How Liberals Killed the Public Option
by Morgen RichmondI find it a little ironic that liberals continue to ruthlessly attack Joe Lieberman for killing the public option (and it’s evil twin, the Medicare buy-in) given the central role that liberals themselves played in precipitating it’s demise. Including some of the very same individuals now vilifying him.
While Lieberman has been hammered by the left for many of the supporting reasons he has given for opposing the public option, the centerpiece of his argument has always been that the public option was a policy instrument designed by liberals to move the country towards a single payer system. Here is Lieberman speaking on Face the Nation back on Nov. 1 when this controversy initially erupted:
The public option I think was raised in the last year by people who really want to have a government-controlled health insurance system. That’s their right. I think they’re wrong.
And here is Lieberman speaking to CNS News on Nov. 10:
People, I think, who really want a single-payer system and government control of health insurance are using the public option as a nose under the tent, a camel’s nose under the tent…they’ve got a right to that point of view – I think they’re wrong and I think it would be terrible for the country and for health care, so I’ve got to stop it.
So where is the liberal rebuttal to this argument? There is none because this assertion is irrefutably true. We know this thanks to a handful of prominent liberal supporters of healthcare reform who have been caught on tape over the past year admitting that this was indeed the ultimate agenda of the public option.
Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, who accused Lieberman of being willing to “cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people” in order to settle a political score, admitted on tape at a conference last year that the public option was a “sneaky strategy” to move towards a single payer system. And that it would be “sweet” to put private insurers out of business. When his comments were made public earlier this year he lied. Repeatedly.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who also accused Lieberman of “gutting” the health bill out of spite, has been caught on tape more than once stating that the public option would “kill” private insurers and “sneak up on” a single payer system.
Yale Professor Jacob Hacker, also known as the “father of the public option”, accused Lieberman this week of misrepresenting his (Hacker’s) position on the Medicare buy-in as a basis for opposing it. Yet Hacker has had his own YouTube moment, admitting at a conference last year that the public option “is not a trojan horse” for single-payer, “it’s just RIGHT THERE”. Adding, “we’ll get there, over time, eventually”.
And lastly, there is the video which started it all. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, speaking at a health reform rally this past April, unequivocally stated that the public option would “put private insurers out of business and lead to single payer“. Furthermore, she argued that the dispute between public option and single payer supporters was “not a principled fight”. But rather – “this is a fight about strategy for getting there and I believe we will”.
Liberals try can shift the blame to Lieberman all they want, but the simple fact of the matter is he has taken a principled position in opposition to a blatant attempt to deceive the American public about the ultimate goal of reform.
THIS DECEPTION IS THE BASIS FOR HIS OPPOSITION.
Lieberman took liberals at their word when they admitted that their ultimate aim was a government take-over of the heath care system. And he is hardly alone in believing this to be a bad idea. So he opposed the provision. It’s as simple as that.
Ultimately if there is anyone who should be held responsible for the public option debacle, it’s President Obama. He bought off on including it as part of his healthcare platform during the campaign. And in spite of his repeated claims this year that the public option is not a trojan horse for a single payer system, it defies belief that someone as politically astute and detail-oriented as Obama was not fully aware that this was indeed the intention of those who originally conceived of and promoted the idea.
Furthermore, throughout the debate this year the President and others in his Administration have repeatedly made confusing and contradictory statements about their level of support for the public option. On various occasions it was necessary in order to “keep insurers honest” and provide “choice and competition” in the market. But then it wasn’t “the entirety of reform”, and was obviously expendable in the end.
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The public option is NEVER dead where proponents of so-called Health Care Reform are concerned. Ignore the 'posing' of so-called moderates (no such animal). You can bet your last dollar that the 'public option' will find its way back into this legislation in some manner.
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Joe is a sellout too!! Be gone sir….
If there is a public option included in this bill then there will be no such things as public options.
Nancy Pelosi said when asked why Congress was declaring themselves exempt from the effects of this bill, "it's important that Congress have choices"….Hello, what about the other millions of people who you are supposed to be representing, who pay your salary??
This bill still stinks!!!!!
Once again our "leaders" write fundamentally unsound and unsustainable legislation for short term benefit. The middle class tax payer will get 'effed again. There needs to be a purge. We are losing our jobs, our homes, our American culture while they fiddle and live their extravagant and hypocritical lives.
All incumbents regardless of party, need to be thrown out of the brothel they have created.
May they all rot in Hell.
These pimps and whores will spread disease and pestilence the longer we allow them to stay in power.
May they all rot in Hell.
It is time for massive inoculation against these pariahs.
