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Key Senators, White House Officials, To Discuss Public Option Tonight

Brian Beutler | October 21, 2009, 12:20PM

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Health Care, House of Representatives, Public Option, Senate, White House

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Silence is golden. That's Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's mantra as he heads the delicate process of crafting a single Senate health care bill from two separate packages. But so far, the House's swift and decisive action on the public option seems to have had little impact on the hiss position.

Reid is adamant that the insurance industry should lose a decades-old anti-trust exemption that allows companies to divvy up markets and agree not to compete against one another. But he and other senators are still mum about whether they'll systematically end the non-competitive nature of health insurance markets by including a public option in the Senate's health care bill.

At an event today focusing on the anti-trust issue, Reid said that he, along with Senate health care leaders, and White House officials will discuss the public option in yet another closed door meeting tonight.

After the event, I asked Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to describe what, if any, impact House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to move forward with a robust public option will have on the Senate's deliberation. Schumer was uncharacteristically reserved.

"The House has its position, the Senate has its and as Senator Reid said he's working on it, we're all working on it, to come up with a position that's good for the caucus," Schumer said.

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12 comments

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Indie Pro

October 21, 2009 12:30 PM

"a position that's good for the caucus"

Pelosi's Public Option: deficit neutral, less than $900 billion, covers 96 percent of all Americans

Obama's Administration and Reid are being schooled by Pelosi!

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jimbomoron

October 21, 2009 12:40 PM in reply to Indie Pro

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but let's wait and see what the 96 percent coverage means. If it means 96 percent coverage where a family of four earning $80,000/yr. has to spend 8 percent of their income on a policy having a $4,000 deductible, 20% co-insurance, and $10,000 out-of-pocket cap, how good is 96 percent coverage?

If the pay-or-play is strengthened, and number of Americans who purchase health insurance on the Exchange declines from 29 million to 22 million, is that really good policy?

I think it's unfair to judge a proposal solely by the cost and the number of people insured. You also have to look at the level of coverage people get, the bargaining power for people on the Exchange, etc. Let's wait and see the proposal in its entirety.

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Indie Pro

October 21, 2009 12:59 PM in reply to jimbomoron

Check the thread when it was first announced, I said the same thing about the details.

But Pelosi is schooling'em!

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Maritza

October 21, 2009 12:44 PM

New CNN poll shows that 61% of Americans support the public option.

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jimbomoron

October 21, 2009 12:45 PM

I stand by what I wrote yesterday:

And that's where I disagree with you. I don't share your views about the magical powers of the public option, and don't believe its absence is worth throwing a political temper tantrum. I think the public option has the ability to lower costs 10-20 percent for more affluent customers, which is certainly nice, but for low and middle-income customers the savings from the subsidies will overtake any savings from the public option.
Here's my numerical calculation: Alan and Jane Smith have two children, and have a family income of $80K/yr. Based on the current bills, they will have to pay $8,800-$9,600 (11-12 percent premium cap) before receiving a subsidy. Now Suppose a private plan costs $14,000, which doesn't seem unreasonable with the 2:1 community rating. Do I think a public plan with the same generosity will cost under $9,600? I don't. I think it will save the taxpayers at most (and that's being wildly optimistic) $14,000 * 20%, or $2,800, which is nice, but it won't save the Smith's anything as $14,000 - $2,800 > $9,600.

In other words, based on my mathematical example, the higher the income, an the less coverage a person purchases, the more he/she will save because of the public option. This is nice. But is it's absence worth keeping the Smiths and millions of other uninsured families one illness from bankruptcy? I'm not sold on that. That's just how I feel about the legislation.

I think it would be better for progressives to turn their attention to the following issues:

1. Whether or not a family can afford the premium (individual mandate penalty, subsidies -- premium caps)
2. Whether or not a family can afford the deductibles and co-pays (individual mandate penalty, subsidies and minimum actuarial value)
3. Whether or not older adults will be able to afford the premium and cost-sharing (individual mandate, community rating)
4. Whether or not the rules on the Exchange will do enough to prevent insurance companies from cherry-picking healthy people (risk-adjustment, community rating, minimum benefits package, tier structure, individual mandate)
5. Whether or not employees of medium-sized and large companies have access to the plans on the Exchange
6. Whether or not plans on the Exchange will be affordable (risk selection of employers who drop coverage, and dump their employees on the Exchange)

These questions -- more than whether or not a public option exists in the Exchange -- will determine the bill's long-term-political fate.

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Dorn76

October 21, 2009 1:04 PM in reply to jimbomoron

But just yelling "Public Option" is so much easier!

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hollywood

October 21, 2009 2:11 PM in reply to Dorn76

The Public Option keeps the whole system honest because there is no overhead or profit motive to constantly raise premiums to feed the vampire investors who now feed off the sick and dying. The Public Option will just accurately reflect the cost of services and nothing else. This will put the profits and monopolies of the insurance assholes in plain view and stop the madness we are all paying for. The relative cost of everything will be held down, subsidies or not.

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jimbomoron

October 21, 2009 4:38 PM in reply to hollywood

The Public Option will just accurately reflect the cost of services and nothing else.

Not true. The public option -- like the other private plans in the Exchange -- will have to pay its CMS, IRS, etc. employees, pay for the buildings, pay for the costs of guaranteed issue underwriting, comply with the reserve requirements, etc. The difference in costs between the public option and other private plans in the Exchange should be similar -- until you add the public option's bargaining power. The bargaining power is what lowers the costs.

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wulfmankarl

October 21, 2009 3:36 PM in reply to Dorn76

Obama Serenades Olympia Snowe! ...then shags her rotten!

http://02e56fa.netsolhost.com/blog1/index.php/2009/10/20/song-olympia-lay-obama-seduces-and-seren

on the Joey Panto Show

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superfly

October 21, 2009 1:38 PM in reply to jimbomoron

And I'll stand by what I have written here, and elsewhere, in response to your BS, you are full of shit.

You know damn well that with the PO being even 10% cheaper, that makes it possible to cover more people with the same or more coverage.

Your math is bullshit. In your example, why does it matter if the PO costs $9,600 or less? It doesn't, what matters is the PO, with the same actuarial value and "generosity" will cost about 12k, maybe more, maybe less, but definitely less than from a private insurer, meaning the Smiths pay less, and the subsidies give more bang for the buck, thus helping more people afford it.

You think you can obscure common sense with numbers and long explanations, and then tweak your arguments with narrower and narrower hypotheticals, but you are full of shit, and you know it.

I used to try to give you the benefit of the doubt, figuring that since you work in insurance (I know, it's just life insurance), you couldn't "see the forest for the trees," (i.e. that insurance is the problem here, not the solution), but you have been called on your bullshit enough times, by enough people, that you don't deserve that anymore. You are full of shit, plain and simple.

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theone718

October 21, 2009 5:25 PM

If they know what is good for their seats they will get that damn PO in the bill

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bmull

October 22, 2009 6:25 AM

All this anti-trust nonsense is just blowing smoke. Doctors are monopolists, and it is impossible to do business with them without being caught up in their anti-competitive schemes. The insurers would of course prefer not to be exposed to more lawsuits, but no government plaintiff is ever going to prevail in this situation.

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