Public Option:Insurance Industry’s Trojan Horse

[Better Believe It]

COMMENTARY:
Public Option:Insurance Industry’s Trojan Horse
by James Ridgeway
October 27, 2009

As I suggested yesterday, the latest reincarnation of the public option, endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in all probability will lay out one more circuitous route back into the insurance industry. The Senate plan apparently will follow the lines of an idea originally suggested by Senator Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat. Today, nobody—journalists, politicans—know the details of this plan. But earlier in October, Carper talked to reporters and, according to an account in TPM, set forth his ideas in some detail.

"I think at the end of the day there will be a national plan probably put together not by the federal government but by a non-profit board with some seed money from the federal government that states would initially participate in because of lack of affordability.....

How would it work? First, this won’t be a government run, government funded enterprise. Two, there should be a level playing field so that this non-profit entity that would be stood up would have to play by same rules basically as for-profit insurance companies–the idea that secretary of Health and Human Services running or directing the operation of this–no way.

We ought to have a non-profit board–it could be appointed by the President but a non-profit board. They’d have to retain earnings, create a retained earnings pool, so that if they run into financial problems later on the financial needs of the plan could be met by the retained earnings."

Carper’s plan begins to sound very much like Blue Cross-Blue Shield, long ago launched as a non-profit cooperative that over time turned into a hellish health insurance conglomerate that includes both for-profit and non-profit franchises. (The huge–and hugely loathed–WellPoint is now the largest member of the network.)

Carper and other designers of weak-assed public options like to say “non-profit” over and over again, as if this were some cure to all the ills of the private insurance industry. This is far from the case:

Almost half of Americans with private health insurance are currently covered by non-profit plans. As a whole, they haven’t proven themselves much—if any—better or cheaper than the for-profit insurers....The giant Kaiser Permanente is a non-profit. And while some of them have privatized, many of the Blue Cross-Blue Shields are still non-profits as well—and, in fact, got started as co-ops. Some of these non-profit insurers are well known for paying huge executive salaries and hoarding huge reserves, while charging the same high rates and offering the same rationed care as private plans—and enjoying tax exemption to boot. One report by the Consumers Union found the non-profit “Blues” stockpiling billions in cash even as they raised premiums and co-pays.

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/102809Ridgeway.shtml


Which Public Option?
October 26, 2009
Just remember, the phrase “public option” doesn’t necessarily mean a real public option–certainly not a stepping stone to single payer. In several different versions of the idea floated in Congress so far, the public option would end up with a public entity subcontracting the actual insurance back to the industry–not unlike an outsourcing scheme. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to include the public option in the Senate bill does not amount to a real victory–if any victory at all–until the details are hashed out.

http://unsilentgeneration.com/2009/10/26/which-public-option/


Born in 1936, James Ridgeway has been reporting on politics for more than 45 years. He is currently Senior Washington Correspondent for Mother Jones, and recently wrote a blog on the 2008 presidential election for the Guardian online. He previously served as Washington Correspondent for the Village Voice; wrote for Ramparts and The New Republic; and founded and edited two independent newsletters, Hard Times and The Elements. Ridgeway is the author of 16 books.

[Better Believe It]

1. Trojan Horse? Only if it's weak and meets the private insurance industry requirements.

Which are:

1. Public insurance not have an advantage over private health insurance.

2. Public insurance not be made available to all employers and individuals.

3. Public insurance not be permitted to charge Medicare rates.

4. Public insurance not be structured to offer at least equal benefits at lower premiums than private insurance.

5. Public insurance will not begin operating for at least four years after legislation is adopted.

6. Private health insurance companies be permitted to radically increase their premiums until at least 2013 with no government controls or premium caps.

7. That employers and/or individuals be required to buy private health insurance at rip-off rates for minimum bare bones coverage.

That's the short list.

There are many other insurance industry requirements that will probably be written into the final bill, unless enough protest, that you can add to this list.

[Kermitt Gribble]

2. Public option trojan horse is pretty much a given.

Why else wouldn't they just remove the age restriction to Medicare and give anyone the option to enroll through payroll deductions, etc? Why? Because the insurance industry is demanding their own 'bailout' in the form of a 'public option', and most in congress answer only to the ins industry.

[Jakes Progress]

3. Let's just call it Public Opton

so we can claim to have won. We really know we got the bus and river treatment, but it feels so good to claim victory.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. Thanks for posting this!