12-15-2009
Joseph LiebermanVia Fax: 202-224-9750Senator Lieberman,As a former supporter of yours during your run for the vice-presidency, I am outraged at your utterly despicable hypocrisy. Did you forget that you are on the record supporting universal health care? That you campaigned on that promise? That modern technology means we can actually find the statements you made during your most recent Senate campaign, including the text from the July 2006 debate, wherein you stated, “What I’m saying to the people of Connecticut, I can do more for you and your families to get something done to make health care affordable, to get universal health insurance”? Did you forget, or are you just a liar who’ll say anything to get elected, then do exactly the opposite.Did you forget that you very strongly opposed the use of single-Senator filibustering, to the point of being the first to co-sponsor a bill to stop that very practice? Again, did you forget that your words are available to be retrieved by today’s technology? Did youforget that you are on the record stating, “the whole process of individual senators being able to hold up legislation with a filibuster is just unfair,” and “I think the filibuster has become not only in reality an obstacle to accomplishment here [in Washington], but it also a symbol of a lot that ails Washington today”? Did you forget that you actually proposed allowing people to buy in to Medicare starting at age 55? Did you forget that technology allows us to quote you as stating, “What I was proposing was that they have an option to buy into Medicare early and again on the premise that that would be less expensive than the enormous cost. If you’re 55 or 60 and you’re without health insurance and you go in to try to buy it, because you’re older … you’re rated as a risk so you pay a lot of money.” That you have the unmitigated gall to single-handedly block health care reform legislation that this nation has desperately needed fordecades is despicable. That you have the audacity to not only ignore your immediate constituents (who overwhelmingly support health care reform with a public option), but the nation as a whole, who favors serious reform, not this watered-down garbage you’re forcing through your hypocritical and childish (maybe even paid-for) actions, is outrageous. You are a disgrace to the seat you hold and the position you’ve been trusted with. Angrily,Jill [Last Name]ANYONE WHO WANTS, CAN COPY AND SEND TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT. BE MY GUEST!
Dear Mitch,Thank you so much for your hard work organizing support for comprehensive health care reform. The Senate bill contains some critical reforms-- a better regulated and more affordable market and outlawing discrimination based on health, age, and gender. It expands health care to over 30 million Americans and saves us hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. However, it is not enough. The Senate plan primarily focuses on the market and still leaves more than 10 million Americans without coverage. As you know, when Congress returns from the holiday recess, the bill will be in conference to reconcile the House and Senate versions. The public option in the House version can play a critical role in extending health care to all Americans. Those 10 million who remain to be covered can be offered the public option. A limited public option to a select group of Americans who are not covered under the Senate plan, Medicare or Medicaid, should be available as a low cost government insurance option. I hope the President and Vice President will lend their voices to the millions of Americans who believe that a public option is essential to covering all Americans affordably.
Your ardent supporter,
Kayan Clarke
I graduated from high school in 1976. After Vietnam and Watergate, many of my generation hoped that better times were around the corner. They were not. Instead of retiring McCarthyism and the "Love it or leave it!" blind adherance to the edicts of authority, we got the "Moral Majority" and "Trickle Down" economics. The ultimate effect has been boom and bust economic cycles, judgmentally moralistic intrusion into personal and family matters, and for-profit medicine which answers only to shareholders and insurance company bureaucrats. We have utterly failed to achieve gender equality. Racism is as prevalent as Wall Street's greed. We have the highest prison population of any nation or empire in history, whether you consider percentages or absolute numbers. And prisoners get out, having supposedly paid their debt to society, unemployable, unwelcome, like toxic waste. Too many were convicted of the victimless, non-violent crime of smoking a plant that never killed anyone except for when woven as executioners' rope.
