HELP’s Public Plan
The Senate’s Health Education Labor and Pensions committee has unveiled its vision for a public option in health insurance. As detailed by Igor Volsky this is not the “robust” public plan that would be able to piggyback on Medicare rates and force cost savings. Instead, it’s along the lines of Chuck Schumer’s “level playing field” concept. This version of the idea still has important merits, but does leave a lot of potential advantages on the playing field.
Insofar as we seem likely to go down this route, it becomes all the more vital to have the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services use payment reform to both make the existing public programs more efficient and also to drive systemic change throughout both the public and private sides of the system.
11 Responses to “HELP’s Public Plan”
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June 30th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Let’s face it — we’re in for a massive disappointment all around. Non-rich people are, that is. We’re going to get a “public plan” that is every bit as bad as current insurance “coverage”, costs as much as COBRA, making it totally unaffordable, only with the wonderful addition of a mandate to purchase.
We will be worse off than when we started.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
My initial inclination is to think this approach should be OK in practice. Basically, my understanding is that it isn’t as “robust” as some possibilities because payment rates (subject to a certain limit) and provider participation would be negotiated by HHS. But I think it is a fair bet that HHS would end up with enough leverage in these negotiations to achieve wide participation at pretty low rates (assuming, of course, the plan proved popular).
That said, I would think the political point is that if you can get something like this through the Senate, then whatever was worked out with the House in conference would likely be pretty good. Similarly, if necessary it would likely be relatively easy to tweak this approach down the road to make it even more effective at lowering rates, assuming the basic idea proved popular.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Similarly, if necessary it would likely be relatively easy to tweak this approach down the road to make it even more effective at lowering rates, assuming the basic idea proved popular.
agreed. the plan just needs a constituency. we need to just get this out of the gate, and let it hobble around for a bit. the more healthy, middle class folks who sign up, the more it’ll have a bloc that could get it more power to succeed.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
The Public Option is Dead.
THe Obama Adm killed it when then they said they would not insist on a public option as part of health care reform.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Suck it up whiners. Chris Dodd’s bill matters as much as Max Baucus’s bill which is to say not at all. The House bill is good and the House bill is what is coming out of reconciliation. Bill Clinton pretty much laid out how things are going to go down in his little sit down with hippie bloggers a few weeks ago.
President Obama has to answer for how the plan works, not how the plan is portrayed. Every American will have a first hand opinion of any reforms in a universal system and that trumps pundit opinion so hard it’s not even funny. He’s going for a good plan and a good plan is what the House is writing.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Note: Obama insisted that the stimulus bill would be bipartisan and then passed that mofo with zero GOP votes in the House. So take the whole ‘not ruling things out’ line for what it is, a nice train conductor giving passengers every opportunity to get on the train…up to a point. Eventually the train is going to leave the station and it’s going to the destination it was always headed and if you aren’t on board you are fucked, just like the GOP is going to be fucked when a Democratic President and Congress pass real healthcare.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
At the end of the day they can pass the bill with 50 votes so there will be a public option, too many top Democrats have their reputation (and legacy) at stake.
Obama should just stop talking about getting 70 votes and pleasing Republicans. Get Snowe on board and call it a triumph of bipartisanship.
June 30th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Obama should just stop talking about getting 70 votes and pleasing Republicans. Get Snowe on board and call it a triumph of bipartisanship.
But as joejoejoe noted, it is really just talk: assuming the GOP continues to play the same obstructionist game, there is really no reason to believe that Obama and his congressional allies will compromise more than the amount necessary to get the minimum number of votes for passage. And in the meantime, the talk serves a purpose insofar as it helps provide political cover to marginal Democrats.
June 30th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
For the people that want health and want it now, Obama needs a little more time, he has only been in office 5 months and is working in a back room some where getting this put together and will do it with a budget reconciliation.One can hope that single payer is not off the table ,yet.I will gladly spend my $300 a month on Medicare vs my BC/BS and it`s $4500 a year deductible.WE need wellness/preventive care.I say screw the bipartisanship and the blue dog dems.Health care is making this country less and less competitive by the day with the rest of the world economy it`s proven fact.If you spend twice as much as everyone else and you rank 37th out of 40 in health care you`ve got problems.
June 30th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
[...] The more liberal of the two Senate committees working on health reform has come up with a weak public option that would do some good but ultimately lack significant cost advantages over private [...]
June 30th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Put me down with the optimists on this one.
After conference, the ultimate public plan will likely bill somewhere between this and the House plan, which is the real deal. The trick will come in pushing for regular improvements.
Keep in mind, when it first came into existence, Social Security offered meager benefits to less than 1/2 of the workforce. But it created a constituency that made improving the program the political equivalent of kissing babies while waving a flag and eating grandma’s apple pie with a baseball in it.
The trick is how to do that for the public option.
Which I’ve written about here.