Dems Taking Another Shot at Public Option

[Winter_123]

Here is where the AMA and the docs start going bonkers. All of their deals with the government have fallen apart and there nothing but medicare-type reimbursement for them on the horizon, not only from medicare but from the public option and from carriers who need to compete with the public option, if not stopped.

Also, what a fraud the Dems are. They strip the 250 billion out of the health reform bill to cover medicare reimbursement increases and put it in a separate bill so that it lowers the price tag on the reform bill. What a crock!

Crock number two: There is a 1500 page health reform bill voted out of committee and it does not even include public option so all the real movement is elsewhere. Certainly not in a white house bill, there is none.

Crock number three: Obama promised us transparency "health reform discussions and debates will be broadcast on CSPAN." Reality check: The dems are working on it completely behind closed doors now. If that is not true, set me straight.

Let me ask the pundits here a question. Medicare Part B premiums are set by law to cover half of the actual patient costs. Yet Mr. Obama says that he is going to reimburse at Medicare rates while also assuring us that the public option will not be propped up with government subsidies in the background. How the hell does that work?

Change you can believe in.

Congress: House bill now $871B - First Read - msnbc.com

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I'm not sure where I stand on the public option. I think the House Dems are greatly over-estimating how many people will choose to go with a gov't run plan.

We're also falsely assuming the public plan would be cheaper however we don't see that playing out in FedEx vs USPS.

One of the reasons I'm leaning towards the public option is without it the left will still be screaming for reform. Nothing will be solved.

They'd still go nuts stating that the rates of private carriers is high to justify "corporate greed."

It would almost be priceless to pass this with with the public option and have the left pull up the public rates: "WTF!!! $865 for my family of 3!!!!"

 

[Winter_123]

I'm not sure where I stand on the public option. I think the House Dems are greatly over-estimating how many people will choose to go with a gov't run plan.

We're also falsely assuming the public plan would be cheaper however we don't see that playing out in FedEx vs USPS.

One of the reasons I'm leaning towards the public option is without it the left will still be screaming for reform. Nothing will be solved.

They'd still go nuts stating that the rates of private carriers is high to justify "corporate greed."

It would almost be priceless to pass this with with the public option and have the left pull up the public rates: "WTF!!! $865 for my family of 3!!!!"

Mr. Bill makes reference on occasion to the Clivens theory. Unfortunately there is more to that than even a non-conspiracy theorist such as myself would like to admit.

We might like to see the public option come on board thinking that the voters will go scrambling and howling back to private sector solutions. The reality is that the next step is single payer. Failure of the public option plus the remaining private carriers (which will be programmed to fail by the government) will propel us on to single payer. Might take a few years but those few years will arrive.

 

[bobson]

I was watching Fox News this morning (or Faux News as the white House would have you believe, ha ha ha, right Obummer?) and the democratic Senator from Louisiana said it best. For her the public option is off the table for two reasons. Number 1, Medicare is going broke. Number 2 doctors don't like dealing with Medicaid. She asked why would we want a third bad option?

She sounds more conservative then most Republicans, certainlys more so than Snowe Job from Maine. Way to go!

 

[Winter_123]

I was watching Fox News this morning (or Faux News as the white House would have you believe, ha ha ha, right Obummer?) and the democratic Senator from Louisiana said it best. For her the public option is off the table for two reasons. Number 1, Medicare is going broke. Number 2 doctors don't like dealing with Medicaid. She asked why would we want a third bad option?

She sounds more conservative then most Republicans, certainlys more so than Snowe Job from Maine. Way to go!

Oh there is nothing conservative about Republicans these days except that some of them are.

Olympia is a republican representing a dem constituency. You are probably referring to Mary Landrau from Louisiana who is a dem but representing a more conservative type of dem.

Having said that, Olympia has not come out in support of the public option. She has tried to head it off by keeping it out of the bill and suggesting that there could be a trigger for it instead. As discussed, it remains to be seen whether she is a traitor or involved in the mudwrestling to show that Repubs actually can come up with an alternative while the other Repubs just observe what is going on. The bill that was voted out of committee DID NOT contain a public option. The dems are working on that behind closed doors. Olympia is not going to like that, trust me. The administration setting her up as a model to follow is a double-edged sword. Stay tuned.

 

[Mac1958]

They either get a Public Option that will be ultimately steered into Single Payer, or they'll tax & regulate the insurance companies out of existence, which will open the door to Single Payer. That's the plan.

Elections have consequences. We'll see about 2010.

 

[ABC]

Depending on what if anything is passed I think I will have to change my business model.

If we see a GI policy and then see premiums shoot up 30-40%. Small group under 50 will become non existent.

The only group policy to sell will be self funded ones.
I am going to have to become very sharp at setting self funded products for group under 100 lives.

 

[HealthGuy]

I'm not sure if Olympia or Pelosi makes me dry heave more.

 

[Mr. Bill]

The reality of it all is that the longer the country is in a recession/depression (depending on JoeBiden's words at a moment in time), the more likely a public option will be included, since more people will be or continue to be unemployed, and the more desperate the populace, the more dependent the populace becomes on the government.

Yes, it is the Cloward-Piven strategy, right along the Alinsky lines. We can only hope the Chinese will save us from our government. Kind of ironic, huh? We need them communists in order to prevent us from becoming a banana republic.

Some good news, though - I heard that 30,000 new jobs have been created by the Obama Administration. Didn't hear details of where, but I bet it has something to do with all them partees the Obamas are hosting.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Yes, there are at least 30,000 new jobs created by ACORN - the pimp and prostitution business is thriving.