Should We Even Bother with Health Care Legislation if There Is No Government Option?
A BUZZFLASH DISCUSSION
by Chad Rubel
President Obama says we will get health care legislation by the end of the year. He keeps saying it. The president said it again this morning to Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America."
"We're gonna get it done. So, I won't engage in hypotheticals in which we don't. And the reason it's gonna get done is because the American people understand it has to get done. ... Every town I visit, every city I go, people ask me, ... ‘Why is it that my premiums have gone up-- two, three times in the last nine, 10 years?' ... I'm confident that if everybody puts their minds to it, we can get it done."
Obama was talking with Sawyer as part of the daylong ABC visit to the White House. The trip commences tonight with a special on health care from the White House at 10 p.m. EDT with more coverage on "Nightline."
Normally, progressives would be enthused over the prospect of health care legislation/reform. But the idea of legislation that is crummy might indeed be a worse prospect than the status quo, as horrible as that is to imagine.
And a health care legislation bill without a government option is not something to seriously consider, no matter how much of a "compromise" it might be to some.
Would you protest such a bill if it didn't require at least a government public option? Hopefully, the process won't come to that point. But naivete can't rule the day. Those who want true health care reform have to prepare for that possibility.
This prime-time broadcast, and subsequent late-night coverage, should be an important time to give national attention to a more progressive solution. But there is legitimate fear that single-payer or even a public option will get short shrift. After all, Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer are at the controls.
Attendees for the discussion will be hand-picked by ABC News. ABC News Senior Vice President Kerry Smith says "ABC News alone will select those who will be in the audience asking questions of the president."
While ABC's attempts are bold by U.S. network standards, quite frankly, health care is so important that three hours of prime time on a summer evening by all the major networks (and FOX) would be a tiny price to pay.
President Obama spoke passionately at yesterday's press conference of the stories he has heard along the trail of horrible health care disasters. Stories that would be solved by single-payer no matter the dislike he seems to have for that solution. These are the same stories that would be helped by a public option.
But we haven't seen a lot of political capital being spent by the 44th president, no bold steps being taken. Health care reform requires boldness not seen on the political landscape since the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
If Congress can't stand up to the insurance companies and other monsters in the way, and Obama won't spend the political capital to veto a bill without at least a public option, what should be the reaction from progressives? If Congress passes a bill without a public option, and Obama seems ready to sign it, what should progressives do?
Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
A BUZZFLASH DISCUSSION
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Public Option for Health Care
Welcome Faux News
Moth balls?
Astroturf
Health Care
Health Care
"The public is behind" - BS
I call your Obamabot BS
Don't have time for details
Don't have time for details due to spending 3 hours to find my driver's license this evening! So I'll just summarize:
Single Payer: The only reasonable policy. It's so obvious that it hits you over the head while announcing that it's the only solution.
Mandate + Public Option: very right wing policy, and a very regressive tax, and yes, those two descriptives do commonly go together.
Mandate + No Public Option: So far to the right and so extremely regressive a tax that it is partial slavery for all practical purposes. People in general, and especially lower income people, will be slaves to the private health insurance companies.
Dont think Single Payer isnt
It's not so much that the
It's not so much that the "public option" health care delivery option is right wing. It's that the forcing people to pay for it as a separate tax, instead of via general revenues, that is right wing. If you don't know what a regressive tax is, I don't have the time to teach you.
If this passes and lower income people start paying large health insurance bills, a good chunk of them are going to end up homeless at one time or another, which will be devastating to their health.
Also though, there is no doubt that any public option will fail. Any insurance exec with half a brain can tell you that. The great majority of the high cost patients will end up in the public option, while the relatively inexpensive ones will be clients of the private insurance companies. One of many examples of this is Massachusetts.
We have to get it done!
Was it a dream or was it real?
"....what should progressives do?"
Or, anyone?
I think we will get a new health insurance law from Congress and the President that does NOT provide for a single payer or even a viable "public option". We may also get new regressive taxes, a mandatory enrollment requirement for working stiffs with exceptions for the special people, and in the end less care for more dollars.
The industry will get a guaranteed cash flow, guarnateed profits and more excuses to gold plate executive pay packages.
If that occurs, Obama has one and only one option:
VETO!
Then try again.
If, at the end of four years, WE do not have a viable health CARE bill, I am afraid it is proof we no longer have a democracy either. Just a corporate beast that must be appeased at any cost.
I don't know what progressives are going to do, but for me I will give up on America, forever. The dream was only that. A dream.
Do you honestly believe ...
Obama's a huge disappointment ...
We must have health care reform this year,
government option
Phil in Vermont.Well,we've
what should Progressives do?
No mandate without a public
No Single Payer, No "Reform"
You Get What You'll Settle For
Whatever happened to ......
*but we won't
....... oh.
Never mind.
Does this not smack of the Presidential Debates?
Why does ABC News and corporate America get to drive the healthc
SINGLE PAYER
Those are merely claims, not
Check your facts
Also, an MA style mandate
You omitted mention of the
You're making a fool of yourself
The Only Hope For Us
government option
no, it will just end up enhancing profits of the private insurers and big pharma
the government option is the only thing that can show that the private healthcare industry ADDS billions of dollars to the cost of healthcare
People really want a National Health Care Plan