Right wingnuts aside, people want a public option as a part of health care reform. They understand what it will do – cover people who can’t get health insurance now at a cost they can afford and at the same time holding down overall health care costs. That’s considered a good thing by people who aren’t batshit crazy.
Poll: Majority Want Public Option More Than They Want Bipartisan Bill
And in Warrensburg, Missouri the local paper is conducting an online “poll” (it’s not scientific):
Should health care reform include a public option versus only private coverage?
As of this writing “Yes” is getting 62% of the responses.
Uh, Claire, the teabaggers of August have run their course. They have never voted for you and they never will. And they’re in a very small minority.
Senator Claire McCaskill (D) yesterday via Twitter:
I’m confident that we will have plenty of time to examine bill before Senate debate. It will be posted on internet too. about 9 hours ago from web
I’m for a public option, as I have said here many times. @msstagabout 9 hours ago from web
I’m not sure that everyone understands that a public option will only be available to those who don’t have insurance coverage, not everyone. about 9 hours ago from web
Is that so insurance companies continue to price gouge everyone else?
And there has to be a limit on federal $ to public option, with same rules as private companies that will be available to choose from. about 9 hours ago from web
I’m waiting for the proviso that any public option must have a 30% overhead cost so as not to put insurance companies at any disadvantage.
We’re all just hoping that Claire’s legislative impact on health care reform doesn’t cause a similar result to her legislative impact on cutting back the stimulus. And we’ll be watching those votes.
Everything quoted here is classic Claire.
1) She still thinks the teabagging, deadenders in this state will somehow vote for her. As long as she has the (D) associated with her name (no matter how much it doesn’t really apply), they’ll never vote for her. When will she ever figure that out?
2) She’s waffling on what she sees as a difficult issue. Funny how she didn’t waffle this much on FISA.
Useless Senator. Totally useless.
she is just going w. the flow that is masquerading as health care reform inside the beltway. None of the bills that are under consideration contain a public option that amounts to anything. None of the “options” under consideration will be open to all comers. Those who do qualify will either pay full cost or receive tax derived subsidies determined by means testing. So cost savings is out the window.
Just yesterday, Ricklm posted a piece from very very reputable Don McCanne MD of the Physicians for a National Health Program,
It might be nice to have a public option but I think it would be even nicer to know what sort of public option we are going to have.
I am pretty sure Claire is not the real problem. She is just a cog in the wheel.
Quote Claire- “I’m not sure that everyone understands that a public option will only be available to those who don’t have insurance coverage, not everyone.”
This is likely to be the compromise. Whether they are calling it a public option or not, it won’t be, because it won’t be available to “the public”. This is the worst that can happen IMO. They will impose a mandate on the general public that forces us to buy the same crummy, overpriced private insurance and no real public option. The insurance industry will agree to take anyone, and the federal government will subsidize the ridiculous price the private insurers will still be charging. If it isn’t a limited access government option, it will be a trigger. Of course the trigger will never be pulled because the insurance industry will have no problem justifying their increases. And for democrats to believe that they will fix it later is shortsighted because if we can’t get a public option with a super majority, how will we ever get one with a (predictably) smaller majority in 2013? This majority is once in a generation.
As a an avid news reader, I am frankly surprised that so many of my fellow democrats are still under the assumption that we are going to get a genuine public option. It has been obvious to me for months that it was already gone.
This is going to be bad news for the democrats, because the mandate without an alternative for most people to the insurance industry will sour many many voters on the idea that this was about health reform. They are going to perceive this as a law that was imposed on them that forces them to be subjects of the same industry that killed meaningful reform. The mandate without an alternative is nothing less than corporate servitude to congresses contributors/masters in the insurance industry.
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And unfortunately that perception will be pretty spot on.
There is a lot of earnest protestation regarding “option” going on in DC right now, but the original (and real) concept of the public option (referred to by some as a robust public option) is not and has never been a part of any of the current bills being discussed in either the House or Senate.
If we see a bill w. a compromised public option or trigger option, we are in deep doodoo since the legislation is not scheduled to be implemented until 2013 and we will need another ten years after that to find out that it doesn’t work. Three quarters of a million dead from lack of health care access and our economy in even more dreadful shape than it is now will be the price we pay.