Warning: Co-op Kool Aid Is Bad for Your Health

[Better Believe It]

Warning: Co-op Kool Aid Is Bad for Your Health
by Wendell Potter
Wendell Potter is the Senior Fellow on Health Care for the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin.
Common Dreams
August 22, 2009


I’m beginning to think that the Kool-Aid being served at meetings of the Senate Finance Committee’s soon-to-be infamous Gang of Six is coming from either fantasy land or the health insurance industry.

For those of you who might not be following the sorry machinations of health care reform in the Senate Finance Committee, the Gang of Six is a group of three Democrats and three Republicans hand-picked by Committee Chair Max Baucus, who is one of the three Democrats. The gang meets often, supposedly drafting a bipartisan bill. In reality, if such a bill emerges, it will be a gift to the insurance industry because the gang includes some of the industry’s best friends on Capitol Hill.

Thanks to gang member Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota, the gang reportedly is giving serious consideration to replacing the good idea of a public insurance option with an idea that is sheer fantasy: a few nonprofit co-operatives that would be expected to compete with the cartel of giant for-profit insurance companies and “win in the marketplace,” to use a favorite term of my former CEO and cartel heavyweight, H. Edward Hanway.

If you don’t believe anything else I have said or written, please believe this: nonprofit co-operatives don’t stand a snowball’s chance of competing with those big companies and making a whit of a difference in the lives of the 75 million Americans who either have no insurance or have such marginal insurance they might as well have no insurance.

Read on:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/22

[Dragonfli]

1. K&R I am allergic to Kool Aid and without insurance that could be a problem.

If my functioning brain were to go into anaphylactic shock over this bullshit and then this bullshit resulted in my being mandated to buy a plan with a deductible I can not afford (Romney style), My mind may die.

Lord knows my hope is already in critical condition.

[blm]

2. Reid and Schumer already said that co-ops is OK as their idea of public option.

Pathetic doubletalkers.

[debbierlus]

5. I though Schumer said he wouldn't go along with coops - when did he come out for them?

?

[blm]

9. Schumer's been all over the place on this to confuse the left and avoid backlash. WSJ July9...

TayTay Donating Member (1000+ posts)

Fri Jul-10-09
Original message
Wall St Journal reports that Sens Reid and Schumer open to co-opts

to fulfill the function of the public option in the new health care bill.

UPDATE: Senate Dems Suggest Progress Made On Health-Care Bill
Filed July 9th, 2009 pm

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Senate Democratic leaders Thursday claimed progress in talks on forming a public competitor to private health insurers, though senators appeared to make little headway on finding a way to pay for health-care legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said they're amenable to making a non-government health cooperative part of health-care legislation, perhaps in lieu of a controversial proposal to form a government-run health insurance plan.

Schumer, who has led efforts to find a middle ground between opponents and supporters of a public plan, said it is most important for the public competitor "to keep the companies honest, to be available right at the beginning to everybody, and have the strength to borrow."

"If it can do those things in a co-op form, I think we're open to it," he said.

Reid told reporters that "we're going to have some type of public option - you can call it cooperative or whatever you want."
>>>>

[Dragonfli]

3. Why all the unrecs? This is ridiculous. Reminds me of folks that shout down town halls.

Are you guys proud of such behavior? You shouldn't be.

[debbierlus]

6. It seems we have 10 - 15 Du'ers actually discussing the facts surrounding the health care 'reform'

I don't quite understand what is going on - DU is not what is was...

[Mass]

10. Because they do not care about the facts. They care about giving Obama a political victory.

For some people here, the rest is secondary.

[earth mom]

13. DU is loaded with trolls these days pretending to be dems with their Obama support.

The unrec feature has only served to up their game.

It's disgusting.

[debbierlus]

4. They won't even read your posts - it is an automatic unrecommend

I always kick & recommend everything you post - it is always good stuff.

I don't know if the insurance companies have people paid to rate down any posts that exposes the truth about the health care 'reform' - it would make sense they would infiltrate any blog that gets this much traffic. Who the hell knows....

I really don't understand why any democrat would rate this down - even if they didn't agree with other posts that you have put up.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Because the insurance company shills can't face the truth

Unfortunately, I think that real health care reform will have to wait until about a million more people lose their insurance coverage or go bankrupt WITH insurance or are dropped when they get sick.

[rudy23]

11. People are definitely paid to do this. Astroturf isn't just for the right.

Believe me, I know many people who either work as, or have been offered jobs as paid bloggers. It's a lot more common these days than we're used to thinking about.

[earth mom]

14. Meanwhile people deny that trolls aren't gaming the system here on DU.

You'd have to be blind not to see it.

[rudy23]

15. Yes---why would they be so adamant about keeping the "unrec" feature?

I can't stand "unrec", but as soon as I say something even mildly critical of it, half a dozen trolls come out of the woodwork to hyperventilate about my WHINING about not being on the greatest page. Then, it's an assault on my character as they throw out strawman after strawman about how irrational the anti-"unrec" people are. As much as I dislike "unrec", my dislike is not a tenth as passionate as their defense of it.

Their dead giveaway is that they are trained to use strawmen and ad hominem attacks to derail serious debate. I know that's a lot of us, but there's something disctinctive about their tone that gives them away.

And c'mon, we know the insurance lobby is spending millions on astroturf. No one thinks they have enough money in their budget to pay a handful of bloggers $9 an hour to cause havoc on message boards all day?

[Usrename]

23. +1

The only unrec's I have ever handed out were to Skinner's posts explaining the unrec feature.

[sellitman]

12. Can Moderators see unrec's from posters?

Do they know who unrec's something? Dimes to donuts its the paid RW trolls from the Insurance Industry and big Pharma.

Bastards!

[rudy23]

16. How do we know it's not paid LW trolls, Blue Dog staffers, or even the White House?

The public option has many enemies.

I'm still curious about that obviously orchestrated attack on Dennis Kucinich in May. Why was he attacked by so many people, so vehemently, all at the same time in May? The campaign was over---I could see it in May of '08, but now?

Looking back, it's clear that the attacks on Dennis Kucinich that flooded these boards in May were the wave of attacks that insured that single payer, and HR676 would not be part of the debate. Don't all the above groups share a common interest in making sure single payer is not part of the debate?

[sellitman]

17. LW trolls?

I would think that others on the left want single payer. As a HUGE Kucinich fan why would they disrupt their savior? Did you mean RW trolls?

[rudy23]

19. Possible LW trolls would be Blue Dog staffers, Third Way hirees, possibly Obama staffers.

Pretty much any "Democrat" who has an interest in making sure single payer is off the table (most likely to please their donors).

[bvar22]

20. There is also a DLC/ "Centrist" contingent at DU.

"Centrism"...because it is so easy!

You don't have to STAND for Anything,
and get to "unrec" those who do!

[Better Believe It]

21. I believe they can see how many recommends and unrecommends are recorded for each lead post,

but so far that info is not being made available for DU'ers to see on the discussion boards.

It should be.

[grantcart]

8. A rare moment of agreement - co-ops are a canard recd

[bvar22]

18. The anemic "Public Option" specified in HR 3200 also...

...doesn't "stand a snowball’s chance of competing with those big companies and making a whit of a difference in the lives of the 75 million Americans".

The CBO projects LESS than 10 Million enrolled in the "Public Option" by 2019. (HR 3200)

[Usrename]

22. Here's a quote from another poster on another board:

"Yeah, right. The picture of thousands of little rowboats and kayaks attacking a US battleship comes to mind." - welshTerrier2