Public Option Defeated?

[IanKennedy]

Sometimes you have to force people to do the right thing, slavery, equal rights, voting for women, seat belts, labour laws. Those are all examples in which people fought tooth and nail (sometimes literally) to stop, yet turned out to be good for society.

And in all those examples you had people who were also campaigning not just for laws but a change in mentality. They didn't just legislate the problem, they tried to address the root causes and change people's minds. In this case I don't see any real attempt to change anyone's mind, just "f**k you, we'll ramrod this though with our majority by using a technicality of procedure."*

I'd also like to point out that legislating those issues didn't solve them. Yes, you forced some things down people's throats but racism, sexism, etc. are still prevalent and still problems. Making a law isn't going to change the way people think.

*Though at the moment they can't even get their own party sufficiently behind it to even do that.

Slavery did not go away because people changed the minds of others. Except, of cause, if you mean changed it from being alive to being dead.

[Tyyr]

Slavery did not go away because people changed the minds of others. Except, of cause, if you mean changed it from being alive to being dead.

Not entirely, and if you'd read a little farther down you'd have caught a similar conversation between me and Kendall.

[Tsukiyumi]

Slavery didn't go away; it just became more covert.

[Lazar]

Nancy Pelosi says that a bill without a public option won't pass the House:

"Any real change requires the inclusion of a strong public option to promote competition and bring down costs. If a vigorous public option is not included, it would be a major victory for the health insurance industry.

"President Obama has said that a public option will keep the insurance companies honest. If someone has a better idea for promoting competition and reducing health care costs, they should put it on the table. But for the past month, opponents of health insurance reform have demonstrated that they are afraid of the facts. They have only offered distortions, distractions and misrepresentations to try to kill this historic legislation.

"A bill without a strong public option will not pass the House. Eliminating the public option would be a major victory for the insurance companies who have rationed care, increased premiums and denied coverage."

[sunnyside]

To take a slightly different tack. Anyone care to guess on how things turn out?

My guess is that the Democrats ram a public option through without their full 60. Which has the advantage of insulating some of their membership.

Still, having made too little effort to convince the middle class and independent voters that this is a good idea and instead mostly just calling them heartless idiots, I think they'll take a hurting in the house and senate.

However the plan will be delayed in implementation long enough that it won't be causing problems or possibly even started at all when Obama is up for re-election, probably allowing him to stay in.

It isn't the apocoloypse. Well, at least not more than the already insane national debt threatens the country, which this doesn't help, but it can't shoulder all the blame. The biggest changes will be in what doesn't happen. Since you wouldn't know or miss advances that didn't happen this might not be too obvious. Probably the only way to track it will be the reduction in medical research performed as measured in dollars, which is occasionally calculated. In time wait times will go up, but I think this will take a long time as the hospitals already have the equipment, doctors aren't going to quit thier jobs to take up flipping burgers, and new life saving technology that might require wait times due to their scarcity simply won't be developed so often. So we should retain pretty good access to both, despite the number of machines and doctors not growing at the same rate as treatments requested.

Of course that stuff is hard to predict, but I'm curious what people think will happen.

[Tyyr]

Unless I've missed something they don't even have the votes to jam it through unless they convince a few more people in their own party.

I think this is getting to the point of being less a piece of legislation between the two parties and more prick waving contest trying to prove who's is bigger. In the end I think this is gonna hurt the Democrats. There are a lot of people out there who aren't sure about this. I don't mean the death committee screamers I mean rational, reasonable folks who are hearing all this and just not sure this is a good idea. If the Democrats try and bulldoze this through I think they could find their nice pat majority evaporating in the next election cycle.

[Monroe]

I finally got a response from my letter (little over a month after I sent it ) I basically asked her not to give up on the public option and to keep fighting for health reform.

September 16, 2009

Dear Mr. Monroe,

Thank you for contacting me regarding our health care system. I appreciate your comments and welcome the opportunity to respond.

There is no denying that our health care system is in dire need of reform. The soaring cost of medical care is crippling our economy, bankrupting our nation's families, and becoming an unsustainable financial burden for American employers. In the last eight years, health care premiums have grown four times faster than wages, and there are nearly 46 million uninsured Americans - the majority of whom are employed. It's tragic that in a country of great wealth like ours so many of our fellow Americans don't have access to care; and that the uninsured are suffering from avoidable illnesses and receiving expensive medical care too late, the cost of which gets passed onto the rest of us.

I am pleased to see my colleagues on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee and on the Finance Committee leading the health reform effort in the Senate. There are still many tough issues to resolve in the health care debate, including insurance coverage mandates, whether a public program will compete with private insurers, and how to pay for it. I welcomed the President's speech to Congress which outlined his view of how Congress should resolve the health care reform debate and offered room for compromise and pragmatism. While Congressional committees continue to craft various versions of health care reform bills, the highest priorities for Congress and health industry leaders remain protecting patient choice of care, curbing skyrocketing health costs, and expanding coverage for the uninsured.

Although I am hopeful that significant reform will be enacted by the end of this year, you should know that Congress has already passed several measures that have improved access to care for children and struggling families. In January, I voted for Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (H.R. 2), which will provide 4.1 million additional low-income children with quality health care coverage. I was also pleased that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), enacted in February, included extended unemployment health benefits coverage as well as funds for cost saving health care initiatives like health information technology.

Although there is not a final version of the health reform bill in the Senate or House, I understand that there has been a lot of confusion and misinformation, and, yes, some fear and anger, as well, surrounding certain proposals for reform. You may be interested to know the Special Committee on Aging, of which I am a member, has prepared a document entitled "Health Care Reform, Fact vs. Fiction". I would encourage you to visit the website http://www.aging.senate.gov/issues/heal ... iction.pdf to gather factual information regarding some of these rumors. If you are interested in reading the House and Senate bills, you can find the most updated versions of the legislation by visiting www.help.senate.gov and www.energycommerce.house.gov.

Addressing our nation's health care crisis will be no small feat for Congress; but it will only get worse the longer we ignore it. Our nation's long term financial health requires a balance between family coverage needs and viable financing from businesses and the government. The current tenuous situation necessitates action on healthcare reform now. I look forward to working with my colleagues in a bipartisan fashion to find a fiscally responsible solution for the health of Americans and our nation's economy, and I am hopeful that we will have significant reform enacted by the end of this year.

Sincerely,

Claire McCaskill
United States Senator



P.S. If you would like more information about resources that can help Missourians, or what I am doing in the Senate on your behalf, please sign up for my email newsletter at www.mccaskill.senate.gov.

Looks very automatic of a response so I wonder why it took them about a month and a half to respond. Maybe someone read my letter? I can only hope.

[Aaron]

Nice form letter.

Sunnyside, I expect the Dems to fold completely and for frag all to change. At the most...perhaps what amounts to a handout for the insurance industry.

[sunnyside]

I figure somebody must at least look at the letters otherwise they wouldn't know when they get death threats and the like.

Though I'm guessing it's secretaries and the like reading them. But they hopefully at least pass on agregate information to the representatives. So I'd guess at the least you'd be one more tick in the "wants a public option" column.