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Patients waiting line/AP photo
The latest is that of establishing health "insurance "co-operatives. In reality, it is a completely meaningless construct or simply camouflage for the "Public Plan" option, no matter what Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), ever the compromiser, calls it.
What is a "co-op"? The Cato Institute describes it as
A "co-op" can be defined as a business owned and controlled by its workers and the people who use its services, in this case presumably the people whom it insures. In that sense, government provision of some sort of legal framework or seed money to help establish health insurance co-ops seems relatively harmless but also relatively pointless. This is not really about creating more choices and competition.
Actually health care co-ops already exist. Health Partners, Inc. in Minneapolis has 660,000 members and provides health care, health insurance and HMO coverage. The Group Health Cooperative in Seattle provides health coverage for 10 percent of Washington State residents. PacAdvantage, a California co-op, covers 147,000 people. By all accounts the people insured through these co-ops are happy with their choice. But there is no evidence that they are significantly less expensive or more efficient than other insurers.
However, the sneaky little gimmick is that in the Congressional program, co-op officers and directors would be appointed by the President and Congress, would be a national co-op, and not independent of government control. Congress would set the rules under which it operates.
In the words of Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont) it means that it would just be the single-payer plan that the Democrats have been pushing all along. He says
It's got to be written in a way that accomplishes the objectives of a public option.
Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute writes:
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks likes a duck, it's probably a duck.
If a "co-op" is run by the federal government under rules imposed by the federal government with funding provided by the federal government, it's simply government-run health insurance by another name. Opponents of a government takeover of the health care system should not be fooled.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10306
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Comments
Interesting that you call co-ops a Democrat plan, when Senator Grassley (R-IA) seems to be the most vocal about it. The Democrats look as if they are rejecting the co-op plan, and that's a shame.. it seemed that is could have been a great way to keep government out of it.
A few words on Socialized/Nationalized Health Care from Ronald Reagan before he was a politician. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs It's an extremely interesting listen, there is really no video.
yeah, single payer is what we want! works in europe, canada etc... duh!
Why in the world are you opposed to single payer financing through the American Medicare system? I want Medicare now. sign me up. My 84 y.o. parents are happy with the format. Medicare is only 3-6% overhead compared to 10-32% "overhead" by over 1400 profit-making insurance companies. Read Physicians for a national health program website. Get educated. see HealthCare-Now.org. get with the program & real health care reform!
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