When you go through the details, it’s hard to find a reason for voting “no”. I find it very curious why those on the right or “right-of-center” are having so much trouble with a public option for America’s health care programs. 

Their number one reason for concern seems to be that “private insurance companies would be forced to go out of business”. Let’s look at that comment and see if it is a fair statement.  The proposed “Public Option” today would be as follows: 

>>> The “Public Option” would lower costs through price competition, as the current  

>>> It would focus on small businesses that could previously not offer its employees

>>> It would also offer coverage for low income individuals that could not afford private

        insurance. (Yes, there would be some subsidies for these low-income individuals, but no subsidies for the system itself.)It does not involve a government takeover of the US health-care system. Only the consumers who are eligible and want to enroll in a government-run health plan would do so. Anyone who preferred private insurance benefits could still get them. There would not be anyone between you and your doctor, as the insurance companies are placed today.  (You will notice that insurance companies add no value to your personal health care, but they sure can take value away when they turn down your doctor’s request for your tests, treatment, prescriptions or coverage.)“Righties” are always making noise about free markets,  competition and against monopolies.  But today, America’s health care industry is run by less than 10 major companies.  (And in a number of states, one or two companies have over 95% of all the states health care coverage.)  So where is that famed Republican attitude today about “free markets and competition” with US health care?In addition, today the health care companies can prevent anyone from getting insurance if they have a pre-existing condition.  They can drop you at any time for any reason, or no reason.  They can and have raised health care premiums on average at about 10% per year for the last 5 years.  With the proposed reforms and a “Public Option”, none of these actions would be allowed.  So what’s not to like?And as to the costs.  Those on the right tell us they want to hold down spending and fight big deficits.  Per the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO,) it showed in its scoring of Senator Jay Rockefeller's public option proposal, it would “cut the costs of insuring everyone”. According to E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post; ”The public option also uses government exactly as advocates of market economics say it should be deployed: not as a controlling entity but as a nudge toward greater competition. Fans of the market rightly oppose monopolies. But in many places, a small number of insurance companies -- sometimes only one -- dominates the market. The public option is a monopoly-buster.”This is what is so disturbing about the public debate over health care.  It has nothing to do with reasonable debate or substance, but instead, as the far-right always enjoys, is when the discussion becomes totally emotional and ideological.  As Mr. Dionne also stated, “Because opponents know from polling that the public wants the chance to choose a government plan, they move the discourse to abstract and often demagogic ground. The most revealing "argument" during the Senate Finance Committee's public-option debate on Tuesday came from Senator Chuck Grassley who said; "The government is not a fair competitor, It's a predator".  Grassley was then asked to explain how he felt about Medicare and Social Security. Is it predatory for government to pay health bills for the elderly? Is Social Security, which lives side by side with private pension and savings plans, predatory? Is it predatory for government to regulate predatory lenders or stock swindlers or bank bunglers? I guess Senator Grassley feels that it is.  (And remember, Senator Grassley is the one that wrongly told his Town Hall meeting attendees that the health care reform would “pull the plug on grandma”.)So with all this positive input that I’ve mentioned about the “Public Option”, why did the Senate Finance Committee, vote “no” this week, 15 to 8 on Senator Rockefeller's strong health care bill and 13 to 10 on Senator Charles Schumer's compromise version?  And why did Senator Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, say that the public option was a “dandy”?  He even said;  "There's a lot to like about a public option."  But then he voted “no” twice because he believed “too many other senators would vote no”.  (Kind of reminds me when a small child whines; “But everyone else was doing it.”)In other words, if you are a conservative Democrat from Montana, as is Senator Baucus, where the population has voted in the polls multiple times for preferring a “Public Option”, I guess it’s more important to vote along with the other Republicans than it is to support your own constituents and your fellow Democrats.  When will chairman Baucus come to the realization that nothing is going to bring the Republicans along for supporting a public option, no matter how much he tries to coddle them on the finance committee?  I’m afraid for Mr. Baucus that if for some reasons the public option eventually fails, he (and other conservative Democrats) will be paying a big price at their next re-election campaign.Unfortunately, all of this noise has obscured the real focus and importance of this debate on America’s future health care programs.The real issue is that more than 45,000 Americans die every year because they do not have access to health care.  (That’s a 123 deaths every day.) In addition, more personal bankruptcies in the US are due to excessive health care bills from a catastrophic illness.  This is getting worse every year as the health care companies keep raising their premiums, continue paying excessive salaries and bonuses to their executives and as they deny every 5^th request for treatment.  And this does not include the individuals that are dropped for no reason, dropped when they get sick or are turned down for coverage due to a pre-existing condition.This has got to stop.  The United States is the wealthiest nation in the world and is somewhere between 29^th and 37^th in the world with our current abysmal health care system, depending on how they do the ratings.  In any case, what a disgrace for a nation that is slowly losing its middle-class status while working toward becoming a third-world nation.

Copyright G.Ater  2009

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