President Obama now says that during his campaign he never supported a Public Option as a part of health care reform. Well, he shouldn't have promised then what he doesn't support now. Today on Democracy Now (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/23/headlines) it was reported, "As a presidential candidate, Senator Obama touted the benefits of a public option. On his own campaign website, Obama promised that under his health plan, 'any American will have the opportunity to enroll in [a] new public plan.' As President Obama said in his weekly address that any plan that he signs must include a public option."
I voted for change. I cannot adequately express my disappointment in President Obama's backtracking on the Public Option. Yes, we may actually (finally) be getting "a Patients' Bill of Rights on steroids," but mandating that people buy policies from insurance companies, already chafing at the regulation to come, without the genuine threat of competition from a public plan, is ludicrous! If we are to cut costs anyway, then let these for-profit entities prove that the market can compete with the type of public option that was originally proposed! That proposal was not a complete single-payer system. Just a safety net.
President Obama cannot be blamed completely for this state of affairs. The filibuster has allowed individual senators to hold bills hostage to their demands. And the "Blue Dog" Democrats might as well be Republicans. They like to vote with them anyway.
I just had to express this incredible welling of disappointment. President Obama's reversal on even claiming to have previously supported the Public Option is like the proverbial straw. After the long drought of Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41, the "Contract with America," Dubya-n-Cheney...this camel's back, and heart, are breaking!
Easy to say "No...." To my fellow Single Payer & Public Option Advocates
I know you care, I really do. And I respect your views. I am a Single Payer & Public Option Advocate. AND I am one of the masses in need. I’m not quitting on these goals. I’m still working to make them more possible. I was right there beside you carrying your literature, calling Congress, driving out of town for meetings -until now- until these final hours.
The reality is the choice is "Yes now," or WAIT for a date in the future (maybe decades) that puts getting anything better a very long shot. Not one person has shown me a bill with a public option AND with *all* the needed vote commitments attached to pass NOW. Give me something that will start helping the sick and in need *right now.*
I have no doubt you can -in your mind- "Win" by killing this bill. But I don't believe you will get a public option this round. PLEASE DON'T just "KILL THE BILL" in CONFERENCE without *all* the votes *in hand* for a completely secure Public Option bill, with an immediate implementation timeline.
The cost of waiting is too high! I am not willing to play “all or nothing“ with people’s Healthcare, --and for 45,000. this year, with their life! I want what you want. Really! *Read the bill! Easy to say "Soon…."
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acnGUWWbTT4
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Why would a SINGLE PAYER & PUBLIC OPTION Advocate be glad for the Senate Healthcare bill moving forward? 12-21-2009 By Barbara BenedictI'm not celebrating blindy and wildly, I'm just hopeful now and interested in moving forward where we can. Over and over other*(1) Single Payer Advocates keep saying "We can do better!" I keep asking them, "Show me the Votes and I'm right there with you supporting a different bill" but only one that's on the table right now --not some "wished for" time in the future. (1)* I am a Single Payer Advocate!I'm not going to blame the Obama Administration completely for the choices my Representative made. The behind the scenes were/are very ugly yes, but our Representatives made their choice. If they really wanted to holdout to support a Public Option or Single Payer --yes, at risk of their individual careers in Congress-- they would have. They should have been willing to lay their own butts and careers on the line, but they didn't. So they either disagreed ideologically with a Single Payer or Public Option ideology, or they covered their own butts (in the Congressional fraternity). Legally their vote was 100% theirs to make. They made their choice. OK, so “Next!” After a very long fight, time to move forward. Soon (hopefully) we will have some power back in the House to fix the bill in Conference best can be for this round. Meanwhile 45,000. people die annually in the US related to lack of health insurance. This right here and now fact is completely unacceptable to me! The current plan, that the moment the President signs the bill, all children will have access to healthcare, and people who are already very sick can't be dropped from their insurance coverage is fantastic! I cannot comprehend those who say "we get nothing." One could choose to look at the glass as ¼ full…Right *now* I have a friend with a baby girl that has a catastrophic life threatening illness. While her baby girl battles for her life, I hope that the security of her baby girl not being dropped from coverage will at least give some comfort to her and her