Public Option on Site Map subfolders
Republicans cry “socialiam.” But behind
that socialized medicine babble lurks a hard-headed
calculation about money — all the profits skimmed by the
Health Insurance Industry. Yet, Friedrich Hayek, whose
suspicion of the state was visceral, had this to say in “The
Road to Serfdom: “Where, as in the case of sickness and
accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor
the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule
weakened by the provision of assistance — where, in short,
we deal with genuinely insurable risks — the case for the
state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social
insurance is very strong.”
Something is rotten in American medicine.
It should be fixed. But fixing it requires the
acknowledgment that, when it comes to health, we’re all in
this together. Many on the right would do well to re-read
their New Testament - as the late Edward Kennedy said, “What
we face is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just
the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social
justice and the character of our country.”
Roger
Cohen writes that in President
Obama's Health Care speech to Congress, Obama said he’d
been pondering American character “quite a bit” and did some
musing about too little versus too much government. He is
too deferential. He should be clear that basic health care is a
moral obligation rather than a financial opportunity. A
public commitment to universal coverage is not
character-sapping but character-affirming. "Rugged" independent
American individualism is strengthened, not weakened, when
Medicare makes us healthier.
“
Why the Public Option Matters”, Paul Krugman, September 8,
2009, New York Times
Most arguments against the public option
are based either on deliberate misrepresentation, or of what
that option would mean, or misunderstanding of the concept.
For example, worrying about the creation of a system in
which doctors work directly for the government,
British-style, when that has nothing whatsoever to do with
the public option as proposed. (Forty years of Medicare
haven’t turned the US into that kind of system — why would
having a public plan change that?)
The Public Option matters because, like
Medicare, its cost are lower.
For example, private
insurers pay providers more than Medicare
does.
Private insurance have
higher marketing cost. A
public plan is a
mechanism for controling cost by providing
real competition. And, the public plan is a defense
against reform that requires individual mandates forcing
people to buy insurance from the existing
companies.
In Bush we’ve had a President who did not
believe in the Government he was elected to lead.
Sooner or later Democrats have
to take a stand against Reaganism — against the presumption
that if the government does it, it’s
bad.
That is not the
record of Medicare or Social Security.
PBS on Public Option, Former Exec Wendell
Potter Triangle: Gov-Client-InsCo, Sen
Baucus, Exec Potter
8min 6min
Dem Senator Jim Cooper on Public
Option
FireDogLake.com Conservative Democrats
2min 6 min
Congressman Anthony Weaner Single Payer
Advocate Democrats, Republicans,
Steel, Weaner
5min 10min
Anger on the
Left
"Trigger" is Caving in on the Public Option
9min 5min
Senator Reid, Insurance Lobby, Dem
Weaner
9min
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