WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama started his health care push by reaching out to all sides. Now it's stuck in a partisan mess over his idea of a government insurance plan that would compete with private companies.
The idea got little attention when Obama proposed it as a candidate. Now, however, it's jeopardizing his effort to win broad political support for changes that would guarantee coverage for all and try to rein in medical costs.
Supporters of a government plan say it would pressure private insurers to keep premiums reasonable. But experts say Obama may not need a full-blown federal program to achieve that.For example, nonprofit cooperatives -- independent of the government -- could be set up to offer affordable coverage.
Or maybe a government plan could be used only as a last resort, entering a state or local market if private insurers fail to keep coverage affordable.''There are lots of ways to fulfill those functions,'' said economist Len Nichols of the nonpartisan New America Foundation. Nichols, who directs the foundation's health care program, is working with lawmakers trying to find a compromise on the contentious issue.
''There are ways to finesse this,'' said Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute public policy center. ''One way is to design the authority for a public plan and lock it up in a closet. If the private sector fails to bend the cost curve, then we unlock the closet and let the public plan out.''
That would also be known as the fall back option. the idea is that if private insurers fail to meet certain goals the program would be unleashed as another alternative. Normally the plan was designed to cover people without insurance but a new talking point will be that it force private insurers to cut costs. To a level that's true, until they go bankrupt as they face competition from the federal government. As for Obama he has left the lands of reality in regards to health care and offers nothing but talking points and disingenuous economic arguments. So here we are with Pelosi, Kennedy, Tom Harkin and the base of the Democratic party demanding a public plan, and on the other side Democrats calling for a modest expansion along with GOP support. As of now the only likely development will be the mandating of health care coverage, but as of now no details about what penalties will exist for those who can afford it but refuse.
Lieberman in Opposition to Plan:
VIA HA:
Joe Lieberman has had plenty of experience in enraging his fellow Democrats by maintaining an independent if still liberal viewpoint on policies from national security to war. Harry Reid will have yet another headache after Lieberman’s interview with Bloomberg, in which he firmly opposed the public plan in ObamaCare, which Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama have pushed hard. Lieberman says he sees no need for government to enter into this market, as The Hill reports:
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said this weekend that he opposes a public option plan for consumers in a healthcare reform plan to emerge from the Senate.
“I don’t favor a public option,” Lieberman told Bloomberg News in an interview broadcast this weekend. And I don’t favor a public option because I think there’s plenty of competition in the private insurance market.” …
“We have a unique opportunity, a real opportunity to do this year what we’ve been trying to do for years, which is to reform American healthcare,” Lieberman said. “I think the one thing that will stop that is pressure on the so-called public option.”
Other Democrats in the Senate, mostly from the red states, have also retreated from the public plan. Mary Landrieu (LA) and Ben Nelson (NE) have not quite announced opposition to it, but have sounded skeptical notes. Even if Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins join the Democrats, it would not take more than the three Democrats to uphold a filibuster on the entire bill, and we have yet to hear an explicit stand from other red-state Democrats such as Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor (AR), as well as Max Baucus and Jon Tester (MT).
I go to the doc about twice a decade, and haven't paid great attention to my insurance, or the industry as a whole. SO I have an honest question to anybody who may know:
ReplyDeleteAre health insurance companies wildly profitable, barely profitable, or getting slaughtered like AIG?
Is there enough wiggle room for them to lower premiums a significant amount, and yet remain solvent?
Seems to me that there are a lot of players in the industry, and individuals and HR departments are always shopping for the best deal. This would tell me that profits are probably rather slim already, but can anyone confirm?