family during this terrible, terrible time. Look someone in the eye that is sick now, possibly dying, and *has no healthcare* and tell them you'd rather they wait for a more perfect bill. I can't do it! If you can do this, then how about at least helping someone without any insurance now buy a plan for the long wait ahead --out of your own pocket-- while they wait for better? It could be a learning process… But even if you wanted to do this, you can't really even do it for them until pre-existing condition exclusions are eliminated. So far in the current bill, pre-existing condition exclusions will mostly be eliminated and that’s huge!Right now I don't really care (the most) if private big pharma and insurance gets richer in the short run*(2). They will continue to do so no matter what so long as they exist. I feel confident the Single Payer & Public Option movement will get stronger and will eventually eliminate Insurance Companies and/or their abuses one step at a time. But it takes time! I'm not comfortably patient waiting for this time in the slightest. For me, current key healthcare bill promises wouldn't even kick in until 2014 --way too late to help my personal situation. But my passion for this moving forward is not all about me. **2 There are lots of creative ways to force some key issues down the road, once everybody is on a plan. To be discussed later, when it’s relevant.Contrary to those who would imply the opposite, I too am fighting for those who have no one to stick up for them. Being an activist and maybe savvier regarding my rights than some non-active folks, hasn't gotten me any better treatment or help for my personal situation. Frankly participating in the fight for SP and PO cause has exhausted me and hasn't been the best thing for my personal health… Every minute I give to the causes takes away from my personal immediate healthcare battles. So make no mistake! I too am one of those folks who need help and a voice to stick up for them. I know the game, we activists play just as many as Congress; It’s called human nature and we are all carriers of this disease. I am fully willing to lay my “likeability quotient” on the line in order to stand up for the currently very unpopular thing in my activist community. I’m not going to keep my mouth shut and “go with the flow.” If I did, that would make me just like the Congress members who have so disappointed me.PS. Even if they disagree with my position vehemently, I genuinely respect those who have taken their stand publicly. I respect those who are not just hanging around waiting to join the “winning team” but instead are putting their personal capital on the line; At voting time and/or general support time, I will remember who did, and who didn’t. It’s a “character thing.”
That's right John Boehner stated, "I'm still trying to find the first American to talk to who's in favor of the public option, other than a member of Congress or the administration."
What's worse is John Boehner says he has not met one person who supports the public option. Well maybe he is correct because all he does is talk with health care industry lobbyist.
The single payer, public option is quite simple. HR 676 is about 30 pages in length, it covers everyone, and it saves money.
Under the current reform packages, citizens will still be left without health insurance; 17 million left out of the House version or the 24 million left out of the Senate version.
Under the current reform packages the number of people who are underinsured will increase with this legislation.
Under the current reform packages the legislation will not control health care costs and will in fact increase the waste in health care spending.
Under the current reform packages the legislation transfers hundreds of billions of public dollars to private insurance companies, who are the main culprits of the problems with health care.
Under the current reform packages the legislation protects the outrageous profits of the pharmaceutical corporations.
If the United States would follow a national single-payer system, doctors, hospitals and other health care providers are paid from a single fund administered by the government. The high administrative costs and wasteful spending associated with the private health insurance industry would be eliminated, resulting in savings of nearly $400 billion annually and enabling all Americans to receive high-quality care, including those who currently have insurance but still cannot afford medications and treatment.
As far as John Boehner not finding anyone who supports the public option! Well maybe he can read, or maybe not, the CBS Poll in November that showed at least 51% of those polled wanted a government option.
Or wait a mintue Representative Boehner, isn't the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars costing the United States well over $1.5 trillion?
Robert Dobbs for Congress, SC-01
I called my senators, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and the White House to say that without a public option, the current Senate "health care reform" bill will be toxic to the Democrats and the American people. Forget 60 votes! The president has the majority he needs (51 votes) to expand Medicare via budget reconciliation. We need to put the pressure on Congress and the White House to do just that.
