A watered down public option not until 2013 plus mandated insurance

[SHRED]

More suffering as the Democratic Party seems intent on committing political suicide.
One day to the next the health insurance reform takes twists and turns.

Will we, as citizens, ever be represented by our own government?

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consortiumnews.com

US Health Insurers Up the Ante

By Robert Parry
October 21, 2009

The chutzpah shown by the U.S. health insurance industry in taking aim at the weakest reform bill in Congress – the one approved by the Senate Finance Committee – reflects the insurers’ sense that they have beaten back other proposals that might have represented significant threats.

Not only was a national single-payer approach never allowed on the table – since it would have been the death knell for the private industry – but even the most “robust” public-option bills contain major concessions to the insurers, including sharp limits on who could qualify for a government-run program and delays on when the new program might take effect.

Perhaps the most striking passage in the House Ways and Means Committee’s 1,018-page bill – regarded as one of the most liberal – is the definition of “Y1,” year one when an insurance “exchange” with a public option would become available to individuals and small businesses.

“The terms ‘Y1’, ‘Y2’, ‘Y3’, ‘Y4’, ‘Y5’, and similar subsequently numbered terms, mean 2013 and subsequent years, respectively,” the bill states on page 14.

In other words, even if Congress approves a public option, the health insurance industry gets more than a three-year reprieve before it would have to begin competing and then the competition would be limited to small businesses and to individuals.

It also means that Americans facing a health-care crisis today can’t expect meaningful help on health insurance until 2013. In the meantime, they are to be left to the mercies of private insurers.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/102109.html

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[BobRossi]

1. "Change" baby!

And to think I was dumb enough to vote for this?

[ixion]

6. I know, right?

It pisses me off that I voted for this so-called 'change', which isn't change, except if you happen to be a big insurance corp. Then you're breaking out the bubbly.

[hokies]

2. They have repeatedly said that it will take time to get the insurance exchange up and running

Do you have any information that they're lying and that it is quick to implement? This isn't a Medicare for all bill like some seem to think it is.

[SHRED]

4. Did I ever say they were "lying"?

[Fumesucker]

8. The USA *won* WWII from a standing start in four years..

If we can't get a public option up and running in less than half of that we aren't the country we used to be.

[SHRED]

9. BAM!

[KharmaTrain]

11. Moving 30 Plus Million Uninsured Or Under Insured...

A lot of the talk now is just that...talk. Some are trial balloons launched by politicians to see what type of support they get, others are diversions to avoid drawing attention to parts of the bills that could be controverial and hurt passage and still others are fearmongering by those who don't like what they're seeing or trying to push an agenda.

At a recent townhall someone asked our rep (who has come out in favor of PO) how long it would take for her to get insurance and we were told that there will be a priority to get those who are currently not covered into a transitional program...possibly tied to the existing Medicare program and then transitioned into a new system...if that's how the final bill is structured. Also, there has to be some consideration taken for those who will drop their current plans (or employers who will dump their plans) and join the government system. We could be talking a lot more people than currently estimated.

Also there's that little funding problem...a new agency or drastic overhaul of the current Medicare system will require hiring lots of people to run the system and that will take time as well. The projections to 2013 take into account how difficult this shift will be and an attempt to spread the costs out over several years vs. putting up one big number that the rushpublicans and corporate media will use to beat the Democrats with...as well as giving the blue dogs a weapon to scuttle things.

Right now no one knows...and this opens the door to lots of conjecture. We should get a clearer picture as these bills are merged, moved to the first passage in both Houses then onto the final reconciliation.

[Fumesucker]

14. Will starting a public option be more or less difficult than..

Totally defeating the Wehrmacht, the Kriegsmarine, the Luftwaffe, the Waffen SS, the Imperial Japanese Army, the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Imperial Japanese Air Force as well as random Italian and other forces?

If less difficult then it should take substantially less than four years.

As the TARP program showed, the government can move at superluminal velocities when it really, really wants to.

TARP; proposed on Sept 19, 2008, enacted Oct 3, 2008.

But of course *that* was about saving the big wheels from the results of their own hubris, not Americans from death and disease.

[KharmaTrain]

16. Apples & Oranges...

While healthcare is vital to the nation's welfare and why reform is so needed, trying to equte it to a war or other past actions is irrelevant. The biggest enemy a PO right now has is a huge price tag...ammo for opponents to scare people and specifically congresscritters from any vote for a public system. Personally, I would prefer to scale back the military, raise taxes on those earning more than $200g a year and putting windfall profit taxes on "too big to fail" corporates, but I'm not the one deciding how this is paid for.

[Bluenorthwest]

19. We went to the Moon in less than a decade

and that was also costly. While doing that, we created Medicare, ended the Viet Nam war, passed the civil rights act and so on and so on. Of course when I say 'we' I mean our elders. Our current set could not do any of those things. They can not even put criminals on trial, can not even call a crook a crook. Too busy 'looking forward' to the long years of Insurance Company pillage that they are going to allow.
What we are seeing is a Government that does not represent us, but serves the Industry. We are your apples, they are your oranges.

[KharmaTrain]

20. Very Well Put

I'm just trying to observe the game...not attempting to justify the actions of others. I have my list of ponies that I'd love this administration to do...I'd like to see virtually every "decision-maker" of the past regime frog-marched into courts to face up to all their abuses of the law. However, our government and body politic have been so bloated its become not only conflicted but also ineffective.

I think there's a more systemic problem here...representatives have too many people to keep happy. In our non-stop campaign world, money had become bigger than ever and any attempt at real electoral reform is shot down in court...the monster just gets bigger. But that's a discussion for another time.

[jtrockville]

13. They chose to make it complicated.

Cutting out the middle-man is the most simple, straightforward way to solve our health care problems. But that would piss off an industry, and since our government seems to be of, by, and for industry (not people) we certainly can't consider any such solution.

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. This is a huge issue.

They have 3.5 years to gin up the fear machine of the "keep government out of my medicare" crowd.

Recommended, and its back to 0 now. :eyes:

[SHRED]

7. A huge issue that...

...for some reason gets negative votes here.

WTF?
:shrug:

Why shouldn't we all be vigilant about this and furthermore why would anyone at the DU vote this thread down?


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[QC]

5. How very, very hopeful and changealicious! n/t

[fasttense]

10. A 3 year delay is political suicide for the Democratic majority and they don't even see it.

They think that by delaying it, it will make the opposition less verbose. It only allows the opposition to conduct a 3 year campaign against it. If after all this fighting, squabbling, and threats to Americans, there is no immediate change, the Democratic party is going to be in big trouble come the next 2 elections.

I swear, the Republicons would have had this bill passed (if they backed it) already if they had had a majority the size the Democrats have now.

[QC]

12. As Molly Ivins used to say, "Too many years, too many limousines."

They have spent so long in the more exclusive circles of D.C. that they have no idea what life is like for the other 99.999999999999999% of us.

[tomm2thumbs]

17. +1

[QC]

18. I miss Molly. A real progressive. Not like these weak-coffee "centrists"

who are the in thing right now.

[1]

15. pfffttt... if in 2004 someone would have told you you could have this wonderous thing?

you wouldn't be happy?

oh come on!

you wouldn't be happy?