May they all rot in Hell.
Obama, the blackhead on the tip of the boil should be the first to be lanced and thrown out of office.
May they all rot in Hell.
Proof that the libs are expert in deceptive usage of words. Public option in its literal meaning should be referred to Private Non-Option while Single Payer should be called by its real meaning, Socialism.
The worst of the public options has to be Medicare. Let's get everyone into the for profit private system. I bet that would really lower premiums.
2010=Hope
2012=Change
If it isn't in the Constitution; it should never, ever be.
Time to wake up, take the red pill. Something is not right… Saving the Republic Matrix vers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RohAri15ogc
From resistnet.com:
Sen. Whitehouse opened up his Senate floor speech spewing venom
directed squarely at you and me!
Quoting an article, which called those of us opposing the
massive government takeover of our health care system the
"lunatic fringe." He took it a step further labeling us
as "birthers, right-wing militias and Aryan groups."
Send emails to this idiot!!!
When they can't retort, they distort.
Sounds kind of Cochran-ish, doesn't it?
you left comments from barney frank, weiner, and the little clip of obama saying he could envision single payer "over time". there is no doubt that the "public option" was designed to drive private insureres out of business and leave the government as the "only option".
Despite his agreeing to vote for a health care bill without a public option I am hopeful that many of those who have been bought off have a change of heart tomorrow and vote against it. They will become overnight heroes and might even stand a chance of retaining their seats at the next election.
The "public option" would have been horrible. Imagine having all of those people covered on my DIME!!!! I say let them die on the streets!!!!!! It's the Christian thing to do. Did Jesus have insurance????
The correlation between people being covered by you money and them dying is spurious. For republicans passed a bill making it illegal to deny life saving treatment for any reason.
If there were people dying in the streets the Christian thing to do would be to save them. However, it would be un-Christian to force other people to save them. The parable of the Good Samaritan exemplifies this in that he paid for the person who was dying on the side of the road and needed medical treatment out of his own pocket because he choose to. He didn't pay 1% and force 99 other people that didn't want to to each pay 1%.
God wants us to be charitable, but charity requires free will. You'll find statistically speaking republicans give a much larger % of disposal income to charity than liberals do. This is of course, because liberals feel it is the government job to take care of these people, and it is also their job to take from people to make it happen, even if it is against those peoples will.
The Christian thing to do is to help those who truly need it, not to support those who are too lazy to do for themselves. We should all be willing to sacrifice a little to provide for those who are incapable, for one reason or another, of fending for themselves. All the rest that are physically capable of working should damn well be working.
So you support a public option???
I dont understand with all the money & power insurance companys,banks & big businesses have in this country they dont get together & stop this progressive movement.Do they not see its not in their best interest?
Only Jesus saves, "guest" (read: Communist)…take your false idles elsewheres…if'n you ain't the grandaddy of all LIARS!
Without a public option, there is no effective market-based pressure to keep premium inflation from depriving the middle class of effective health care insurance. Most markets are virtual monopolies, and many companies have been steadily downgraded coverage because private insurance has hit them with double-digit rate increases every year. This year alone, Blue Cross raised premiums 15% when CPI was -2%.
By killing the public option, premiums are guaranteed to accelerate, forcing the middle class to downgrade coverage and exposing themselves to greater financial risks should they need effective coverage. This ensures that private ensure will collapse under its own weight in a few years, when a majority of Americans fear that their premiums are either unaffordable and their coverage inadequate. The result will be the very public insurance program that conservatives fear, brought about by an angry public underserved and overcharged by the monopolistic health insurance industry.
Gosh-darned tootin' man! I say forget about Jesus, let's all just buy a f*c* tonne of guns n ammo.
http://www.themostretardedpoliticalargumentyouveeverhear...
In jesus name, amen
Then the correct solution is to open up competition and reduce barriers to entry instead of making things worse, which is what Obamacare in its present form will do.
If private insurance can't compete with a non-subsidized public option, doesn't that defeat the very purpose of market-based insurance? If the government can provide better insurance at a more affordable rate, then that means that the market has failed.
Private insurance is expensive and inefficient because it operates in a monopolistic environment. Private insurance fears what all monopolies fear most: competition that forces them to reduce profits, innovate and increase efficiency. Defeating the public option protects them from market forces.
Socialism is superior to private monopolies. Both destroy innovation because of lack of competition, but at least voters have a say in a socialist marketplace. Only shareholders control monopolies, and most health insurance companies operate in virtually monopolistic environments.
How is it possible to profitably cover people over the age of 70? The core business of insurance is to charge more for premiums than you spend on care. Otherwise, you are bleeding money and will fold quickly.