Those who dine with lobbyists keep sending us the bills.... bad bills! The current bill is not a victory for health care reform, but for the private insurers who are gouging us all. If the President celebrates this bill (should it pass) as a victory, I will be withdrawing from OFA. Many of us, who worked hard for his campaign, will, sadly, feel we have no choice but to do so. He is wrong about this one and needs to start using the power he has to make the changes we need. Many politicians opposed Medicare in the sixties, but Johnson stood firm. President Obama needs to do the same. At the very least, states should have the right to "opt in" to Medicare for all. Under the proposed bill, states with progressive health care systems they fought for (like Vermont) will be forced into a system worse than the one their taxpayers rejected. People will be forced to buy insurance from the private insurers (leeches) who are bleeding us all! Write and phone your Senators, Speaker Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the White House.
According to the Almost Pointless news service Democrat in the Senate have tentatively reached a deal with themselves to drop the “public option” from their Private Health Insurer and Pharmaceutical Company Give Away Act. I believe that is what it's called now.
The public option you will recall was the Orwellian fig leaf which was not going to be an option for the vast majority of the public but was named in such a way as to mollify progressives who, being the tree-hugging dewy-eyed idealists they are wanted Democrats to go with the cheapest and most direct and effective way to give health insurance to the American people: Medicare for All. Bastard progressive citizens.
So to give up the fig leaf to so-called moderates, Democrats in the senate who claim to be progressive or liberal must have gotten quite a lot. We can guess then there is an agreement to drop any public mandate. That would be balance, no public choice no government force. And an agreement break private insurance state monopolies, not politely suggest that they break. An agreement to lock in draconian financial loss rates so private companies can no longer make more profit the more they allow Americans to suffer. An agreement to severely regulate patents on medicine because the same senators who believe employers have the obligation to pay workers as little as they can get away with can not also believe medicine makers can continue to charge whatever they feel like for life saving drugs forever. That would just be evil.
Perhaps they did even better than any of that. The clever Democrats.
So we wait for the rest of the story. Well, for the story actually since this is so far a rumor. Don't ask me why it is being published by a service that purports to convey news. It may be complete fiction; a last try by some conservative scumbags to work the country using a willing old media stooge and force their colleagues into the position of appearing to renig on a deal that never existed.
Let's find out together.
To trigger or not to trigger.
First, the idea for the trigger assumes that the status quo is acceptable and that the trigger will only be used if things get worse. The status quo is NOT acceptable. It’s like saying that you will call the fire department if things get worse when your house is burning down.
Quoting Senator Chuck Schumer, "Any reasonable criteria for triggering a public plan has already been met."
Let’s be clear. This strategy to make the public option more palatable to blue-dog democrats is nothing more than a sham. To quote Jason Rosenbaum from HCAN:
“The trigger amendment isn’t a fig leaf. It isn’t even a co-op. It’s a plan to kill the public health insurance option outright, and give taxpayer money straight to private insurance companies.”
We must continue to remind our Senators and Representatives that health care insurance reform must be meaningful. And triggers are not acceptable. We have come this far in our fight to get the public option into the final bill.
Let’s not give up now.
