Pelosi reveals House bill at press conference. AP Photo/Alex Brandon
House speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed the House version of a health care reform bill today that includes a public option, which she prefers to call a "consumer option." A Senate version recently unveiled contains a public option as well.
In the House bill, a public insurance option would be funded by $2 billion in federal start-up money and then paid for with enrollee premium payments. The bill expands eligibility for the Medicaid program to those with incomes up to 150 percent of the federal poverty line, or $33,075 for a family for four.
Whether one is for or against a public option in health care reform, one clear distinction must be made. A public option is not a single-payer system and therefore, would not be available to most Americans.
Lost amid the ideological battle is the fact that only about 10% of Americans would be eligible to participate in the public option, even in its most expansive versions. The public option would be available only to people not enrolled in employer-sponsored, Medicare, Medicaid or VA health care insurance plans.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, took to the House floor to voice his objections to the legislation unveiled Thursday. "Is this the best we can do?" he asked. Kucinich favors a "robust" public option and believes that the version backed by Pelosi falls short. Back in July, Kucinich introduced in the House Committee on Education and Labor an amendment that would have effectively allowed states to create state-level single-payer health care. There are bills to do that in several state legislatures. The bill introduced in the House today does not allow states to create a single-payer system unless they opt-out of federal funding.
According to Caroline Lochhead from the San Francisco Chronicle, Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA), are two of a handful of Senators that have focused on widening the exchanges where a public option might be available. Wyden wants everyone who now have employer-based coverage to have access to the exchange if they do not like their insurance companies, but his efforts have been lost amid the narrower fixation on the public option itself.
"When you ask people in a poll, 'Are you in favor of a public option that would be available to everybody,' they say, 'Yes,' " Wyden said. "I don't think they're going to feel the same way about a public option available to only 10 percent of the population."
The key issue this raises concerns about is the overall intent of health care reform, which is lowering costs for everyone. If single-payer is off the table, even at the state level, and the public option is only available to those without private insurance or any of the other government run programs, how can it possibly be competitive enough to drive down health insurance costs for everyone?
David Swanson, author of "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" writes, a public option will "at best will offer a token mitigating element in some states for a disastrous health care policy imposed on all states."
Comments
I'm not sure what I think about this current HC bill -- I haven't really looked through it yet. According to what I've heard, there are some good things in it -- like ending the 'pre-existing condition' scam and providing care for some of the poorest uninsured -- but it also gives the insurance industry $50 billion more of our money.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is doing something smart -- he's bringing to the floor for a vote a single-payer universal HC bill. He knows it won't pass, but he wants to see who votes for it. His 'compromise' position will be to amend the final health care bill to allow states to provide single-payer, and Vermont would be the first. That just might pass and would spell the eventual end of the health insurance racket. The dumb Dems should have done something like this to begin with.
Read more here:
'Sanders to Push for Single-Payer Vote in Senate'
at CommonDreams headlines, 10/29/09. You'll have to Google it since the comments don't allow links.
Thanks for the comment, RS. Don't get me wrong, the bill is better than nothing, which is what the other party would prefer. It is, however, very watered down in an attempt to reach a compromise that never would have happened, no matter what was proposed. Taking single-payer off the table from the start was a huge mistake. That should have been the starting point for negotiations.
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