“New Public Option” Not a Public Option

[limpyhobbler]

By: David Dayen Tuesday October 30, 2012 10:49 am

I saw some liberals getting excited about this New York Times description of a nationwide health insurance plan that they cleverly tried to posit as the by-product of the public option.

The nationwide plans would get contracted out by the federal government and be available to consumers in the insurance exchanges. National plans, government-run? Sounds like a public option, right?

Well, no. Multi-state health plans will be made available to exchange recipients. But they will merely be contracted out by the federal government, and run by a private insurance company. This was devised as an admittedly weak substitute to the public option, and nobody who actually understands the Affordable Care Act is presuming that this is in any way the same deal.

These plans are not, however, actual public options. “This is not government-sponsored, and it’s not a public plan,” says Tim Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University who focuses on health policy. “These are plans that contract with the federal government.” [...]

No one at the time, however, thought the multi-state plan would work much like a public option at all. “It’s not really similar at all,” says McDonough, now a professor at the Harvard University School of Public Health. “It’s something that’s going to be more like one private plan choice.”

...

via http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/10/30/new-public-option-not-a-public-option/

[Zen Democrat]

1. I suspect anything from firedoglake about Obama.

They are still PUMAs to me.

[BenzoDia]

2. So, insurance with free preventative care, non-profit/MLR requirements, no coverage caps,

and a high pool of customers to exert downward pressure is junk insurance?

All stated with the same old typical Blue Cross, Republican, junk buzzwords and no mention of what the junk "benefits" are going to be.

Shame on Mr. Dayen for a junk article.

[limpyhobbler]

3. At least he is not lying to people by saying the health plan has a public option.

[Recursion]

4. Medicare is contracted out

So is Medicaid. Has been for decades. The actual provisioning is done by private companies.

[limpyhobbler]

5. I always thought that was the difference between Original Medicare vs. Medicare Advantage ?

Original Medicare = public insurance
Medicare Advantage = Private insurance companies approved by Medicare provide coverage.

I also thought Medicaid has traditionally been a public insurance but states have been privatizing (contracting it out) in the past few years. (http://www.alternet.org/story/152245/is_your_state_stealthily_privatizing_medicaid_and_putting_patients_at_risk)

That could be wrong I guess.

[Recursion]

6. It's the provisioning that's contracted

The actual taking of premiums and payment to providers.

[Shagbark Hickory]

7. Wait til the residents of Vermont find out their proposed single payer system is also

contracted out to the cartels.

Never the less, as long as the patient didn't have to actually deal with the private insurance cos or their bullshit, and as long as they were not rationing care for profit, I could probably live with that.

[Baobab]

10. It has to be! (fake single payer, that is) Shhhh!!! (Secret!)

Shhhh!!!

Big Secret

So, obviously, its not single payer, how could it be?

So it wont save money, it will cost tons, and collapse in four to five years on schedule, just like all the others.

[preventivePhD]

8. Advantages of a True Public Option not the The Plan

A true public option leaves the cost containment strategies of health insurance companies that wreak havok on quality of care. That is the true value of the public option. Harpers ranks medical errors as the third leading cause of death in the U.S based on old data I suspect. However, it's probably at least the 2nd if not the 1st leading cause of death and only a fraction of that is the result of deaths due to lack of health insurance.

Another big advantage of the public option is cost containment which is achieved by reducing insurance company paperwork that accounts for about 30 cents on the dollar in US health care.

Obviously, the Federal plan doesn't have these characteristics so in this case the FireDogLake article has a point.

[Baobab]

9. TPP, TiSA and 1995 WTO_GATS trade deals all block single payer, an important set of facts-hidden

The entire health care "debate" in 2009 was a diversion to keep the country from discovering the facts on health care which are extremely damning to both (political) parties. This is resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who are being denied health care to satisfy a global trade agenda. Americans are being sacrificed on the altar of trade policy that they know wont work in the end because jobs are quietly going away due to automation. So privatization and the alleged prosperity that is supposed to emerge from 'progressive liberalisation' by developing countries and the US is shameless cow-pie in the sky.

Instead trade deals, especially GATS and TiSA intentionally and systematically block everything that can save money in order to prevent single payer and virtually everything that would save money- to maximize the value in the supply chains so to speak. It seems they want a crisis that only the bitter medicine of letting them sell us out will be proposed as a cure. A similar attack is being mounted against public education - globally!

This extreme dishonesty raises serious questions for me about all incumbents fitness to lead.

The radical neoliberal agenda is not aimed just at us in the US, no, we are collateral damage in a global campaign to export the 'succeessful' privatized US health care and education models.

On the eve of the massive economic changes caused by automation which will raise the skills requirement to find employment tremendously, they are trying to end affordable public health care and education.

Here are two papers that tell the story, one new one old..

Read this one first: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.405.5725&rep=rep1&type=pdf

The second one is about TPP and Canadian health care but much of it applies to the US as well, and the parts that dont are educational -

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/major-complications

i would also encourage people to check out other writing on trade by Scott Sinclair, its author, he's very good and his writing on trade subjects is among the best out there.