Leading Political, Legal Blogger Glenn Greenwald on Afghanistan, State Secrets, Healthcare and the Media
GLENN GREENWALD: ....I think the real question, though, is, the White House claims in public now that the President favors a public option. There have been lots of reports that, in private, they’ve been working against a public option, urging the senators not to include it in the package, that their deals with the healthcare industry is that there would be no public option. So, now one can only speculate about what the reality is, but I think now the question is, you know, they’ve proven in the past that they’re willing to apply heavy pressure tactics on members of Congress. They applied all kinds of threats against House progressives who didn’t want to vote for the war supplemental bill to force them to do so and support the President.AMY GOODMAN: How?GLENN GREENWALD: Well, according to Lynn Woolsey, who is the chair of the House Progressive Caucus, Rahm Emanuel and other White House political officials were calling House freshmen and saying, “If you don’t vote for the war supplemental bill,” that included the IMF money that the President had promised and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq funding, “you will never hear from us again,” meaning you will have to run for reelection without any support from the President or the Democratic Party infrastructure, which is an enormous threat to make for any member of Congress.So, you know, and the Republicans found a way, in 2004, when Arlen Specter had threatened, as Senate Judiciary Committee chair, to block the President’s Supreme Court nominees, if they thought—if he thought they were going to overturn Roe v. Wade, to humiliate him by saying, “You will not have this chairmanship unless you vow in advance to allow these nominations to go forward.” So parties can apply all sorts of pressure on members of Congress who are being recalcitrant, if they’re actually serious about doing so.And so, now the question is, will they apply that kind of pressure to Joe Lieberman and prove that they—that this talk about the President favoring a public option isn’t just lip service to placate the progressive base? Or will they use the senatorial courtesy to say, well, look, there’s nothing we can do about Joe Lieberman, just like they did during the Bush years when it came time to oppose the war in Iraq and other issues?JUAN GONZALEZ: And speaking of that lip service to placate the progressive base, you’ve also shown a light on the debate among the progressive publications over this issue of how serious the Obama administration is about the public option, in the battles between Daily Kos, on the one hand, and the Huffington Post and The Nation. Could you talk about how this is affecting the progressive media?GLENN GREENWALD: Well, I think one of the most significant issues of the Obama administration has been what role progressives—the progressive infrastructure has played in applying pressure on the Obama administration. One of the very first things that the Obama administration did—and Rahm Emanuel has specialized in trying to control and silence the left; I mean, that’s how he built his power base—in the House of Representatives was, they created these weekly meetings called Unity ’09 and Common Purpose, where members of all of the allegedly progressive groups devoted to progressive causes meet every week on Tuesday, often with members of the White House communications team, including oftentimes Rahm Emanuel, and they coordinate their messaging. So, instead of being devoted to, for example, pressuring the administration on issues relating to labor or to choice or to gay issues or to war, instead they’re coordinating their messaging to insure that their real allegiance is to serve the interest and the agenda of the Obama administration. And it’s really enabled the Obama administration to annex large aspects of the progressive infrastructure and to remove what ought to be an important pressure point.I think they’ve done the same with lots of progressive pundits, who aren’t necessarily attending these meetings, but who have voluntarily ceded their role in the progressive world and in progressive opinion making and activism. And you see this conflict more and more, I think. For example, the Huffington Post had an article critical of the Obama administration, reporting, for example, that they were working behind the scenes, in contrast to what Obama was saying, to sabotage the public option. And you saw in various places, on Daily Kos and others, suddenly declarations that the Huffington Post was suspect, and they were right wing, and they were the enemy, because anyone who reflects negatively on Obama has to be discredited. And I think you see that conflict, and I hope it will continue to grow, because it’s healthier than having progressives devote themselves to cheerleading for the President.AMY GOODMAN: But explain why they’re against the public option, the Obama administration. The Obama administration, who—well, Obama was for single payer for years, and we have all the video that we keep playing of him endorsing it.GLENN GREENWALD: Well, one of the interesting—most interesting aspects of what has happened here—and I think it illustrates the point I was just making—is, when Obama was running for president, he not only vowed, in general, to have the most transparent administration ever, talked about how secrecy was the toxin of Washington, but specifically with regard to the healthcare debate, he said the problem has always been in the past, that all the stakeholders get in the meetings, and they get accommodated, and