Any "reform" that LACKS a public option is a huge step BACKWARDS - & WORSE than doing NOTHING at...

[Faryn Balyncd]

...all.

We cannot afford, individually or as a nation, to continue to pay the insurance companies their 31% "administrative" cut.

Any so-called "reform" that lacks a public option amounts to unaffordable CORPORATE WELFARE, and, by MANDATING insurance purchase, will further enrich the insurance interests which are a huge part of the problem.

This corporate enrichment would make it even more difficult to take on these special interests in the future.

Sen. Ben Nelson ("Democrat", Neb) has signaled that he is aligned with the insurance interests against the American people.

Any plan lacking a public option is the enemy of real reform, and must be defeated.




http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5582880&mesg_id=5582880

[thunder rising]

1. Ben is too stupid to educate his constituents

I spent some time yesterday going through his official site ... he's a winger DINO.

[Fire1]

2. Absolutely.

[mmonk]

3. Yes and an utter waste of time.

[cosmik debris]

4. The "perfect" is the enemy of the "good"

It may be easy for you to say the it is worse than nothing, but for those who are desperate for something, it is a great relief.

People are suffering while this debate goes on. To say that the debate should be prolonged is to say that their suffering should be prolonged.

[mmonk]

5. Desperation is what people like Nelson will depend on

into accepting something less that still favors the current system.

[enlightenment]

6. Cosmik, that is undoubtedly true, but it doesn't change

the issue at hand. In essence you are saying that an evil should be allowed to continue because it's better than nothing.

[cosmik debris]

8. No, I'm saying we need to address the worst problems first

Expecting single payer universal health care to pass in 2009 is unrealistic.

It is also unrealistic to expect some to starve waiting on the whole loaf, when half a loaf would ease their hunger.

Our government is designed to change slowly and incrementally. If you demand more than that, you'll get less. Just ask HRC.

[enlightenment]

12. All right, I accept that - I always have.

But this conversation is about putting the public option on the table. Do you honestly believe that will sink the entire ship?

Our government is designed to change slowly, but external influences (lobbying groups) have become so prevalent that change is almost impossible these days - that's what undermined HRC's efforts when all was said and done.

When change moves so slowly as to be inperceptible, it can only be appreciated by mountains and glaciers. Unfortunate that we're humans, I guess.

[cosmik debris]

15. The only point I addressed from the OP was the OP's contention

that it is "WORSE than doing NOTHING at all."

But it is definitely NOT worse than doing nothing at all if you are one of the ones who need immediate help.

[Faryn Balyncd]

7. A Ben Nelson mandatory insurance scheme with no public option is "good"?

(& I don't think anyone would call a public option plan "perfect", but a public option plan be a positive reform, that, if done correctly, would not further enrich & entrench the insurance interests with a mandated monopoly.)

[cosmik debris]

10. That's not what I said, you just made that up. n/t

[Laelth]

9. Agreed. Anything less and we're just throwing MORE money at the insurance industry. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Occam Bandage]

11. I'm guessing you have healthcare.

Forget talk about "enriching the interests;" ideology and cultural warfare are games played by people without real problems. Most people are more concerned about getting healthcare to as many people as possible, by hook or by crook. I'm completely for a public option, but to suggest that an otherwise-progressive reform plan is a "step backwards" if it isn't ideologically pure seems to demonstrate a lack of perspective.

[Faryn Balyncd]

13. Whether a plan which lacks a public option & which mandates insurance purchase can be a progressive

.....reform is the question.

Many believe that the answer is "no".

And that, in addition, a mandated insurance scheme would severely damage our ability to EVER enact a progressive reform.

If what you are saying is that we should not forego an improvement in the name of holding out for a perfect system, I think that is a valid point.......But we must evaluate whether a plan without a public option is, in fact, an improvement. I agree with those who believe that such a plan is not an improvement for Americans, but would be corporate welfare on a scale never before seen.

[Occam Bandage]

17. "we must evaluate whether a plan without a public option is, in fact, an improvement"

If it gets one more person health care, or if it lowers the average cost of health care by one dollar per year, then the plan is an improvement in my eyes. It may not be much of an improvement; it may be a disappointing level of improvement; it may be an unacceptable degree of improvement given the enormity of the problem. It is improvement none the less. It's quite possible to accept a plan as both an improvement and as a disappointing failure to fix the problem.

I think discussions of "corporate welfare" often are nothing but arguments from spite. The question in politics should never be, "how can we harm group Y," but rather, "how can we improve the lot of group X." It's often true that one must rob an undeserving Peter to pay a desperately needy Paul, but going after Peter should be undertaken as a necessary aspect of helping Paul, not a goal in and of itself. At the end of the day, we should praise ourselves not for much poorer we've made Peter, but rather how much richer we've made Paul. If we are disappointed in ourselves, it should be because Paul remains poor, and not because Peter remains wealthy.

[leftstreet]

14. What would motivate us to purchase insurance, rather than the public option?

:shrug:

[Honeycombe8]

16. The plan Obama campaigned on provided for govt subsidy of ins. coverage...

if a person chooses. Or that person could cont. to be covered under his employer's insurance. But ins. premiums would become more affordable so that a person could purchase ins. on his own, should he lose his employment provided insurance.

Obama did not believe in mandating coverage for adults. He did believe in mandating coverage for children (again...govt subsidies for that, I think). Remember...ins. for poor children is already provided for.

Hillary Clinton's plan was similar, except she wanted coverage mandated for all citizens, adults and children. That was the main (and maybe only) difference between the two plans.

I don't know if his team has changed the plan that they will be going for. But as I recall, the above was what he campaigned on, and I approved of it. I esp. did not like the "mandate" of the Hillary plan.

[Faryn Balyncd]

18. You are correct......

Obama campaigned on a plan as you describe, a plan that would specifically include a public option.


Some working within the administration have other ideas.


Zeke Emanuel (Rahm's brother), who has been hired as a "White House adviser", advocates a plan that not only mandates private insurance purchase (subsidized with vouchers) but eliminates all public options by privatizing Medicare & Medicaid.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/3684


The Emanuel/Fuchs voucherization/privatization plan, while promoted as a plan that would provide government funded private insurance, has so far remained free of scrutiny regarding the ease with which government funding could be reduced, or simply frozen & eroded by inflation, by a future Republican Congress and/or administration (markedly different from the current situation under traditional Medicare). http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Faryn%20Balyncd/4


Howard Dean, snubbed by the administration, is the strongest voice for passing a plan upon which Obama campaigned, one which preserves a public option.


So I guess the question is: Will the plan which the administration eventually proposes be one with the elements upon which Obama campaigned was elected, or will it be a mandated insurance plan without a public option, one which will find favor with the insurance interests, the GOP, and Senators Ben Nelson & Arlen Specter, who have announced they will oppose a public option?