Minn. delegates among Dems backing long-odds bid for public option
Friday, July 30, 2010 at 6:00 am
- 9 Comments
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) is leading the charge for a new public option health plan. Photo: Santa Rosa Press Democrat/ZUMApress.com
Four months after President Barack Obama enacted the Affordable Care And Patient Protection Act, House Democrats have revived a top liberal priority that was eliminated from the sweeping health care law in the latter stages of a grueling year-long debate: the public option. And among the 128 cosponsors of H.R. 5808 are Minnesota Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum and James Oberstar.
Armed with a new line of attack aimed at soothing deficit fears, Democratic Reps. Lynn Woolsey (Calif.), Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) and Pete Stark (Calif.) last Thursday unveiled a bill that would offer consumers the choice of a “robust” government-run insurance plan alongside the private plans in the law’s exchanges. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill, which has gained 128 co-sponsors, will reduce the federal deficit by $68 billion between 2014 and 2020.
“As the deficit continues to grow, so does the need for a program that can save billions of dollars and improve health care while doing it,” Woolsey, the co-chair of the progressive caucus, said. “We are introducing the public option now so it will be available as a ready-made offset or deficit reducer in this or the next Congress.”
Schakowsky argues that the lower overhead costs of government plans such as Medicare would allow the public option to create a better deal for consumers. “We could offer that kind of plan at a lower cost, and it would compete with private insurance companies, who would have to be more efficient and lower their costs,” she said. “It would follow the same rules as private insurers.”
The measure is unlikely to reach the floor this year, and could face even steeper odds next Congress. If nothing else, it appears part of a concerted effort by Democrats to galvanize disenchanted progressives and attack Republicans ahead of the tough November midterm elections.
“You’re the deficit hawks,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), referring primarily to Republicans, “and we’re giving you a tool to be able to deal with the deficit.” Grijalva labeled deficit-minded lawmakers who refuse to consider the public option “hypocrites,” alleging that “the excuse that it was going to be too expensive is phony.”
For Democrats in election mode, catering to liberal wishes could help bridge the wide enthusiasm gap among voters — a key predictor of midterm victories, where the main objective is to turn out the party base. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that 72 percent of Republicans were “certain” they would vote in November, compared to only 49 percent of Democrats.
“I do think this turnout issue is really going to be the crucial indicator, and the election hangs in the balance on how many of those less-committed Democrats actually turn out again,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.
“That is a very real issue that we’re focused on,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, admitted to Reuters. Apart from the public option bill, the White House on Monday strongly hinted it will choose liberal favorite Elizabeth Warren to lead the consumer protection agency. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats forced a cloture vote on the DISCLOSE Act, also a progressive priority, despite widespread expectations that it wouldn’t pass.
Republicans, who have depicted the public plan as a slippery slope to a national single payer system, derided the attempt to revive it and dismissed the CBO report. “House Democrats still don’t get it,” National Republican Campaign Committee spokesman Paul Lindsay told TWI. “As if it wasn’t enough to vote for their party’s overreaching health care takeover that was soundly rejected by Americans, they now have the audacity to propose a government option which would put health care in the hands of bureaucrats and further bankrupt our nation.”
The CBO estimates that the public plan’s premiums would be, on average, 5 to 7 percent lower than the private plans in the exchanges. Providers would be paid Medicare rates plus 5 percent, a figure that would rise alongside physicians’ costs.
“Although skepticism about big government is growing, the CBO estimate gives [Democrats] an important selling point at a time of rising concern about deficits,” said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College.
Popular among the populace but highly controversial in Congress, the public plan has the political disadvantage of facing fierce opposition from insurance companies, which fear competition from the government. And progressives shouldn’t hold their breath for a vote. “It’s unlikely it’ll be taken up this session,” a House Democratic aide conceded, saying only that it’s “quite possible” next Congress. But is it?
“For the progressives, it’s now or never,” Pitney argues. “They know that Republicans will make big gains in 2010, probably winning the House and maybe even the Senate. The numbers favor further GOP Senate gains in 2012.”
Despite the historic accomplishment, liberals cannot help but look back on the vexing health care debate with wistfulness, if not bitterness. Even though the bill covers 30 million Americans, liberals felt short-changed by its lack of a public insurance program. While the House passed a version of a public option in its November legislation, it was removed from the Senate version due to a lack of votes, and subsequently pronounced dead. (For a few liberal activists, this was the final straw that made the legislation no longer worth passing.) One day later, a CBS poll found that six in ten Americans favored the opportunity to choose between private insurance plans and a government plan. Surveys have consistently found that a large majority of the American public support the idea.
At the time, President Obama, soothing concerns of House progressives unsure whether to back a bill without it, reportedly assured them in private that it was merely a first step and he’d be willing to return to the public option later.
But major domestic initiatives are more likely to occur early in presidential terms, Pitney noted, arguing that the measure’s chances of success during this Congress are slim – but not nil. “It’s a Hail Mary pass, to be sure,” Pitney said. “But Hail Mary passes sometimes work. And Speaker Pelosi likes the Hail Mary. And if they fail to make the effort now, they will regret it in the future. Better a Hail Mary in 2010 than an Act of Contrition in 2011.”
9 Comments
Comment posted July 30, 2010 @ 8:43 am
I’d love to believe this could happen but I’m not going to bet on it. As long as we have the number of ignorami right wingers in Congress, like Bachmann, confusing the public with lies and propaganda, this is going to be much too hard. There are at least three lies in the right wing spokesman’s comment,
“As if it wasn’t enough to vote for their party’s overreaching health care takeover that was soundly rejected by Americans, they now have the audacity to propose a government option which would put health care in the hands of bureaucrats and further bankrupt our nation.”