nobody knows what’s actually happening, because it’s all done in secret. And he vowed that healthcare negotiations that he’s involved in, not only wouldn’t they be conducted in secret, they would be put on C-SPAN. Instead, as it turned out, the White House, early on in this process, beginning in March and April, were meeting with pharmaceutical and healthcare industry representatives and reaching secret deals with them to insure that they would not sabotage the healthcare plan.And they made two deals, one with the pharmaceutical industry, not to negotiate for bulk prices, to pay full prices, even though they’re going to be the largest purchaser of pharmaceutical products; and one with the healthcare industry, not to have a public option to compete with what it was that they would be able to charge. So, essentially, they would force and mandate healthy, young Americans to buy the products of the insurance company without providing a public option to keep costs low. It was a huge gift to the healthcare industry. And I think one reason was they were afraid that the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry would advertise against the program. But I think the more important concern is, right now, most healthcare money and pharmaceutical money goes to the Democrats—it went to the Obama campaign, it went to help Democrats take over control of the Congress—and they want that to continue. They don’t want that money to go to Republican coffers to take over the Congress in 2010. And so, one of their principal priorities was to make sure that whatever happened was not a threat to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. And that’s why, I think, that early on they bargained the public option away.JUAN GONZALEZ: And yet, there was no big furor among—in the progressive circles, as there was, for instance, when Dick Cheney had all his private meetings to develop energy policy at the beginning of the Bush administration, over the failure of Obama to come through with his promise of a more open and public process on healthcare reform.GLENN GREENWALD: Right. And, in fact, one of the principal controversies of the Bush-Cheney administration prior to 9/11, as you just alluded to, was the fact that they refused to disclose the energy executives with whom they were meeting to formulate energy policy. And they invoked all kinds of claims about how White House visitor logs were not part of presidential records. They were outside of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act, and therefore not disclosable or obtainable. And that created a huge furor among progressives that this was a horribly secret administration.And yet, when it came time to obtain those lists from the Obama White House of the healthcare executives with whom they were meeting, they originally invoked that same theory and said, “We’re not going to disclose it.” And eventually they disclosed part of it. But I think you’re right. This is a case where there was a specific promise to have these healthcare negotiations out in the open; there was an exact opposite of that occurring, and very little furor.
Just follow this link to down load a pdf of the sign: http://www.trivediforcongress.com/window_sign1.pdf
Senator Joe Lieberman has said he will not vote for the public option in regard to health care reform. I have gone to his contact page on the Internet and have left a comment calling him arrogant. Arrogant that he would stop millions of Americans from having affordable access to health care, when I am sure he has never had to worry about it for himself or his family. It is an arrogance that shows he is so out of touch wiith the people of this country that he should not be asked for advice or counsel, when he apparently has little to offer, at least on health care reform.
Senator Lieberman has said he does not want the American government to go in this direction, but for sixty years or so the Senate has done nothing in this regard except for Medicare. Now is not the time to listen to fools, and this man is being one of the biggest. Health care reform with the public option must be passed if we are going to call ourselves a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people.
This has happened before, yet at this time it is important that I mention what has been occurring. When I go to the site to donate, after the submission, the next page appears and asks that I add email addresses of individuals that I know who care about, want and support the Public Option as well. Then after happily submitting their names, the prompter came back and informed me that one of the email addresses I entered is incorrect. So, I went through the list and examined the email addresses I added. They were all correct. In fact, I receive emails from these citizens regularly. So, I resubmitted the addresses again; and the same thing happened.
In an effort to discover which email address was being unrecognized, this time I methodically erased one name at a time to see if any would go through. But, kept receiving the same message. Then just to make certain, I entered one email address from an individual that I had just received an email from and it was unrecognized as well. I wondered why is this happening?
Then I thought, Wow! We are doing much better than even we imagine! Without the ability to rapidly expand and reach out and empower others; we are still achieving tremendous success, (over 300,000 calls in one day), going about it in the old-fashioned way! This just tells us how determined the Everyday Man and Woman are to create and develop the Public Option and secure Real Medical Care for all of our citizens!
