Public Option to Start in 2013 - Yea Right

Article by John on July 15th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

Firedoglake has a story about America’s Affordable Health Choices bill just released by the House.  The proposed legislation conveniently delays the start of the Public Plan option until 2013 in order to buffer the cost projections and get the total under $1 trillion over ten years.

How great is it that we may have a new President before the meat of the bill takes effect. This gives the insurance industry 4 years to undermine President Obama and get a new President/Congress elected who will kill the legislation before it ever even takes effect.

Remember before George W Bush was installed into office, the Clinton administration was chasing Microsoft on anti-trust issues and chasing the tobacco industry on remuneration for the medicare costs of cigarette smoking? Whatever happened to those government efforts? As my memory serves me those efforts disappeared once Bush the dictator was installed.  Could it be that Bush was chosen because Gore was perceived as being someone that would continue to be hostile to Microsoft’s monopoly and continue to seek remuneration for health care costs from the tobacco companies?

And could it be that President Obama is now being set up to fail by a Congress that is only concerned with the interests of the insurance industry rather than the people?

The idea that our country has to wait four years to start helping people without health care for budget reasons is ridiculous.  Firedoglake goes on to say:

	In short, it’s about the taxes, and the fact that Fox News doesn’t care that 18,000 people die each year from lack of insurance converage. I had just watched President Obama’s Rose Garden news event on MSNBC, saw Andrea Mitchell then turn to Pat Buchanan for comment !!! and then over to Fox News to see a deliberately uninformed anchor interview Marsha Blackburn and Rep. Yarmouth. Yarmouth did his best to correct the Fox anchor and Blackburn and explain what the bill actually does, and Blackburn did her best to flat out lie about it. The anchor was both duplicitous and clueless. And that’s what we’re in for. All the anchor wanted to talk about was that terrible tax increase on the “so called wealthy” ($350,000/year doesn’t quality) and “so called super rich” ($1 million just doesn’t go as far as it used to). A later interviewee worried about the guy who operates the hot dog stand on the corner outside the NYSE, who will get wiped out by the Democrat’s new taxes.

Bailing out banks, budget considerations and taxes are more important than 18,000 people dying each year. I predict the public option will happen as soon as pigs fly.   And President Obama better be protecting himself from the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy for the next three years while the public option is not a reality but only a future possibility.  The more things change the more they stay the same, especially in Washington D.C.

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2 comments to Public Option to Start in 2013 – Yea Right

• jacksmith

  July 16, 2009 at 8:16 pm · Reply to this comment

  THIS IS IT!

  The healthcare reform bill released by the House Of Representatives is an excellent bill as I understand it. It’s a bill with a strong, robust, government-run public option, and an intelligent, reasonable initial funding plan to cover almost all of the American people. It is carefully written, and thoughtfully constructed, informed, prudent and wise. This bill will save trillions of dollars, and millions of your lives.

  This is the type of bill that all Americans can feel good about. And this is the type of bill that has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of healthcare for all Americans. Rich, middle class and poor a like. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and all other party affiliations. This bill has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of life of every American.

  The house healthcare bill should be viewed as the minimum GOLD STANDARD by which all other proposed healthcare legislation should be judged. All supporters of true high quality healthcare reform should now place all your support behind this healthcare reform bill released by the United States House Of Representatives, as the minimum Gold standard for healthcare reform in America.

  You should all now support this bill with all your might, and all of your unrelenting tenacity. This healthcare bill is a VERY, VERY GOOD! bill for all of the American people. Fight tooth, and nail for every bit of this bill if you have too. Be aggressive, creative, and relentless for this bill.

  From this time forward, go BIGGER and DEEPER with the American people every day until passage of healthcare reform with a robust, government-run public option.

  FIGHT!! like your life and the lives of your loved ones depends on it. BECAUSE IT DOES!

  SPREAD THE WORD

  God Bless You

  Jack Smith — Working Class

  • John democracyforvancouver.org

    July 17, 2009 at 6:55 am · Reply to this comment

    Thanks for your comment.

    Here is an email from someone I consider an expert in the health care reform movement:

    [HR]3200 [America’s Affordable Health Choices Act] is a real shame, especially since the Democrats have a majority in Congress!!!!

    3200 goes so much public, tax-payer money to the for-profit, private insurance companies that you can call 3200 a bailout for the insurance companies.

    Here’s why:

    1. DHHS has taken on the administrative role of enrolling the uninsured into a private insurance plan, i.e., less bureaucracy means less overhead for the insurance company.
    2. Pre-existing conditions is a liability that the government is taking over. A huge give-away of public, tax-payer money so that insurance companies aren’t burdened with the liability.
    3. Affordability credits is an oxymoron. The government is going to give people credit in the event that the insurance plan is too expensive to afford. If you need to apply for credit to buy a plan, isn’t the plan too expensive to buy in the first place – so it must not be affordable, then!!! Duhhhhh….

    3200 is really a new economic stimulus package in the form of health care reform.

    Simply ugly…

    You seem to be very happy with the proposed America’s Affordable Health Choices Act that was just released by the House of Representatives. But you provide no substance as to why it is the “Gold Standard”. Are the American people just supposed to have blind faith with regard to this bill?

    Do you happen to work for the health insurance industry?