1) “overreaching health care takeover”: the government has not “taken over” the hospitals, doctors, nurses and medical technicians. A lot of hospitals are government supported anyway: anybody hear of “Hennepin County Medical Center”. Hint, it’s a government owned hospital.
The health insurance thieves all stay “privately owned” so they can be assured the tolls extracted from the public will continue to support lavish lifestyles of the CEOs.
2) “Soundly rejected by Americans”: there were “a few Americans” who “soundly rejected” any reform of health care. Many of these few Americans who loudly protest health care reform as an encroachment on their freedom (???) are already receiving government health care through VA and Medicare. Most Americans would welcome a public option and I believe a single payer system.
3) “put health care in the hands of bureaucrats”. As if health insurance is not completely run by bureaucrats now. They just work for monopolistic health insurance companies.
4) “further bankrupt our nation”. And just why is our nation bankrupt? you ask. How about 8 years of Bush and 6 years of Republican mismanagement? The Republicans policies have failed and they have no solutions except to say no to trying something new. The public option will help get our nation out of bankruptcy and moving forward again.
The first step is a public option. The Democrats should remind the public of the successful “public power” movement in the 1930′s and 1940′s which brought electricity to millions of Americans for the first time through cooperatives and municipally owned utilities and the TVA. These were all decried by Republicans as “socialistic” at the time but they worked. Worked extremely well.
Comment posted July 30, 2010 @ 10:17 am
“As the deficit continues to grow, so does the need for a program that can save billions of dollars and improve health care while doing it,” Woolsey, the co-chair of the progressive caucus, said. “We are introducing the public option now so it will be available as a ready-made offset or deficit reducer in this or the next Congress.”
Government programs are so well known for decreasing the deficit… ahahahahaha
Comment posted July 31, 2010 @ 5:35 pm
Do you know that Britan, France, Canada, Germany is going out from universal health care. Read international press not only minnesotaindependent.com.
Comment posted July 31, 2010 @ 6:50 pm
Mydress, what a fount of information you are – NOT! If you have a point to make, kindly tell us – don’t make us “look it up” because we won’t. Why? If we do look it up, we’ll arrive at our own conclusions, and thus never realize the benefit of your insights.
I am glad that the public option is still being pursued. I do feel that single-payer universal health care (Medicare for All financed perhaps by a national sales tax) properly run is in everyone’s best interests in the long run – and will be prove a boon to our economy as well as address ongoing budget problems with government healthcare programs including Medicare, Medicaid, various programs for the poor and specialized populations including veterans since everyone will have access to healthcare anytime anywhere in the United States.
Comment posted July 31, 2010 @ 9:32 pm
Socialized medicine. I’m running against it and will debate Betty McCollum at the earliest possible time.
Comment posted July 31, 2010 @ 11:17 pm
You can find:
The New York Times, July 25, 2010 “Britain to decentralize health care”
…”what would be the most radical reorganization of the National Health Service since its inception in 1948.But its aim is clear: to shift control of England’s $160 billion annual health budget from a centralized bureaucracy to doctors at the local level. Under the plan, $100 billion to $125 billion a year would be meted out to general practitioners, who would use the money to buy services from hospitals and other healthcare providers.”
Comment posted August 1, 2010 @ 10:47 am
The US “health care” (read “partial for-profit health insurance”) is a disaster and a national disgrace. And, things are getting worse. This situation is yet another failure of “free market forces” to provide us with even a reasonable solution, let alone and optimal one.
Current for-profit companies make huge, I mean HUGE, profits. So, for much less cost to the public, a public option could meet people’s needs without affecting the budget deficit at all. (We could also pay for a public option by slightly lowering our defense expenditures.) Let’s use our thinking caps: If the health insurance companies can make huge profits, the government can break even. What smoke the opposition generates!
All the socialized medicine talk is a old scare that keeps the for-profit health insurance companies rich beyond avarice. Who the …. cares if you label something socialist? We need health care. Why in the world do we let a very few people make huge profits from people’s health problems, when there is no benefit to us to do so? Americans do not have the world greatest health care (check the statistics) unless they are rich enough to buy it. Most Americans want a public option. This situation shows American at its worst. A small, but rich, special interest group control both the government AND public debate.
Comment posted August 1, 2010 @ 11:06 am
Socialized medicine? We are already there with public spending currently accounting for between 45% and 56.1% of U.S. health care spending.
Hmmm. Reorganizing the National Health Service in the United Kingdom is not the same as shutting down NHS. We are fortunate that there are many countries out there with universal health care that we can learn from as we slowly move towards “Medicare for All.”
Comment posted August 1, 2010 @ 3:46 pm
Mydress, the article you refer to hardly supports your previous comment that Britain, Germany and other nations are leaving what you describe as “universal health care.” Britain has what we might call “single payer health care system.” My understanding is that these other countries also have this. Decentralization to allow doctors to make administrative decisions for their patients who continue to receive what health care they need without having to shop for and buy overpriced “health insurance” is not a major substantive change.
Steve Carlson: I suppose you are running against “socialized medicine” because you are against “socialism.” Good for you. Does that mean you want to repeal Medicare or the VA? What part of the recently adopted health care legislation is “socialistic”? I’d like to know because I haven’t heard that I can stop paying my $370/month health insurance premiums any time soon.
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