Obama Pens Health Care Reform Op Ed; Sen. Conrad (D-ND) Declares Public Option Dead in the Water; Sebelius Says Public Option Not an Essential Component of Reform

bartleby the scrivener | Obama has written an op ed for The New York Times setting forth the reasons why we need health care reform, none of which will surprise anyone who supports health care reform. 

There are four main ways the reform we’re proposing will provide more stability and security to every American.

First, if you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of high-quality, affordable coverage for yourself and your family — coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job.

Second, reform will finally bring skyrocketing health care costs under control, which will mean real savings for families, businesses and our government. We’ll cut hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies that do nothing to improve care and everything to improve their profits.

Third, by making Medicare more efficient, we’ll be able to ensure that more tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors instead of enriching insurance companies. This will not only help provide today’s seniors with the benefits they’ve been promised; it will also ensure the long-term health of Medicare for tomorrow’s seniors. And our reforms will also reduce the amount our seniors pay for their prescription drugs.

Lastly, reform will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable. A 2007 national survey actually shows that insurance companies discriminated against more than 12 million Americans in the previous three years because they had a pre-existing illness or condition. The companies either refused to cover the person, refused to cover a specific illness or condition or charged a higher premium.  (NYT)

All worthy goals, and by now familiar ones.  When you read the data, it's impossible to understand why there even is a debate, except among politicians whose funding is paid by insurance companies.

Steve Benen comments on the piece:

That last line -- "No one in America should go broke because they get sick" -- is a keeper. We heard it yesterday, and I suspect we'll be hearing it quite a bit more.

In fact, it also seems that the White House message is getting tighter and more focused as the debate progresses. Ideally, it would have started out this way, and it's possible that for some Americans, the rhetorical shift is too late. But for those who are on the fence or hoping to make up their minds as the summer ends and congressional action heats up, the president and his team have a stronger pitch now than they did a couple of months ago. (emphasis added)

Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) says that the public option is dead in the water.

"The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for a public option. There never have been," Conrad said on "FOX News Sunday."

Conrad is one of six Senate Finance Committee members — three Democrats and three Republicans — who are negotiating a compromise health-care bill that would be the only bipartisan proposal so far....

Conrad has proposed creating non-profit health insurance cooperatives that could negotiate coverage as a collective for their members.

He said Sunday that such cooperatives would provide the competition sought by Obama and Democratic leaders to force private insurers to hold down costs and improve practices. (CNN)

Steve Benen points out that Conrad is wrong about the ability of the Senate to pass such a bill.

As a procedural matter, Conrad's point is largely wrong. If a reform bill reaches the floor, and every Democrat in the chamber agrees that the legislation should get an up-or-down vote, reform with a public option needs 50, not 60, votes. The issue, then, is whether there are some Democratic senators who would vote with Republicans on a filibuster. Conrad seems to be suggesting there are. Indeed, he might very well be one of them.  (emphasis added)

Bill Kavanaugh discussed yesterday why we need a public option, despite the fools who haven't stopped to ask themselves who runs -- for example -- the schools and a host of other services they take for granted.  But Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius seems to think that the public option is not essential to reform.

The White House indicated it could jettison the contentious public option and settle on insurance cooperatives as an acceptable alternative, a move embraced by some Republicans lawmakers who have strongly opposed the administration's approach so far.

Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Obama has been pressing for the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation's almost 50 million uninsured.

Sebelius said the White House would be open to co-ops instead of a government-run public option, a sign Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory on the must-win showdown.

"I think there will be a competitor to private insurers," she said. "That's really the essential part, is you don't turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition."  (Huffington Post)

In his op ed, Obama certainly does not appear to be insisting on a public option -- only that "something must be done."

Almost everyone knows that we must start holding insurance companies accountable and give Americans a greater sense of stability and security when it comes to their health care.

I am confident that when all is said and done, we can forge the consensus we need to achieve this goal. We are already closer to achieving health-insurance reform than we have ever been. We have the American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association on board, because our nation’s nurses and doctors know firsthand how badly we need reform. We have broad agreement in Congress on about 80 percent of what we’re trying to do. And we have an agreement from the drug companies to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors. The AARP supports this policy, and agrees with us that reform must happen this year.

In the coming weeks, the cynics and the naysayers will continue to exploit fear and concerns for political gain. But for all the scare tactics out there, what’s truly scary — truly risky — is the prospect of doing nothing. If we maintain the status quo, we will continue to see 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every day. Premiums will continue to skyrocket. Our deficit will continue to grow. And insurance companies will continue to profit by discriminating against sick people...

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