I have been disappointed to read this past week that the Obama Administration appears to be considering jettisoning health care reform’s public insurance option. Under the public option, the government would run an insurance program, much like Medicare, that would compete with private sector plans.
In place of the public insurance option, some Democrats are floating the idea of creating new health care cooperatives. Health care cooperatives would be little more than mutual (owned by policyholders) insurance companies that would negotiate rates with health care providers. Lest you be confused, this nation has quite a few mutual insurance companies already. State Farm and MetLife, for example, are both mutual insurance companies. So this $6 billion proposal is not a reform at all. Furthermore, writes the New York Times, “the co-op idea is so ill defined that no one knows exactly what it would look like or how effectively it would compete with commercial insurers.” In other words, some people seem ready to waste $6 billion on a half-baked idea.
In 1994 a nice couple named Harry and Louise convinced us that we didn’t need health care reform. Back then, Louise was famous for saying: ”Having choices we don’t like is no choice at all.” If I had a choice, I would choose the government-run insurance plan. But this time around the people who brought us Harry and Louise are busy trying to deny me the choice I want. Why are the same people who were such big champions of choice in 1994 so afraid of giving me the choice I want today?
But, to be fair, the people who brought you Harry and Louise, really don’t have a say at all. The votes are there – if the President and the leadership want to do this, it can be done.
I do not agree. If Business Week is to be believed, the insurance companies that brought us Harry and Louise have been savvily targeting and lining the pockets of the “blue dog” Democrats who ultimately will decide whether we have meaningful health care reform.