What kind of premium would you have to charge retirees to make their coverage profitable, and how would retirees ever afford those premiums? Unlike fire and auto liability insurance, everyone is guaranteed to get sick, and die, so how do you profitably cover end of life care?
CALRISSIAN/SOLO 2012 WOOOO!!!
Absolutely not. The programs we have were created out of necessity. The programs the left now propose are simply an effort to move our nation towards socialism as well as provide the government with new income streams. If they wanted real reform they would fix the programs they have broken but instead they are trying to "fundamentally change" our nation. It was the government that screwed everything up and they would have us believe they are the ony ones who can fix it but instead of "fix" things they only make things worse. Their contempt for the people could not be any clearer.
PICARD/CRUSHER IN 2010 MAN!
Yes, we should have the same health care system that George Washington did. Ivory dentures and leeching for everyone!
Since the Constitution doesn't mention nuclear weapons, the Internet, an interstate highway system, or national parks, we should get rid of those as well. It does cover the slave trade, so that's okay.
PALPATINE/VADER in 2004 WOOO!!! …fook nevermind
This is the One Bill Administration:
One bill to rule them all,
One bill to find them,
One bill to bring them all,
and in the Darkness BIND them…
In the Land of Socialism, where the Democrats Lie….
"These men are cowards, Donny."
Are you going to decide who is needy and who is lazy? What is your litmus test? Did God put you that in role?
Of course it will. So will abortion if they can't get it through the first time.
That's how Washington works. Err, make that does what it does, because I certainly wouldn't consider it work.
hmmm, is that why Socialized medical systems in every country that has it push a 50% plus tax rate on their citizenry, and are fighting a collapsing system that provides close to third-world quality care?
Forget profit for a moment. Obviously you think it is bad. But just name one instance where the government innovates and increases efficiency. Look at the VA hospital system. Look at Medicare with all its fraud. Look at the medical care for the American Indian from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Every government program does two things…they all breed inefficiency and corruption ..and they grow and grow.
There has to be one governor who has the stones to utilize the 10th amendment to stonewall this legislation until it has been proven to be constitutional. The libs are betting on getting the program well up and running so that a delayed negative decision would prove impractical. They follow the old adage that it better to apologize than ask permission.
Now, immediate, urgent…if you cannot reverse it now, stall it indefinitely.
Private insurance can not compete with a government option because in free markets they have to generate enough revenue to ensure a profit or else they go bankrupt. Government is under no such restriction. If they don't have enough money they just print more, or borrow more from China. Once the private health insurance is no more, the government is free to raise prices as high and as often as they choose, since no one will ever have any choice but to pay.
The only reason health insurance market appears monopolistic is because they've paid off politicians to keep competition out of their market. It is economically impossible to prop up a real monopoly in a free market with out government intervention creating the monopoly.
Even if a business were able to drive all their competitors out of business, create a monopoly, and raise prices as much as they wanted, in a free market, nothing prevents some one else from starting a new business in the market with lower prices, wiping out the monopoly.
There are only two ways to prop up a monopoly, and both require government's help. First off, buy off the police so they either intimidate or look the other way when you're own goons do it, or else buy some politicians and have them pass laws that make it prohibitively expensive to keep them out. Either way government is using their implied threat of force to coerce a monopoly into being.
Mattel just recently pulled off a whopper of one with the toy testing law. It stipulates all manufacturers have to secure product testing at a neutral third party laboratory. Cost between $300 – $1,500 for each product line. This is driving very small toy manufacturers out of business because it raises their costs beyond profits.
Along came Mattel with their deep pockets and got an exemption that allows them to use their own testing labs, giving them an unfair advantage in pricing, and it only cost them a cool $1 million in political donations.
http://reason.com/blog/2009/08/31/law-passed-afte...
Simple – open competition across State lines, like the Republicans have proposed. The bigger the pool of participants a company insures, the better. It's called spreading the risk. Just like the whole insurance game started, insuring ships. If you insure just one ship for a $10,000 premium, against a $100,000 lose, you have a good chance of losing your shirt. If you insure a 100 ships for $10,000 premiums, against $100,000 losses you can lose 9 ships, pay out $900,000 in claims and still make 10% profit. If your insure 1,000, or 10,000 ships, your risks decrease even if your paying out more claims. So, yes retires spend more on end-of-life care. If the pool they are in is big enough, won't make even a ripple in premium costs..
Did God put YOU in that role? Reid? Pelosi?
No. So the best person to decide what charity should be given is the donor, or a representative of the donor (a charity).
