Affordable Health Insurance Update: Public Option Victim Of Senate "Death Panel"
The so-called “public option” has garnered most of the publicity during the national healthcare reform debate. However, it appears that Senate leaders have pulled the plug on the possibility of a government-run health insurance program. Majority Leader Harry Reid, who supports the public option, announced this week that it will be dropped from the final draft of the health care reform bill. Many liberal Democrats believe that a public option that acts as competition to private insurers is the best way to provide affordable health insurance to more Americans. Reid is a renowned pragmatist–and he prefers that an imperfect (in his eyes) bill passes soon, as opposed to nothing at all.
There has always been an uphill battle where the public option is concerned. Republicans, as a whole, do not support it. They and other detractors fear that it will add yet more debt onto an already bloated national deficit, while being uncomfortably similar to socialized medicine for their tastes. Some conservative Democrats share some of those concerns–and every single Democratic caucus member needs to vote in favor of the bill in order to avoid a filibuster that blocks its passage altogether. As it stood, Ben Nelson and several other Democratic senators threatened to join such a filibuster if the public option was included in the bill: this would be a death knell in a chamber where the Democrats barely have 60 votes, including a handful of independents.
The prospects of the public option have slipped even further over the past month. A federal taskforce released guidelines that pushed back the recommended age to begin mammogram screenings from 40 to 50, which fed into the fear of health care rationing among the American public. Although officials attempted to reassure the population that these recommendations would not be used to establish the medical coverage provided by the public option plan, they failed to alleviate the controversy. In addition, some proposed methods of paying for the public option have also come under fire. Senate committees considered cuts in Medicare coverage, specifically in payments to Medicare Advantage supplemental coverage plans run by private insurance companies. This drew the ire of senior citizens as well as Republican senators, some of whom accused the cuts of cutting seniors’ lives short. Those senators who proposed the cuts claim that the Medicare Advantage program is so overrun with waste and process inefficiencies that reducing its funding would have little or no negative impact on the health of senior citizens. Such arguments were unable to convince the most reliable voting demographic, despite the support of prominent lobbying groups.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that a large percentage of progressives will feel betrayed by this detour. Healthcare reform has been one of President Barack Obama’s domestic policy priorities; in fact, he campaigned on the promise that he would enact some form of a public option if elected. Unfortunately for many of his supporters, he has not followed through. Earlier this week, Obama gave a pep talk to inspire cooperation among the “Gang of 10″ Democrats tasked with figuring out a solution to their disagreement, but did not mention the public option itself. They are also dissapointed that he has chosen to send more troops into Afganistan, against previous statements. Liberal senators, such as Jay Rockefeller, have decided to back down and fight for greater regulation of the industry and more choices in coverage. For the most part, liberal politicians believe that the status quo–with affordable health insurance relatively scarce, and even rarer for people with pre-existing conditions–is so unconsciable that change must occur as soon as possible.
Now, the five moderate and five liberal party members must go back to the drawing board. They have several ideas that hope to make affordable health insurance more widely available without too much government spending. A popular alternative would have the Office of Personnel Management negotiate rates with private health insurance companies: buying a group policy in bulk would presumably save patients money on premiums. In effect, this is the plan federal employees (including senators) currently have, which may quell some of the opposition based on the view that if senators think the public option is so great, why don’t they use it themselves? Moderate Democrats–and even Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe–appear to be more amenable to that possibility. Therefore, the public option being euthanized has not ended the fight.
Contributor: Yamileth Medina
Yamileth Medina is an up and coming expert on Health Insurance and Healthcare Reform. She aims to help people realize that they can find affordable health insurance right now while waiting for a public option, if it ever gets passed. Yamileth lives in Miami, FL.
http://www.vitalonehealth.com/