Sebelius: Public insurance option not essential

Sebelius: Public insurance option not essential

www.miamiherald.com

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's health secretary is suggesting the White House is ready to accept nonprofit insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run public option in a health overhaul plan. A Republican senator says that is worth looking at.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says Obama still believes there should be choice and competition" in the health insurance market - but that a public option is "not the essential element."

(visit the link for the full news article)

Well, this is very interesting. It seems Obama is sliding on his demands for a public option for health care.

BUT....the alternative is a non-profit insurance co-op.

Since the gov't has no real competition, being non-profit themselves, is this really a change? Non-profit co-ops will have to be subsidized, which brings us back to square zero. We the people will end up footing the bill, same as with the public option.

At leats that's my interpretation of it. All they are really doing is removing the odious "public option (read: gov't option) wording from their proposal. It's actually the same thing, imo.

www.miamiherald.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Shelby is a vocal opponent of the health care overhaul proposed by President Barack Obama. Shelby says he sees insurance co-ops as "a step away from the government take over of the health care system."

It's just more of the same. Simply appeasement to get Republicans on their side.

Who will run this 'non-profit private plan'? I'm guessing it will be people hand-picked by the administration. It will be heavily subsidized by the government, in all likelihood. Is it really any different than the supposed "government take-over"?

If you know my post history you know that I am for a single-payer system. While I certainly think health care reform (indeed a total overhaul) is long overdue in this country, it should not come in the form of a bill that is rushed, and pushed through in only a few months' time.

It took around 7 years for England to properly implement it's NHS, and while that is quite a length of time, they got it right. They did studies, research, debated it, and slowly but surely established it. While I believe in this day and age we can accomplish the same thing in a shorter period of time, the rate at which this bill is moving is too fast for my tastes. We could do a lot better.

Well this sucks, I was hoping for this bill to drive these thieving bastards out of business. Or perhaps force them to become non-profit entities, if this is true I wonder what "sweeping" changes will be made.

One interesting thing I learned is that not a single republican voted for Social Security and not a single republican voted for Medicare, what do republicans hate America?

reply to post by drwizardphd


You are very astute in your observations.

This will remove the dirty words of "gov't option" from the bill, and in doing so, will bring Blue Dog Democrats as well as Republicans back to the table.

But there is actually no change. The WH will choose the lucky 'non-profits', and it will operate under the same model of the original 'public option'.

And the American public will still be left footing the bill for it.

It's so transparent. Maybe this was the transparency Obama was talking about during the campaign?

Wasn't the public option the whole point of public health care? So we're about to get a legislated political mess of a bill that won't help anyone? We're going to keep the health industrial complex the way it is. And we will continue to have the same corrupt bull# system we have now. Good job Republicans, you just raped several million people out of health care. What's also exciting is I found out my health insurance is jacking up my rates 17% next year. God I love this country and it's intelligent citizens.

reply to post by CuriousSkeptic


Now, don't get your britches in a twist! It's still going to happen. The White House is just going to CALL it something different . . . hoping that we (The People) believe it is something different.

Don't be the least surprised if the new bill proposed is a 'copy-paste' of the current one . . . with a few alterations to make it APPEAR different.

Just found this article:

source

Gibbs: White House still supports public option

Speaking to CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs emphasized that President Barack Obama still supports having a “public option” for health care, which the White House believes will introduce additional competition and lower prices in the insurance market.

The statement runs contrary to claims by other officials and reports circulating other media on Sunday.

Heath and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, speaking to CNN’s John King on Sunday, said the public option is not “essential” and that consumer choice, market competition and reform of private health insurance regulations should be the focus of the debate.

Later Sunday, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) told Fox News anchor Chris Wallace that the U.S. Senate will not allow a public option, adding his belief that, “to continue to chase that rabbit is just a wasted effort.”

The comments led the Associated Press and right-wing news aggregator Matt Drudge to report the White House has given up on supporting a public option.

So, I don't really know what to believe and that's most likely their intent.


TA

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