What's really got my ire right now is the efforts of North Dakota Democratic U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad to con us into thinking that anything with a public option won't pass Congress and perhaps his plan to promote "health insurance reform" with co-ops perhaps will.
Perhaps Conrad didn't think we'd bother to look up information on whether co-ops will really provide quality insurance for those who can't afford it and prevent insurance companies from denying care due to pre-existing conditions or some "rescission" decision an insurance company may arbitrarily make.
If Conrad really thought his cop-out of an idea won't be scrutinized, he's dead wrong.
The headline of a recent USA Today editorial should make anyone think twice about enacting Sen. Conrad's pipe dream:
Our view on Health care: Health co-ops emerge as weak substitute
Alternatives to ‘public option’ lack clout to rein in medical spending.
That should be enough to cause anyone to think twice about this co-op idea Conrad is trying to push instead of real healthcare reform.
As if we didn't need any more convincing about whether the Conrad co-op idea is a winner, the USA Today editorial continues:
There's nothing wrong with co-ops, per se. Their appeal is that they'd be a sort of kinder and gentler version of private insurance.
But press some co-op enthusiasts for details, and there's a lack of clarity about how they'd get started, how much the start-up would cost, how long it would take, how they'd grow big enough to compete with private insurers, how they'd significantly differ from the original state Blue Cross/Blue Shield organizations and, most importantly, how they could save serious money.
History is not encouraging. Hundreds of health co-ops were formed after the Depression to provide medical care in rural areas, and nearly all of them failed. Even the one considered most successful — Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound in Washington state — took more than 60 years to reach the roughly 600,000 members it has today. (Conrad says a co-op needs at least 500,000 members to have market clout; private WellPoint insures more than 30 million.) Nor does Group Health have a stellar record of holding down costs; since 2000, its annual premium increases for individuals have averaged 12.3%, less than many private insurers but still about four times the rate of inflation.
Higher premiums. Folks still not being able to afford health insurance.
Is this really the picture of health insurance co-ops that Conrad wants to impose on us.
Based on all this, I say h--- no!
Contrary to the so-called conventional wisdom of Beltway pundits who never gave a rat's a-- about folks like me, there's no acceptable substitute for a viable and robust public option that will force insurance companies to deal with us honestly and at a cost everyone can afford.
More from the USA Today editorial:
The primary attraction of health co-ops seems to be that they're more politically palatable than the public option, not that they're a better idea. In fact, there are plenty of reasons for skepticism.
The simplest public option is to let people without employer-provided health insurance to buy into Medicare, or a similar program, at cost. It would pay doctors and hospitals rates close to what Medicare pays, and it could be a powerful engine for holding down costs. Since it could build in part on the existing Medicare system, it could be up and running at the national level reasonably quickly.
Not surprisingly, private insurers aren't keen on the public option, and there's furious opposition from Republicans and some Democrats who recoil at the thought of "government-run" health care — even though they have little or no objection to Medicare, the government-run plan that already covers about 45 million people.
What's there to be afraid of in a public option? Why have insurance companies and their Republican allies employed scare tactics and spread outright lies about President Obama's health care plan while at the same time providing instructions about how to disrupt meetings that even delve into the subject?
Did these misleaders and liars who oppose healthcare reform ever think that those supporting it would find an outstanding example of an industry that has done very well with two private entities competing against a public one?
Yes, that's the case when it comes to the package delivery business. Two private entities-- FedEx and UPS-- both have gained huge chunks of the domestic and international package delivery market even in competition against the public entity-- the U.S. Postal Service.
If two private entities like FedEx and UPS can do well against a public entity, why can't private insurance concerns do the same and present products that really help consumers get quality health care at an affordable cost for all without any discrimination due to pre-existing conditions or anything else?
That should the real question the mainstram media should be asking.
To me, passing the Kent Conrad co-op idea is like trying to feed a dead horse oats or make a skunk smell good. It's been tried in the past and failed. It's time it gets tossed in the scrap heap so real healthcare reform with a robust public option can pass.
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