The Latest Public Option Bamboozle, and How to Recognize the Real Thing

[FORD]

The Latest Public Option Bamboozle, and How to Recognize the Real Thing
June 11, 2009, 10:50AM

Here's the latest contortion from Senate Dems trying to win over a few Republicans to a "public option:" Let nonprofits create health-care cooperatives, and call them the public option. Kent Conrad came up with this bamboozle. Finance chair Baucus is impressed, and some Republicans -- even Grassley -- seem interested. Watch your wallets.

Nonprofit health-care cooperatives won't have any real bargaining leverage to get lower prices because they'll be too small and too numerous. Pharma and Insurance know they can roll them. That's why the Conrad compromise is getting a good reception from across the aisle, just as Olympia Snowe's "trigger" (whereby no public option until some time down the pike, and only if Pharma and Insurance don't bring down and extend coverage a tad) is also gaining traction.

The truth is that there's only one "public option" that will truly bring down costs and premiums -- one that's national in scale and combines its bargaining power with Medicare, and is allowed to negotiate lower drug prices and lower doctor and hospital fees. And that's precisely what Pharma and Insurance detest, for exactly the same reason.

Whatever it's called -- public option or chopped liver -- it has to be able to squeeze Pharma, Insurance, and the rest of the medical-industrial complex. And the more likely it is to squeeze them, the more they'll fight it. And the greater the opposition from Republicans, and from Dems who either believe any bill has to have some Republican support or who have sold themselves out to the medical biggies.

As long as single payer is off the table, then we need a real public option. Don't be fooled by labels. Demand the real thing.

The Latest Public Option Bamboozle, and How to Recognize the Real Thing | Robert Reich's Blog

[FORD]

Conrad Co-ops: Not. Fucking. Acceptable.

[GAR]

Pharma works with Insurers to keep the price of meds high.

Insurers work with Pharma to keep the price of premiums high.

I think the Democrats are high for letting this facade play this far out. They need to give it up, they're already defecit spending as it is.

[FORD]

I want this thread to be a serious discussion, because the situation IS serious.

We need a real health care system in this fucking country, and if the corporatist bastards steal it from us this time, we will probably never get another chance, especially if they are able to put some bullshit scam like Conrad's co-ops in the media spin as "reform". Or mandatory corporate RomneyHillarycare.

Its as simple as this: Single Payer is the best solution because it creates the largest pool (in this case everyone) thereby creating the lowest risk, by average, and as a result, the lowest cost.

Good for the economy? You bet your ass. And that's just the upfront cost. Even more so when you add in a healthier population. Less sick days, etc.

I'd like to hear from our Canadian & European friends here as well. What's good about your system, and what (if anything) sucks about it?

And I want to hear this from those who actually LIVE outside the US. Not from Assjockeys surfing right wing propaganda sites on library computers.

[letsrock]

Pharma works with Insurers to keep the price of meds high.

Insurers work with Pharma to keep the price of premiums high.

I think the Democrats are high for letting this facade play this far out. They need to give it up, they're already defecit spending as it is.

there has been defecit spending before any member of this site was born.

[FORD]

Kicking this thread up again, because Mike Malloy got me fired up about this whole thing again tonight, and I believe it's time to fucking face reality.

This country will not survive if we do not do what the rest of the fucking modern world did in the years immediately following World War II, and fucking put a single payer system together.

Fuck the corporate profits, and with all due respect to Dr. Howard Dean - whom I agree with 90% of the time - fuck the "public option" compromise, even an authentic one like he or Bernie Sanders are proposing (in separate plans)

Let's have some input here from our foreign friends. And from our vets, in regards to the VA system. And maybe ZahZoo can talk about Medicare?

Seriously, the time is NOW. The economy's fucked, employer provided insurance plans aren't worth a shit to the unemployed. Can anybody give me a valid reason (as opposed to a lame ass right wing talking point excuse) why we do not do this NOW. Or for that matter, why we didn't do it decades ago?

[Nitro Express]

Big Pharma and Insurance extort us. I say we extort them. We kidnap their top executives and demand they lower prices or else.

[Nitro Express]

Employer provided health plans aren't worth shit if you are employed. Man. My first job out of college provided killer insurance benefits. I never even thought about health care in those days. I had 100% dental and the whole shabang. Now minimal coverage for a family that doesn't cover shit is a payment on a nice home a month.

[FORD]

Employer provided health plans aren't worth shit if you are employed. Man. My first job out of college provided killer insurance benefits. I never even thought about health care in those days. I had 100% dental and the whole shabang. Now minimal coverage for a family that doesn't cover shit is a payment on a nice home a month.

Well, that's another point. Some health plans are better than others. But they shouldn't be. Everyone should have the same access to health care.

Whether Warren Buffet or the greeter at the local WalMart, there shouldn't be a difference.

[hideyoursheep]

I can't add to the discussion because you're saying it all already.

All true.

[Big Train]

Why not just put Wal Mart in charge of it, they are rolling back drug prices nicely. That's a good example for you. The largest retail corporation in the world is nicking their prices a lot on their less profitable drugs. The question is, really, is the government going to do anywhere near as well in terms of efficiency and cost as Sam Walton's outfit? I kinda doubt it.

[FORD]

WalMart is doing the old "loss leader" trick with their cheap prescription scam. If they can pull you in with a $4.00 co-pay on pharmaceuticals, maybe you'll buy everything else there too? No doubt they're getting subsidized by big pharma to make up for it.

About the only positive thing I could see about a WalMart health care system would be, if they imported their doctors from China like they do everything else, then at least you would have some doctors here that believed in "old school" medicine, rather than pushing toxic chemicals.

But then the corporate-compromised FDA would never allow that.

[Seshmeister]

The absolute undeniable fact which they even admit is that pharmaceutical companies charge what the market will sustain, NOT what it costs to develop, market and make the drugs.

You are getting ripped off. Also you are constantly over prescribed and over tested. So you end up say getting an MRI for toothache or whatever. The market is not operating properly and so people in the US directly and indirectly pay far more for healthcare than other Western countries which coupled with insane 'defense' expenditure means that you are finding it harder and harder to compete. This means as mentioned in the other thread you end up having to work much longer hours with less vacations.

[FORD]

Can't say I ever had an MRI for a toothache... but I did have to go to the ER with an impacted & infected wisdom tooth (which I didn't even know was a wisdom tooth until afterwards) because I was uninsured at the time.

Probably actually spent a whole 10 minutes with a doctor. They prescribed antibiotics and Rush Limbaugh's favorite happy pills and scheduled an appointment at their dental clinic to get the wisdom teeth yanked.

I don't remember exactly what the bill for that was, but it was probably around $300 or so (not counting the prescriptions or the subsequent tooth yanking). Or in other words, $30 a minute.

Not that I paid it..... there was a reason I was uninsured at the time. I was also unemployed.

[WACF]

WalMart is doing the old "loss leader" trick with their cheap prescription scam. If they can pull you in with a $4.00 co-pay on pharmaceuticals, maybe you'll buy everything else there too? No doubt they're getting subsidized by big pharma to make up for it.

About the only positive thing I could see about a WalMart health care system would be, if they imported their doctors from China like they do everything else, then at least you would have some doctors here that believed in "old school" medicine, rather than pushing toxic chemicals.

But then the corporate-compromised FDA would never allow that.

In North America we seem more focused on curing than preventing.