Given the composition of the exchanges that HELP is contemplating, CBO estimates that by 2019, they will have 27 million Americans enrolled. That's not all that many. And the public plan will be one of the many options on the exchanges. So imagine that a bit more than half enter the public plan -- which I'd suggest is optimistic. That's 15 million or so people in the plan. That's not a small number, but nor is it a number likely to lead to real changes in the health-care system.
But wait! There's more!
Another way of saying this is that today's CBO score is low in part because we've made some of the policy worse.
Well done, public option advocates! That's what you get for whipping for bullet points instead of a plan. (It's got the word public in it!!!!)
It would be a good thing for 15 million Americans to move from employer-based insurance to the exchanges. It would be a good thing for 60 million Americans to do so. But no one knows how to pass that bill. So here we are.
Remind me again what this bill is good for, if public option was supposed to keep the insurance companies honest, but that's not going to happen?
Oh, and to repeat Ezra's last two sentences:
[N]o one knows how to pass that bill. So here we are.
Well, we thought we knew, because we were told. Obama, 2003:
In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama told an AFL-CIO meeting, "I am a proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare program."
Single payer. Universal. That's health coverage, like Medicare, but for everyone who wants it. Single payer eliminates insurance companies as pricey middlemen. The government pays care providers directly. It's a system that polls consistently have shown the American people favoring by as much as 2-to-1.
There was only one thing standing in the way, Obama said six years ago: "All of you know we might not get there immediately because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate and we have to take back the House."
Well, we did all those things. We took back the House. We took back the Senate. We took back the Presidency. We made the Senate filibuster proof. And now the fucking Dems don't know how to "pass that bill." Well, if the Dem sausage making process makes us eat Ezra's "public option" shit, then the Dems deserve to die as a Party, and I hope they do.
NOTE It's also worth noting that the Dems have also managed to completely corrupt the CBO scoring process as well. How is it that "public option" gets scored, when crafted and sponsored legislation like HR 676 does not?
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bingo
Remind me again what this bill is good for, if public option was supposed to keep the insurance companies honest, but that's not going to happen?
the cbo score will go back up to $1+ trillion after the finance committee is done. they're in charge of medicaid, and since the final bill is going to cover about half of the uninsured by dumping them into medicaid, that's going to cost about $600 billion, give or take [and this is optimistic, i predict].
Actually, according to a recent poll
on health coverage people on Medicaid and Medicare are actually more satisfied with their coverage than those on private insurance, quell surprise, so I'm not so sure they will feel dumped.
This is exactly what I have been trying to point out. They intend to keep us in silos. Recipients of public health care vs. consumers of private insurance, thus no competition. The "progressive" rationalization of why the MA plan has failed to control costs because of this very problem is "oh, well, it was really an accessibility plan not an affordability plan". Brilliant. I'm sure the voters are going to be really happy when they figure that out.
This is where they seems to be such a huge disconnect between, I assume, somewhat wealthy A-List bloggers and the rest of us. When it comes to policy and politics, voters want to know, what is in it for me? In this case, for most voters, mandated private insurance. Digby's rationalization seems to be well, look, this will help some people even if it doesn't help you. Well, forgive me my selfishness, I was sort of hoping for something that, you know, would also help me.
Medicare for All is Civil Rights
medicare, sure
it's federal, so everybody in it gets [mostly] the same thing. but like jawbone said, medicaid is almost totally dependent on what each state decides to do [and your state is one of the better ones].
"oh, well, it was really an accessibility plan not an affordability plan"
heh. i'd forgotten that. way to weasel, progressives!
Yep, you are right, but I thought
the HELP plan is to nationalize Medicaid. Hmm.
Medicare for All is Civil Rights
doesn't look like it
although maybe originally they planned to and that got taken out [and i haven't made it all the way through the bill yet]. but medicaid [and medicare] are under the senate finance committee, so that bill is the one to watch for on this.
OT, hipparchia
But I thought you'd appreciate this.
Krugman kitteh blogging with a shout out to Yves.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
- Sir William Drummond
Medicaid recipients get treated like red-headed stepchildren in
lots of states.
What are they thinking???
Nixon did do better in his plan, didn't he?
Where's that Democratic president we elected?
Huh
What Democratic President? The candidate coming out of the primaries wasn't a Democrat. He told us, in so many words, that he wasn't a Democrat during the primaries.
Why is anyone surprised?
This gets into the details.
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treat...
In Maine we call this Dirigo Health
Which means expensive, covers only @70% after a huge deductible until you reach an utterly bankrupting out-of-pocket max. In other words, it barely can be considered to be actual coverage. No wonder they only subscribe 9400 and shrinking. "Projections" in 2004 said there were supposed to be many x that number by now. Since then, they've actually cut off enrollment and nearly closed up shop. Anthem did a great job making sure it was stillborn. And that's what it looks to me is happening here--the industry wants this "public option" nonsense dead long before it can be born, and they know how to do it even if something ends up passing.
Maine Owl, could you post some history on Anthem?
Let's know that "keep the insurance companies honest" talking point right in the head, eh?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"So here we are"
There is that killer lack of agency so popular in the media and blogosphere, these days. So, here we are? No. We were brought here by somebody(ies).
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
But no one knows...
Damon, no one knows how to pass that bill! So here we are!
[That's because the bill they should be passing puts over 300 million Americans in a real public plan.]
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We can't afford not to have single-payer!