cares what he gets, what he achieves.
As for GOP momentum. That’s a joke right? You really think a bunch of shots of shrieking old white people ranting about death panels is the signpost to the future? What will your platform be? “We kept insurance premiums high and contributed nothing to the reviving economy. And oh, by the way, we’re nuts!”
August 16th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
“As for GOP momentum. That’s a joke right? You really think a bunch of shots of shrieking old white people ranting about death panels is the signpost to the future?”
That doesn’t sound racist at all.
Hint: we’ll continue to gain momentum as long as you characterize concerned Americans as “shrieking old white people”. A little racist and a lot short on facts.. keep trying that tactic and see how it works for you. We’ve already succeeded in getting the public option dropped due largely to the fact that libs met opposition with derision instead of a factual rebuttal. Keep using racist and hateful language instead of facts and maybe we’ll succeed in getting the whole steaming pile of crap that remains off of the table.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
There are a lot of shrieking old white people in this country and they vote.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Michael:
I second you comment on the GOP getting gamed, the only thing the Republicans wanted to defeat was the Public Option which they will claim as a victory. This will anger some from the left but for Moderates and Independents this will satified that it won’t be a government control heath care and would ease concern towards President Obama who they started to lose faith on him.
August 16th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
“There are a lot of shrieking old white people in this country and they vote.”
Yes and many collect social security, medicare and military pensions. Damn socialists!
August 16th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Jimmy:
And their are alot of people young and people color that vote too during the mid-term election.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
LMAO. “Advance to the rear” and declare victory through superior foresight…GMAFB. Now, if you had openly predicted something like this was coming, maybe you’d have some cred.
Obama left it to Congressional Democrats to write up a wish-list bill while making tons of vague and vaporous (and unkeepable) fairy-dust promises. At this point Obama will claim “victory” no matter what is passed, just as long as something is passed.
But make no mistake, this Obacktracking represents a major defeat for the left-lib wing of the Dem party. They swung for the fences and the public rose up in arms against them and their leader in the White House cut them loose to swing in the breeze. (Of course, at the same time he’s just lobbed a lifeline to suffering Blue Dogs. Silver lining, etc.)
On the bright side, this means that there is now some real chance of actual bipartisan attempts at serious and focused reforms that actually help us rather than just kludge up the system even more.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Tully:
Yeah, a defeat for the left. Not for Obama. Despite your tedious propagandizing, they are not the same.
But also a defeat for the right: we’ll get most of what we wanted, and you won’t have broken the Obama presidency. Instead you’ll have made yourselves look crazier than ever and get none of the credit for the coming economic turn-around.
Let’s check in a year and see how it polls.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Jimmy:
Good luck with the old white people’s party. I’m sure it’s the coming thing.
August 16th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Sorry, but there is almost no one on the Republican side of the aisle who supports reforms that will actually help, only those that will continue to support the existing system. Any proposals that displease any insurance company with the right kind of influence will be killed or watered down to the point of uselessness. Corporate profits must not be interfered with no matter what. Anything that is passed with real bipartisan support will just be a smokescreen to cover up failure to help fix our non-system.
August 16th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
CH:
I just love when guys like you try to play the race card.
I’ll repeat it: shrieking old white people. That’s your party.
As it happens I am ‘old white people.’ But with 80% less shrieking. Unless my kids are around.
August 16th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
That’s odd. The strikeout in my first post was there in the preview.
August 16th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Who is playing the race card here?
August 16th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
No public option?
The GOP will declare a victory for stopping it. the Dems will declare a victory for whatever they get. Obama will declare a victory because something passed.
But without a public option, the only ones who truly win will be the Insurance Companies.
And the ones who lose the most?
Us.
August 17th, 2009 at 12:35 am
FWIW – Deep Background Unidentified Sources to Mark Ambinder – Rumors of Public Option Death are Greatly Exaggerated:
Then Linda Douglass of “send me your fishy e-mails” fame chimes in:
Then another source…
So – three White House officials, two unidentified and three different explanations. What does it mean? You got me. But is does at least have the appearance of a world class clusterfork is underway.
August 17th, 2009 at 2:06 am
Hint: we’ll continue to gain momentum as long as you characterize concerned Americans as “shrieking old white people”. A little racist and a lot short on facts..
Call it racist if you insist on doing so, but it is most definitely not short on facts. The demographic reality is that whites are shrinking as a proportion of the population. Another demographic fact is that old people die a lot sooner than young people.
In 2010 old white folks may be enough. They won’t be in 2012. Low turnout in 2014 may help you. But if you guys don’t manage major breakthroughs in communities of color and young people you’ll be less relevant in 2016 than you were in 1940.
Tully said,
Obama left it to Congressional Democrats to write up a wish-list bill while making tons of vague and vaporous (and unkeepable) fairy-dust promises. At this point Obama will claim “victory” no matter what is passed, just as long as something is passed.
This is Obama’s strategy on almost everything. He uses the Bully Pulpit to point Congress to an issue he wants resolved, then he stands back and lets them work out the details. That’s a lot closer to what the founding fathers intended than the system we’ve had since FDR, where a President proposes a specific bill via sympathetic Congressman.
As for the public option, I’d say it would be best to take anything anybody says about it now with a grain of salt. Right now they’re home in their district. In many cases being screamed at by old white people. When they get back to Congress the dynamics will change completely.
They may remain steadfastly against the public option. Senators may vote for cloture and then vote against the bill. One house (probably the House) could pass a bill with a public option while the other does co-ops. That would punt the actual decision to the Conference Committee. IMO that’s actually most likely because politicians really love not having to make controversial decisions.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Straight from the horse’s mouth:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/17/potter.health.insurance/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn
” I explained during the press conference with Rep. Slaughter how the industry funnels millions of its policyholders’ premiums to big public relations firms that provide talking points to conservative talk show hosts, business groups and politicians. I also described how the PR firms set up front groups, again using your premium dollars and mine, to scare people away from reform.
What I’m trying to do as I write and speak out against the insurance industry I was a part of for nearly two decades is to inform Americans that when they hear isolated stories of long waiting times to see doctors in Canada and allegations that care in other systems is rationed by “government bureaucrats,” someone associated with the insurance industry wrote the original script.”