The public option is not dead. But it's certainly reeling from blows landed today by the Senate Finance Committee.
The 23-member Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), rejected two Democratic amendments to incorporate a Medicare-like public plan option as part of healthcare reform legislation. The first amendment failed by a vote of 15 to 8; the second failed by 13 to 10, with Democrats Baucus, Kent Conrad (D-ND), and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) voting with Republicans.
But that was anticipated. Given the closed-minded blather by Baucus and Conrad in recent months, no one expected their committee legislation to include even a modicum of government-funded health care.
As I explained on September 9, 2009, the whole point is to get any healthcare legislation out of the Finance Committee because the Senate can't move forward without something, no matter how awful. I reiterate:
"The Senate will pass a confusing plan that melds some surprisingly good ideas from Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) with Democratic proposals, and includes a few suggestions from the horrifying, contributions-tainted mess led by Finance Committee Chair Sen. Max Baucus..."Most likely, the Senate version will pass via the 'reconciliation' process which requires only 51 votes, but will include only a few votes cast by Republican and centrist Democratic senators."
Given President Obama's political timidity and recent proclivity for dithering, I'm no longer positive that the final healthcare legislative package will include a Medicare-like public plan option. But that might be OK. Hear me out...
The purpose of a Medicare-like public plan option offered alongside a myriad of private insurance options is to inject price competition into the market. The purpose, in essence, is to cause the exorbitant cost of all healthcare insurance to decline markedly.
Frankly, I'm OK if a public option isn't the specific vehicle incorporated into the legislative package... as long as SOME vehicle accomplishes the essential goal of significantly reducing healthcare coverage costs.
Healthcare legislation without a mechanism to spike spiraling healthcare coverage costs amounts to a juicy, multi-billion dollar bonus to reward private healthcare insurers for their deception, thievery, and abject immorality.
To paraphrase wry comedian Bill Maher, no other country in the world permits corporations to "make a buck on breast cancer" or any other form of human suffering.
This immorality must be stopped... although so-called centrist Democratic senators apparently can't be relied on to place dire morality over the almighty dollar placed in their own pockets by lobbyists.
- Essential Reading
- Small-State U.S. Senators on the Take Eviscerate Health Care
- The Baucus Bill: the Good Enough, the Bad, the Ugly
- President Obama's Health Insurance Reform Plan
(Photo of the Senate Finance Committee in session on September 22, 2009: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Comments
I’m a Republican. I’ve never liked Baucus. No opinion on Lincoln or Conrad before.
But I gotta say the three have just won my great respect. The GOP candidate against Lincoln is now going to have a much tougher case to make in Arkansas for 2010.
Ms. Lincoln (along her two colleagues) may have just saved the Republic from a total Fascist/Socialist take over. My hats off to the three Liberty Lovers. Thank you!
If Kent Conrad believes all the farmers and minimum wage workers in North Dakota deserve to be without health insurance than perhaps he should switch parties.
My hope is that the good people of North Dakota realize he owes his soul to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Dakota
Rhonda
Eric, providing decent health care to people is not fascism, its humane. Allowing corporations run the government for their profit, like you support, is fascism. You and fools like you are what make fascism possible.
I’m a registered republican and I thnk health care should be reformed. I believe instead of throwing trillions of dollars at the problem and trying to start from scratch we should be working on bettering our current system. I have been in positions where I did not have health insurance and it has never put to the point of going broke. Mind you that i am single and only make 40k a year now with health insurance. If any ne has ever been to a county hospital with no insurance then you know the nightmare I am talking about. The people on Medicare have to sit and wait and don’t get very timely services even if they happen to be gun shot victims. Imagine now that everyone was on the same system, how will this program magicaly change the insane abuse that is taking place in our public hospitals? The same people will be working there, the waiting time will be longer and the employees/doctors and nurses will not have to answer to any faults. Let’s fix our current issues before jumping into a whole other issue.