The health care reform "deals" being struck with conservatives in the House and Senate are starting to get disturbing. If there is no "public option" then lots of people will continue to be uninsured, unable to afford the very high costs of for-profit insurance. The President needs to stop running against the "status quo." He needs to start running against health insurance companies, which are so unpopular. He needs to say "stop protecting insurance companies." He needs to ram the public option down the throat of these southern senators from states where populist politics has always been supreme.
I'm getting worried that the "blue dogs" and the GOP are trying to sabotage the bill, to make sure it includes tax increases but doesn't achieve the goal of universal coverage, or free up the labor market by making it possible for individuals to get health insurance on their own.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
But Will there be Universal or Portable Coverage?
Posted by The Law Talking Guy at 12:40 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Your fears mirror my own.
Freeing up labor is very important. One of the very things that make the US economy competitive is the freedom of labor. When people start holding onto jobs for coverage, or continue to work past retirment to maintain coverage, the recovery will only slow.
Hear, hear, USWest! Using an employer mandate rather than an individual mandate concerns me for this reason.
I would be concerned about abandoning the public option without a convincing alternative approach that I could get behind.
LTG's original post implied that the public option was gone. My understanding is that this is not the case. CNN's story on the compromise reports that public option will be still be in the bill. It will be optional rather than mandated for the uninsured. But it will be there. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/29/health.care/index.html)
If that is the worst part of the compromise, I'm all for it. This would get our foot in the door. This would be the biggest single change to the way we do health insurance in this country in decades. Is it perfect? No. But it is a good start in the right direction.
If this is not the worst part of the compromise, I'd like to read about details and their drawbacks. I'm at CNN's mercy here.
Post a Comment