White House To Back Health Care Co-Ops?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Democrats, Health Care, Legislation
I’ve written quite a bit about the co-op option recently because it seems like a viable bipartisan solution.
Now it looks like the White House is signaling that they’re willing to forgo a government run, public plan and accept alternatives (like co-ops) to garner Republican support.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met last night at the U.S. Capitol with Senate Democrats and told them Obama is “open to alternatives†to a new government insurance program in order to get legislation overhauling the health-care system to his desk, said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota.“His message was, it’s critical that you do this,†Conrad said.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana said Emanuel urged the senators to seek Republican support and didn’t discourage them from pursuing the use of non-profit cooperatives, an idea Conrad has proposed.
The story has been updated to say that Rahm didn’t suggest this, but I bet he did and I can understand why he didn’t want this to get out. This would be a quite a slap in the face to Congressional Dems, but I think the White House has to reign the health care debate back in because Pelosi has been managing it so poorly.
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 and is filed under Democrats, Health Care, Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I doubt he actually said anything substantive. Obama’s health care strategy is tell Congress what he wants to do, let them come up with something they can pass, and move forward from there. As such he doesn’t really care one way or the other about the co-ops. Obama wants an improved health care system that covers everyone and controls costs. The public option does that pretty much by definition, but co-ops could do it too.
Emmanuel probably just said the co-ops weren’t a deal-breaker for the President. Conrad wanted to hear that the President supports the idea because Obama’s a good guy to have in your corner in DC.
June 24th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
No public option means that it will fail. Not one of the alternative proposals, including the co-op, will really help reign in costs or help the people who need it worst.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Every plan “costs.” We’re just shuffling around who pays for it and who gets the services.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Jim S. There are enough solid methods out there to control costs – none of which suggest a public option: Don’ t pay surgeons or hospitals to fix their surgical errors. Don’t pay per service, pay for results. Share information on what works.
Pay more when it does work – give incentives to solve the problem, not just to play with shiny billion-dollar toys.
nowhere has a medical journal shown conclusively that a public option will control costs.
Mass. has not controlled costs with mandatory health care either.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I doubt he actually said anything substantive.
He didn’t. Even ABC itself found him unconvincing, after stacking the deck entirely in his favor for the health care
infomercial“Town Hall.”Others were even less impressed:
“…even with ABC’s best-laid plans to kickstart the debate about health care reform and not allow the “Prescription for America†special to become an “infomercial,†as many have complained – the president spent more than twice as much time as his questioners vaguely answering or not answering the questions asked of him.
…While Obama had to field some difficult questions — from the audience and ABC — he faced no Republican critics of his proposals. The network also allowed him to dominate the program with long-winded and vague answers.”
Yeah. He does that a LOT. It’s when he does anything other than that it’s noteworthy.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
I don’t understand what the big deal is about “bipartisan support.” It’s not going to happen, unless the Dems hold the Repubs feet to the fire and say, “If this fails, it was because they opposed everything we suggested. Blame them…at the next elections.”
3 out of 4 Americans want health reform. I wouldn’t want to be on the side which opposes them.
June 25th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
How can the democrats get away with that given the size of their majority?
June 25th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
3 out of 4 Americans want health reform.
I’d be interested in seeing (and deconstructing) those figures. Source, please?
June 25th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Tully,
There is a figure that says about 2/3 of Americans want a government option, but that figure drops to about 1/3 if private insurers cannot compete. Of course, this is exactly what will happen when taxpayer money is used to subsidize the premiums of the public-plan’s constituants, or the government forces hospitals to accept less payment for the same treatment, as Medicare does today.
Think about what may happen if 100 million people rush into the public plan or are dumped there by their employers within 2-3 years of its initiation. Not only would there be an enormous strain on the system, but the private insurance companies would have to raise their premiums to adjust to their smaller insurance pool, thus resolving themselves to a higher and higher paying clientele and excellerating the flight to the public system.
Eventually, we would end up having a system resembling a national health service, except Obama doesn’t favor individual mandates to sign up so you would still have millions of uninsured. And rich people would still get superior care.
Basically, everything that we want to reform about health care gets worse with the government-subsidized public option.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
One thing that isn’t acceptable is taxing people’s health benefits. Being the biggest loser out of anyone if some type of universal health care does get passed – working for the state – I have obnoxiously good benefits. I pay 70 a month for family coverage. That’s it. no copays, no fees, nothing. It’s worth like 25k a year. Know what I can’t afford to pay taxes on? 25k a year. I’d give up my benefits and sign up for the gubberment plan.