It may have escaped you, but you have no more moral right than the next guy. And you have less moral right than the guy who is actually coughing up the money.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A
With a public option, there is no effective market-based pressure to keep rationing of services from depriving the middle class of effective health care. Govts are virtual monopolies, and many Countries providing Socialized medical care have been steadily downgraded care and standards. This year alone, Both Canada and the UK have instituted new levels of rationing, and higher tax rates to support their inadequate, broken systems.
They've got a whole bunch of words they've changed the definitions for.
Racist – disagree with a liberal.
Transparency – hiding behind executive orders.
Open debate on bills, broadcast on C-SPAN – back room deals with only leadership and who ever they're leaning on.
The list is endless.
Constitution doesn't mention nuclear weapons</>
Article 1; section 8 "provide for the common defense" and "To raise and support armies"
an interstate highway system</>
Article 1; section 8 "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states"
And I agree the government has no authority to create or maintain the internet or the national park system.
Fun, fascinating trivia! The interstate highway system almost didn't get built, because – surprise – some people in Congress actually believed in the Constitution. So they snuck it in as national defense. I think at least every 5 miles, one mile has to be straight so it could be used as a run way, in case of national defense.
Perhaps you can answer a question for me. Why does every one on the left assume the only way anyone could possibly be against this monstrosity must want people to suffer and die? I certainly don't, that's why I'm against. I'm convinced this will cause more people to suffer and die than are suffering and dieing now.
This is really a horrific bill because it is going to lead to rationing and death panels, because that's how government works. They ration everything, and when they don't want to personally take the heat, they create a supposedly neutral third party to be the hatchet man for them. Military base closing commission is a perfect example.
Think of it this way, government sets the tax rates. They ration how much money they are going to let us keep, and they get the rest. Every bill that goes through congress is debated with politicians desperately trying to get a bigger slice for their own districts. Do they spend more on F-22s or do the spend more on parks? Do they raise taxes or do they cut taxes? If so, who pays more and who gets to keep more?
It's all a form of rationing. And when you ration something, some one gets it, and some one doesn't. And why you think access to health care would be any different is beyond me.
Could not agree more Mr. Guest, could not agree more.
I challenge anyone to find anywhere in the four Gospels where Jesus instructs his followers to use the force of government to force people to be – or act like – Christians.
I can't help wonder how much more I could do to help people if only the government left me more of my own money to do just that.
Instead my money goes to pay off the likes of ACORN, Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-choice.
Dirty little secret, they can't. Government has grown far too large and powerful.
Ironically, government has convinced the majority of voters that they are responsible for America's prosperity, when in truth Americans have created America's prosperity in spite of government intervention.
See my response to essentially your same post you made earlier in this thread.
Harry Reid "My precious, my precious"
"The only reason health insurance market appears monopolistic is because they've paid off politicians to keep competition out of their market"
More specifically, because health insurance cannot be sold accross state lines like any other product due to govt. restrictions and "payoffs". Could you imagine Walmart being told they could only open stores in their "home" state? Or any other business for that matter.. Health care and telecom are the only ones and the libs already crushed that terrible "monopoly" Bell and made sure each state had its own band of cronies feeding off the dead corpse.
Yep, that's how they do it. Politicians convince voters they're going to bring these evil businesses to justice, then pass laws that help every business who donates to them, and hurts every one who doesn't.
Remember several years ago when Microsoft was being brought up an anti-trust charges? Gates spent zero money lobbying congress. These days they spend I think around $3 million, and surprise surprise, Microsoft's anti-trust problems in America simply disappeared.
It is expensive and inefficient because of Federal Mandate. If they were allowed to sell interstate, Blue Cross Blue Shield could consolidate resources instead of having 50 sets of corporate structure to handle 50 states. As it stands, you have 50 separate BCBS's which is the root of inefficiency in Insurance. Add that opening up interstate competition would allow just that, competition, which is the keystone argument for the Public Option. Remove that keystone and it falls down upon itself.
Ironic too that a Public Option would go against all rules in place for insurance companies with regard to Interstate operation.
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." Jesus de la Nazareth
Is that trying to prove me wrong? Because "law" doesn't refer to the Romans Law, but God's Laws in the Torah.
Joe what will you do for your state that employs thousands in the Insurance industry? Just wondering if you even gave that a thought. Maybe you remember when the Hartford Whalers Hockey team left the state, that had a ripple effect down right down the parking lot attendant and the guy selling hot dogs on the corner. Your state is dying Joe and you just put one of the last nails in the coffin.
