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Public Option Must Be Part of Health Care Reform |
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If Senate and House members vote against including a public health insurance plan option in health care reform, they very well could lose the backing of working families and their unions in the next elections, says AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka.
Trumka issued the warning in an interview with Sam Stein of Huffington Post after recent news reports indicated a public option to allow working families to choose between a private plan or a public plan that offers quality care could be pulled from health care reform legislation. Trumka told Stein:
We’ll look at every one of their votes. If they’re against the Employee Free Choice Act, if they’re against health care for that reason, I think it’ll be tough for them to get support from working people.
He also said union members are mobilizing to show lawmakers, especially those who may be wavering, that there is strong and board support for a public plan option that would provide competition to the private, for-profit insurance industry and help bring down soaring costs.
We’re also going to keep politicians strong, so that they don’t listen to the moneymen and continue to erode away or negotiate away a program [so much that it] ultimately becomes useless. Right now, without a public option, [reform] becomes useless. It won’t change the current system.
Yesterday AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called a public health plan option “a crucial part ” of health care reform:
A quality public health insurance option is a crucial part of health care reform to keep private insurance companies honest, hold down costs and ensure that everybody has a health care choice available. Key to holding down costs for families, for businesses and for the federal budget is forcing insurance companies to compete. And the only way to force real competition on the insurance companies is a strong public plan option.
Meanwhile, a group of 60 House members who are strong backers of comprehensive health care reform have told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that without a public option, they will not vote for a health care bill. In a letter to Sebelius, the group said:
Americans deserve reform that is real—not smoke and mirrors. We cannot rely solely on the insurance companies’ good-faith efforts to provide for our constituents. A robust public option is essential, if we are to ensure that all Americans can receive health care that is accessible, guaranteed and of high quality.
To take the public option off the table would be a grave error; passage in the House of Representatives depends upon inclusion of it.
A public plan option is a cornerstone of the AFL-CIO’s health care reform principles.
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(Here is a socialist perspective from the WSWS on the “health care reform” debate.)
White House drops public health care option
By Kate Randall
18 August 2009
(Link to the full article:)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/heal-a18.shtml
The Obama administration has indicated that it will not insist on a “public option” as part of its overhaul of the US health care system. The move signals the abandonment of the only fig leaf of “reform” in the administration’s cost-cutting health care scheme. It represents a complete capitulation to the insurance industry, which lobbied intensively against any government-run insurance plan.”
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The dropping of the public option only underscores the fact that the terms of the health care overhaul are being dictated by the insurance industry, the big hospital chains and the pharmaceutical companies. Obama himself in earlier statements and press conferences declared that a public insurance option was essential to rein in the insurance companies and prevent them from gouging the public.
He now stands condemned by his own words of aiding and abetting a corporate scheme to boost the profits of the health care industry—and slash labor costs for the rest of big business–by forcing working people to purchase bare-bones private insurance at inflated prices.
On the question of health care, as in every other aspect of public policy, the major financial and corporate interests exercise veto power.”
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In the name of cost-cutting “efficiencies,” Obama has also proposed slashing $600 billion from the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
During the presidential campaign, Obama opposed the so-called “individual mandate,” under which every individual is legally required to have health insurance. This reactionary approach puts the onus on the consumer, rather than the health care companies, imposing fines on people who are not insured under an employer-provided plan and fail to purchase private insurance.
The scrapping of the public option is one more indication of the reactionary character of the entire health care overhaul. The provision of quality health care as a basic human right is incompatible with a system based on corporate profit and administered by a political establishment beholden to a financial oligarchy.
The manifest failure of the present health care system in the US—which leaves some 50 million people (one sixth of the population) without any form of insurance—is precisely due to the subordination of health care to private profit.
The fight for a health care system that corresponds to the needs of the population requires a political struggle against the capitalist profit system and the two parties of big business that defend it. Socialist medicine—based on the nationalization of the hospital chains, pharmaceutical companies and insurance giants and their transformation into utilities democratically controlled by the working class—is the only basis for providing high quality health care for all.”
