Sen. Conrad's Co-Op Cop-Out: No Substitute For Real Healthcare Reform

I'm sick and tired of politicians both Democratic and Republican who'd rather do what's right for corrupt for-profit insurance companies rather than what's right for the American people.
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.

Pro-Healthcare Reform Advocates Fight Back With Ad

This is not 1993. This time, we're not lying down and playing dead while Republicans and their health insurance industry allies kill real health care reform.
Check out this ad:

Stop The Game Playing, Pass Real Health Insurance Reform WITH A Public Option!

It's a crime that 47 million folks in the United States have no health insurance.
Republicans in Congress and their Democratic allies can throw canard and canard at how expensive a national health insurance endeavor can be, but if these folks could spend even a little time at the emergency room of the taxpayer-supported Parkland Hospital in Dallas, they may think twice about the current system they seem to want to preserve.
If they were to go to that hospital, they may see folks who are forced to wait as long as five hours (if not more) for treatment. And if the emergency room closes down for even a few hours with folks still waiting for care, those folks are forced to find a nearby non-taxpayer-supported hospital to wait even more hours just to see if they're going to get the care they need.
Many of those folks don't have any kind of health insurance, and when they can't pay the bill for their treatment at Parkland, taxpayers like myself have to share the load.
So much for taxpayers not having to support the current health care system. No wonder Republicans and their "Blue Dog" Democratic allies fail to mention this when they try to con the American people into thinking that the current system is fine while that proposed by President Obama will cost tons while bringing untold hardships to patients.
I heard one Republican congressman throw a chart during one speech in which he decried the Obama proposal, saying that it would "bureaucrats" in the middle between patients and their doctors. What the congressman didn't mention is that there are already bureaucrats making decisions between patients and their doctors-- namely representatives of for-profit insurance companies with the power to deny coverage of patients either because of pre-existing conditions or simply because the insurance company doesn't want to cover it even in the face of medical necessity (that's the power of "recission" that we've been hearing about a lot).
Contrary to the misinformation Republicans, their Democratic allies, and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media, the Obama proposal DOESN'T impose an overbearing public plan down our throats, nor does it put bureaucrats between patients and their doctors.
Instead, the Obama plan emphasizes some simple principles-- if you like your current health insurance plan and your current doctor, you can keep it. The only difference is with the Obama plan, you will wind up paying less in premiums in part because of competition from a public plan that will keep private insurers honest.
And if you don't like your plan, you will be given a choice of other plans, including a public one. This is not socialized medicine, and this is not a plan that puts bureaucrats in betwen patients and their doctors.
It's time the false and misleading campaign being waged by Republcans and their allies in the media and elsewhere come to an end. It's time they stopped throwing up smokescreens about how much the Obama plan could cost and face the reality of how much we, as taxpayers, are already paying because of the millions of Americans still uninsured.
Congressional footdragging must end and real healthcare reform with a robust public option must pass. It's that simple.