In order for all Americans to be covered with accessible and affordable health insurance, the public option is the only way to go. A co-op will leave too many Americans without insurance coverage, and forcing companies to furnish their workers with health insurance will leave American workers enslaved in bad jobs because if they quit they will lose thier health care, not only for themsleves but for the entire family.
The public option will keep the insurance companies more honest, and workers will not be enslaved to bad jobs where there is mobbing and bullying, which, by the way, leads to serious physical and mental injury, not to mention an unacceptable workplace.
The public option is the only way to go if we are going to really look to the betterment of all Americans.
The one thing that has crystallized for me in the last 48 hours is that nobody is getting exactly what they want out of health care reform, from the Progressives to the Blue Dogs and even the insurance companies. In that light, a fair amount of news has been made of the compromise public option introduced by Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) that would include a public option with an additional opt-out clause for individual states. Bloggers, news agencies, and individuals ranging from Paul Krugman and Nate Silver to Fox News and MSNBC have chimed in on the possible alternative.
The idea of the opt-out is intriguing, if only because it has so many variations. There are variations surrounding the type of public option (state, national, and trigger) and the mechanism for opting out (legislative, governor, or public referendum). My opinion is similar to that of Nate Silver (www.fivethirtyeight.com): do not fear the opt-out, fear the details. The entire success or failure of this option will be determined by the choices described above (including how frequently or if, at all, states can change their mind). Let us look at a few examples:
1. Any public option with a governor opt-out: Practically speaking, this would get a public option in most states where the governor is a Democrat (or possibly a moderate Republican like California). This public option would be broad in scope, since large states including New York and California would employ the public option. That would allow the public option to sufficiently diversify risk and, consequently, rates would be lower than in the status quo. This would put tremendous pressure on Republican governors, especially if residents of neighboring states were receiving superior care at a cheaper price.
2. Any public option with a public referendum: This is a difficult policy to implement, as recent public referenda indicate. When would you vote? Would you allow another vote to occur if opinion had swayed? The difficulty in implementing this is probably enough of a barrier to actually legislating it, but it is difficult to determine what a policy like this would look like. That being said, the public option is popular in most states which would lead to the situation described above, a public option with sufficiently diversified risk and significant cost savings.
3. Any policy with a legislative opt-out: This is easier to implement than the referendum and could attract small federal government moderates to the conversation. Presumably, all state legislatures would have the ability to decide whether a state implemented the public option.
On MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell argued that the opt-out public option is a bad idea because any public option would be weak. That being said, his criticism is centered on the quality of the public option and NOT on the opt-out clause itself. Most progressives would object to a weak public option regardless of whether it came with some type of opt-out clause. If anything, the opt-out would increase the likelihood that the public option component could be strong as Republicans would be able to refuse the policy and therefore, continue their push for smaller government in their state.
This is also the reason why this possible solution is unlikely to happen. It actually forces politicians to be accountable for their votes. A short example provides the obvious reason. A state with a Republican governor opts out of the public option and identifies higher taxes and ineffective medical coverage as reasons (even though his reason purely partisan). The neighboring state insures a higher percentage of its citizens at a lower price and higher standard of care, with no effect on tax burden. Does the governor opt back into the public option because his reasons were proven false or continue the policy which hurts his constituents for purely partisan reasons? Does he get reelected?
Another fascinating impact of a state opt-out plan would be the empowerment of the grassroots organization. Most grassroots organizations struggle with resources, often because they are split between national and local lobbying. Opponents of reform, due to their large financial advantage, are able to manage this bandwidth problem. However, with a state opt-out plan, this advantage is nullified as organizations like Durham for Obama, Orange County for Change and others would only need to lobby their local representatives. This would actually give them an advantage over large opposition groups as many local legislators have close relationships with their constituents.
Regardless of which specific policy you believe is best, please join the grassroots efforts in the Triangle (Health Care for America Now, NC Justice Center, Durham for Obama, Organizing for America and others) working for meaningful health care reform. If you have any comments or questions, please e-mail me at mpearlmutter@gmail.com.