Here’s a rednecks perpective on Our politicans as a whole.They do not care what we think so long as some big business,big insurance,big healthcare provides the funds to run for another term.The sad part is the American voter never learns we will send the same people back to Washington.We can’t even get 50% of the population to go to the polls and vote.What we seem to do best is sit on our butts and complain about the screwing we’re getting after we didn’t do our part to prevent it.Working people have no friends in the Congress,the same people have been lying to me and everyone else in my state since I started voting in 1970 we keep sending them back time after time after time.If we don’t get away from my party knows best politics soon we will have no country.
Competition is a key element of capitalism, otherwise, the insurance companies have a cartel to charge whatever the public will bear. John Kenneth Galbreath said, “The only respectable socialism in America is socialism for the rich”. Let’s help those who need it not overfill the already cup that is overflowing. Geepaw
Instead of a government run health plan, how about a union one? Is it against any laws that unoins form their own health insurance plan? One that is run by its members? What about all of the unions joining in to form one large plan? Imagine affordable health care supported by our own brothers and sisters? Imagine the savings for both us and our employers? Imagine the selling point for getting more union members at other non-union places? It might even entice the employers not to fight so hard to keep the unions out if they know that they might even save money on health insurance costs if they allow their employees to unionize. Imagine the pressure we would put on the large insurance companies to match our coverage and rates, or face a huge reduction in subscribers and revenue? They would either meet it or possibly go under, for what is an insurance company but a bunch of people putting their money in one large pot so all can have “affordable coverage”, haha. We could have the best affordable coverage in the world and also maybe have a trickle down effect for those who aren’t member’s, thus making it more affordable for all. We could also make it available or include those who are retired as part of their benefits when they retire, and maybe cover those who have been laid off, or become disabled on or off the job.
I am so disappointed in President Obama for backing down on the public option. Without this option, there wont be any real reform. Co-op is just another name for private insurance. They may pass a bill that says the insurance companies cant disqualify you for pre-existing conditions, but how much will these people get charged based on that information. Most of those people still will not be able to get insurance and I thought the purpose of reform was to be able to get more affordable care. I am not in a union, but I wholeheartedly agree with your stance. I will not vote for Obama again if he does not keep the public option in the bill.
For the AFL-CIO, there is nowhere to go but down on the health care reform issue. If the Federation had supported single payer from the start, it would now be in a better position to compromise and accept the public option. As usual, the AFL-CIO leadership began from a weakened position and can now only offer empty threats. Single payer is simple. People understand it. Now, union members are confused and the AFL-CIO is partly to blame.
Bottom Line: I work for a publicly funded University and NO private University need fear closing. MIT has to turn prospective students away all of the time despite the exisitence of places like the University of Hawaii which is primarliy funded by tax dollars.
Public Health Care ought to have the same opportunity. What it will mean to the private health funds though is that they will have to actively compete for clients and quit being so stubborn about compensating health care providers. They profit by saying no as often as possible about paying for medications and medical services. Just ask any doctor whose practice has to rely on begging private health insurers to cover their patients. Private insurers also make out by delaying payments for months at a time, which HMSA is infamous for, for example.
Source of information: Many talks with my health care providers who continually have to let workers go due to low compensation by insurers.
If insurance companies make a profit while doctors can’t live on the compensation, it’s clear that the problem lies with these middlemen. Public health insurance will help minimize these greedy middlemen. Health care should become a public utility no different than electricity, highways, telephone and even cable TV systems.
I found the House Bill (H.B. 3200) on the web, and read the public health care option provisions. This is an impressive bill. I was particularly interested in Sec. 224, which gives the Secretary the authority to experiment with delivery and payment alternatives. This is just what we need for sustained, long term reform. And it’s not going to drive private insurers out of business. With luck, it will provide examples that private insurers can use to improve health care delivery.
We need to pass this bill, and it needs to include the public option. After reading the bill, I conclude that those who are opposed to the public option haven’t read the bill. This is a good bill.
Mckitty,best Idea I’ve heard in a long time.