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Pelosi Echoes Schakowsky, Says People Will Have Choice Of Public Option
Brian Beutler | October 6, 2009, 2:07PM
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
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Speaking to a crowd of about 100 activists and reporters gathered outside the Capitol today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who insisted that health care reform legislation will include a public option.
Pelosi said the legislation would create an exchange "where people can go buy their insurance--and within that exchange we will be including a public option."
Last night on Charlie Rose, Pelosi said Blue Dog Democrats "have not been an obstacle to the public option."
"The question is: which form will it take?...Will it be according to Medicare rates, or will it be negotiated rates?" She asked, rhetorically. "That's really the fight."
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obamaman
October 6, 2009 2:19 PM
Pelosi has more spine and balls than Harry Reid could ever dream of. Women really should rule the world.
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Schmed
October 6, 2009 3:30 PM in reply to obamaman
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Schmed
October 6, 2009 3:31 PM in reply to Schmed
Should read:
I wonder if she borrowed Hilary's extra one.
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theone718
October 6, 2009 5:49 PM in reply to Schmed
You killed your own joke. Sorry...
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oleeb
October 6, 2009 2:28 PM
A public option that is designed to fail isn't worth having. I hope progressives stand firm and refuse to support any bill that doesn't have a very strong public option. And it would also be nice to see them refuse to support a bill mandating health insurance coverage which only benefits the insurance industry.
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Indie Pro
October 6, 2009 2:45 PM in reply to oleeb
I agree with you
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jimbomoron
October 6, 2009 2:36 PM
Pelosi is dreaming if she thinks she can get Medicare rates. That kind of public option couldn't even pass the HELP Committee, and wouldn't pass the full Senate as HELP Committee Democrats tend to be more progressive than caucus as a whole.
That said, I find these public option hourly temperature check diaries based on what politicians say at the moment to be counterproductive. Wouldn't it be better if this blog discussed what they saw the central purpose of health care reform was? If that central purpose is universal coverage, what level of coverage should every American be required to have? What benefits should every American be required to have? What is the maximum percentage of a person's income that someone should be required to pay for this policy? These are the kinds of questions this blog should be asking.
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calchala
October 6, 2009 2:57 PM in reply to jimbomoron
Oddly it's not the insurance companies that are opposed to that public option. It's the hospitals. Technically, they have a good reason. Medicare rates only pay for 90-94% of the costs of most patients. The hospital has to pick up the rest of the tab and they do that by OVERCHARGING private insurance.
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mjshep
October 6, 2009 4:24 PM in reply to calchala
This depends on what you mean by "costs."
Is paying an anesthesiologist $600,000 per year a "cost?"
Is a $30 ibuprofen pill a "cost?"
If medicare only paid 90% of "costs" then is a $27 tylenol a bargain?
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macsurf
October 6, 2009 4:16 PM
Mandates scare me.
I'm a free lance writer, waiter, and bartender who lives half the year on cape Cod and half in Costa Rica, which I use as a home base to explore and write about Central America.
I pay 600 bucks a month for crappy, I mean crappy, health coverage.
I don't want to participate in the MA program because it does not provide coverage outside the Bay State. This company CLAIMS it will cover me while traveling abroad.
Because I have, thanks to an inheritance, some substantial non liquid assets I have invested for retirement, I have to keep myslef covered.
But it is getting harder and harder to do it all the time. On line, today, I just received notice my premiums will be closer to 700 dollars a month as of the first of year.
That will be 8400 a year I pay to an insurance company I've only made one claim to in six years and, even then, they nickeled and dimed me to death over everyting.
I'm not looking for "free" health care. I'm willing to pay, but I'd like to think that as a healthy, basically self employed person, a public option might allow me to buy into a huge risk pool that would mean my premiums would be a fraction of what they currently are, and with better coverage to boot!
To me the public option is a big time no brainer. It's just the right thing to do.
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theone718
October 6, 2009 5:32 PM
I am fine with negotiated rates. If that's what it takes to be done so be it. Actually you can make a case that Medicare rates would save money on the backs of Doctors NOT insurance companies.
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Tanjaoui
October 6, 2009 7:33 PM in reply to theone718
I think Medicare +5% is what Jacob Hacker started out with in an early public option plan. It looks like Medicare for all, really, in embryo. And Macsurf is right: if it's designed to be implemented nationally, the pool is going to be huge and so the costs spread out. Hacker's idea was to pre-enroll millions of people who are already getting their health insurance through the government. The details of the HELP Committee public option are apparently extremely vague, and the running of the option is left up to private insurers. Yikes.
If there's no Medicare-like public option, I'd just as soon this bill sank. I'm very skeptical the government can effectively regulate these companies. They're capable of gaming the system, twisting the meanings of legislation, getting out of contracts on technicalities. If there's no real public option, we should instead hold out for HR 676. It's so much more sensible and honest.
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