No I just really like that quote, it applies to the modern era better than any "torah"… Go with Christ.
I wouldn't go that far, but I can definitely agree with it's application to the hypocrites in DC.
I hope people don't think that there will NOT be a public option..Pelosi and Reid will go behind closed doors, again, and the bill will be what THEY want, not WE THE PEOPLE! They have to be thrown out of Washington!!! NOW! EVERYONE OF THEM!!!
Joe must be a masochist, we continually get clobbered by Europe's heathcare system. We spend twice as much for lesser results. Joe is a Boston fan, but he may as well be a Royals fan, I'm a Yankee's fan. I like winners, Europe's various health care systems, all of them, kick our butt. Sooner or later( it looks like later), we will have to adopt a variation on one of their systems.
Are you saying that our government should give our money to anyone and everyone who asks for it? How many people should be given a free ride before you decide it's not worth the effort to provide for yourself and sell your soul to the government?
Did anyone see the Christmas tree ornament with Mao's face on it. Can there be any doubt where these anti-christs' are trying to take us. They're launching a cultural revolution. No one should delude himself as to how far they will go in their criminality nor how atrocious they will become with their adversaries..
GREAT. THANKS FOR YOUR PARTISAN ATTACKS. THEY ARE RELEVANT AND USEFUL.
Please focus on the issue and not the personalities.
ps. it's "its" not "it's" in your first sentence
How is Medicare the worst public option? These people are in the last stage of their life and are seldom still able to work. These days most people don't even have retirement plans and rarely make enough to save. What would you have them do? Similarly the Medicaid program pays for medical expenses who otherwise couldn't afford them such as people making minimum wage.
The problem with the "for profit" system, as you put it, is that there is not enough competition. The health insurers have been exempted from the antitrust laws and so they collude to fix pricing thereby driving it up to maintain their bottom lines. Meanwhile those insurance plans do not transfer across state lines so those who need the attention of the best specialists are limited to the best that particular state has to offer.
If you dig down to the core of the problems with the health care industry it can all be traced right back to the government. This bill is proof of that. The left has written new taxes into this "reform" bill so they can make even more money on over the counter medicines as though they were a luxury item.
Why don't you just save us all the time listening to you bash the private sector and just admit you want the rest of us to pay for your health care.
That's the key word "non-subsidized". The Dem's wet dream is to subsidize the heck out of a public option, and force restrictive rules and penalties on private insurance to force them all out of business. Once there is only one choice – the Govt. Option, then we will see the same we see in Medicare and Medicaid today – out-of-control costs, bureaucratic mismanagement, and rationing of services. What the Dem's want is another big piggy-bank to loot (emphasis on the Piggy – as can be seen by them lapping up the $100 million dollar bribes to vote this in) – and a single payer system is it. If this Obamanation passes, watch what happens to the money they are gong to collect for the first four years of the program, before it actually kicks in with any benefits for the unwashed, uninsured masses. If you think it will still be there in a lock-box to support the program in four years, your dreaming.
The founding father's did their best. It's no accident that DC sits on a drained swamp. Unless you're a local I hear it's positively ghastly during the humid summer months. That was to force Congress to adjourn, because they couldn't take the heat.
The US has been going down hill ever since they invented air conditioning.
Conneticut is the home of Big-Insurance. Lieberman will have every Bolshevik in the USA after him. They want to turn as much medicin over to the government as fast as possible during this 2 year window that they have control.
No, not just changed the definitions, warped til they now have no meaning.
Perhaps you can answer a question for me. Why does every one on the left assume the only way anyone could possibly be against this monstrosity must want people to suffer and die? I certainly don't, that's why I'm against. I'm convinced this will cause more people to suffer and die than are suffering and dieing now.
Because they see people who disagree with them as evil monsters.
Lieberman did vote for the bill, did he not?
Conservatives and Republicans should not be fooled by Lieberman nor McCain. Lieberman is a liberal and for conservatives to show him fealty is beyond stupid. McCain is singing from the right's songbook now that his senate seat is in jeopardy, but people should remember who he really is: a man whom Ann Coulter said was more liberal than Hillary Clinton.
Yup There is a difference in' real, thoughtful work', as opposed to 'doing what they do (doo)'.
: <
Both these guys need to be called out and exposed for what they are. McCain's military record aside…..he is a mess and deserves to lose his Senate seat to a real conservativve, as opposed to his 'convenient conservative' pose.
Without an official solution, there is no effective market pressure to keep inflation away amidst effective health insurance premium.
Democratic Party i(fascist party) in Congress are the Lunatic Fringe and the health care bill is part of their final solution!!
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