HELP Committee Leak Details Likely Outline Of Public Option; Andy Stern Pleased
A source has leaked details to Politico of what reporters there describe as a "draft of HELP's likely public option proposal." Here are the key details:
The option would be one of the Gateway choices. It would follow the same rules as private plans for defining benefits, protecting consumers, and setting premiums that are fair and based on local costs....The payment rates paid by the option would be no more than the local average private rates - but could be less. The Secretary would negotiate these rates.
Initial reports of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions process suggested that the committee's draft would call for a public option that paid providers Medicare rates plus about 10 percent--a robust plan which would have left a wide middle ground on the issue between that committee and the Senate Finance Committee. This leak doesn't rule that configuration out explicitly--but if it's accurate, then the committee's kicking the issue back over to the executive branch, and insisting only that the public plan operate on at least a level playing field with private insurers.
It's unclear whether this language will please freshman Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC)--the HELP Democrat whose reservations about the public option have forced the committee to modify their plan and delay it's roll out.
Still, the developments on that committee seem to have pleased SEIU president Andy Stern who last night wrote, "HELP Committee working hard on solid public option," on his Twitter feed.
| TOPICS: Andy Stern, Health Care, Senate, Senate HELP Committee
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Beutler, little help with the meaning of HELP pls?
June 30, 2009 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Initial reports of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions process suggested "
June 30, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
So one of the committees working on this issue has a not atrocious public option feature. So what? Like it isn't going to be completely ruined as the process goes along and made to be unworkable. The whole thing is a cruel joke being foisted upon a willingly gullible media and an unwitting, native public.
June 30, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess we won't be seeing any ACTA-level control exercised on health reform.
June 30, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Christ Oleeb, get bitter much?
Five committees are working on this plan, three in the House (the Tri-Committees) and two in the Senate. Of them four have now put forward a public option. Sure this thing may get derailed but you pissing on the fire and concluding it is a 'cruel joke' says more about you than it does about the process.
July 1, 2009 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is Kay Hagan a complete whore to the insurance industry or what? Thank the good folks of North Carolina for dragging the entire country down a notch again ... remember Jesse Helms....
Where do these wonderful "christians" get off fucking over poor and sick people just trying to stay alive? Jesus was not the CEO of a large corporation you idiots! He did not show up for a sermon in the corporate jet!
June 30, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
By not giving the poor and sick shelter when they are in dire need, it forces them to crawl on hands and knees to the Christians and beg for their salvation to put a roof over their heads, meaningful employment and medicals bills taken care of. Jesus is a financial icon for Christians and they're making damn sure they get the most bang for the buck.
July 1, 2009 5:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think I need a little assistance with this.
Does this say that the public option in some way has its costs connected to private insurers rates?
June 30, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Looks like it to me.
The whole focus on insurance is like treating only the superficial symptoms of a disease. Insurance is a symptom of the underlying problem. Messing with it only rearranges the deck chairs....
June 30, 2009 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Insurance is not the only problem but it's a profound fundamental problem. When you put a middle man between the payer and the receiver you force up the cost unnecessarily. When that middleman has absolute power and is absolutely corrupt, you've got a hell of a lot more than a "superficial symptom" - you've got a fatal disease. There are other serious diseases as well, but if a man's having a heart attack you treat him for that and then start worrying about his diabetes.
June 30, 2009 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I understood it to be saying the only way the public plan could be competitive with private insurance would be if the cost to consumers were the same. That means if you're paying $1000 a month to AETNA or CIGNA, the public plan has to cost the same regardless. However, the flip-side is the public plan will grow like Jack's beanstalk due to the lack of overhead - no CEO salaries with bonuses and private learjets and vacation homes in the south pacific as well as no special actuary groups who's job it is to determine who is costing too much to insure nor the battalions of legal beagles to defend their decisions in courts. In a couple of years, the public plan will be a real cash cow equal to or greater than social security.
July 1, 2009 5:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
It would appear that the commonly understood notion of competitive and what it is supposed to produce is being turned on its head.
If the preliminary view that is emerging is accurate containment of health care costs will never be achieved.
In the end the plan will be subjected to severe criticism. That criticism will be warranted, but I can say with the utmost confidence, wrongly attributed as to how it came about.
July 1, 2009 5:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Does this say that the public option in some way has its costs connected to private insurers rates?"
In an inverted way. Look at the way the privatized Medicare Advantage plans work. They get paid more per enrollee than standard Medicare meaning that in effect people in government run Medicare pay a higher premium per unit of care. This provision means that opponents of the pubic option cannot artificially inflate its rates above those of private plans in the way that gives Medicare Advantage its advantage. It sounds funny but is really a way of heading public plan opponents off at the pass.
July 1, 2009 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
So if you can't afford the private insurance, they're going to guarantee you can't afford the public option too. Then what are you supposed to do? Oh, I forgot. Declare bankruptcy just like you do now.
Next, having surrendered to the the premise that a public option is unfair unless it is no different from a pro-profit option, they'll go after Medicaid and Medicare.
June 30, 2009 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
"no more than the local average private rates - but could be less"
It is a ceiling and not a floor.
July 1, 2009 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Franken mentioned in his victory presser that he'll be on this committee.
GOOD!
June 30, 2009 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
It could be good.
I'd put a qualifier on this where it'll be good only to the extent that Franken is willing to risk making some enemies. We all know he is uncannily skillful at exposing bullshit but will he do it?
July 1, 2009 6:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nice integration of Twitter!
June 30, 2009 10:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about real reform with a universal health care plan? We have the votes and the malingerers can get on board. If we had public financed elections, we would not have so many senators and representatives in the pocket of the insurance industry. That is the real problem with reform of health care.
July 1, 2009 7:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
We don't have the votes.
Plus public financed elections have their own problems. Who decides which parties qualify and for how much cash? You think the rules for debate participation are rigged against third parties wait until you see the rules for dispersing public funds.
Public financing sounds good but in practice will just be a way of cementing in the status quo. Because you can bet the Dems and Reps are going to agree to any system that cuts say the Greens in for an equal slice of the pie and even less for the various parties to the Right and the Left of the current national parties.
We are already on a path to financing that bypasses the centralized party campaign committees in favor of distributed contributions to individual candidates, public financing is a nod to a world of gatekeepers that is in the process of dissolving away. Public finance just puts a new set of gatekeepers in place. Ya think that Sestak would get a fair shake under a system of public finance of primaries?
July 1, 2009 8:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tying the public-plan rates to the private ones in this way actually really sucks, because one of the big things we need to do to control costs is to change the structure of physician compensation. Doctors currently get paid way more for doing procedures and ordering tests than for researching and thinking about a patient's problem or talking to the patient. Sometimes they don't get paid at all unless they talk to the patient in person. This messes up health care incentives, especially for chronic conditions.
But as I read it, if a public plan wanted to increase capitation rates and decrease rates for procedures, or increase rates for consultations and research, this provision would stop them from doing that.
July 1, 2009 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink