House Democrats released the outline of their health care reform bill Friday - a proposal that would create a public insurance option, expand Medicaid and require employers to provide coverage or pay a tax.
There’s been a lot of brouhaha in the media over the public plan, but a NY Times poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly support the plan. In fact, even 50 percent of Republicans support the public plan. It has such overwhelming support that it would be absolutely outrageous for the final version not to include a public plan.
The reason for the public’s support is simple: They’ve seen the free market approach to health care, and they’re disgusted by it. They’re not just interested in a public plan for moral and ethical reasons — in other words, providing health care for all — they also think the government would do a better job providing health care. Given Americans’ historical distrust of the government, this is a sad commentary on the failure of the free market approach to health care.
Conservatives, I’m sure, will fall back on their tried-and-true argument: the 50 percent of Americans who think the government could do better are elitist, liberal whiners who love government and hate real Americans. They will argue that the free market is always the answer. But if that were truly the case, wouldn’t the market have arrived at a solution to this mess by now?
The fact is, the private market — along with conservative policies that protected profits and executive pay against all else — has been the cause of skyrocketing health care costs. It’s not like private insurance companies are struggling to get by on the slimmest of profit margins. No, the problem is that their enormous profits have gone towards executive pay rather than towards bringing down premiums. We’ve given them plenty of chances, and they’ve stood in the way of even minor reforms. They haven’t earned the right to avoid competition under the new health care plan.
Further evidence that the American electorate is to the LEFT of the democratic establishment on this issue, among many.
Thank you for this thought provoking policy observation. I will now retreat to my study with my tobacco pipe and trusty dog Charles, to read the Carter papers. I love these recently released memos from the 1970s. Who knew nuclear power could be so interesting.
Jeff, do you know when we’ll get those new unemployment numbers? Who has two thumbs and is on pins and needles waiting to know? THIS GUY!
There is alot of interpretaton in the question that was asked. Heck, I might even answer yes to question a) below if asked this way:
a) Would you support a public health insurance pool, paid for by premiums of its enrollees, that would be able to compete with the private sector insurance market?
Yes. I’d answer yes. This makes all the sense in the world. But the question I’d say “not in a million years on is this one”
b) Would you support a public healthcare benefit, like Medicare, that is expected to go bankrupt by 2017, doesn’t even reimburse your doctor for the wholesale cost of the supplies he uses on you, and is growing at an unsustainable pace?
No. And neither would a whole lot of Blue Dog Democrats, thank god.
Jeff writes: “Conservatives, I’m sure, will fall back on their tried-and-true argument: the 50 percent of Americans who think the government could do better are elitist, liberal whiners who love government and hate real Americans.”
No, we fall back on the argument that nearly 50% of healthcare today is run by the government, and that is the 50% that is insolvent and that doctors are resistant to accept because they lose money on those patients. It is one thing to ask a doctor to not accept their full charge for a patient. That happens every day. It is quite another to actually ask them to treat 50% of their patients at a personal financial loss to them.
Medicare isn’t insolvent. Thanks for the (untrue) talking point.
Nor do medicare reimbursements cause providers to operate at a loss.
the only reason medicare has any problems is because it is used as a subsidy for private enterprise. In other words. Medicare only takes the most costly patients so free enterprise can focus only on the most profitable. The fact that Medicare has only 3% overhead compared to 25-35% for private healthcare, and that medicare does so well in the first place means it is a brilliant program. Even the pool out and medicare would be even better.
Secondly, my wife works in mental health. They do not accept, as a general rule, Health Partners, because health partners pays pennies on the dollar for service. Kind of ruins another Medicare meme.
The argument for a public plan is witnessed every day in first world countries other than the United States. For all the whining about Canada, the UK and other countries with plans, ask a citizen what they think and they will be in favor. On top of that the sheer amount of money we spend and the results we get point to a problem that needs to be solved.
Notice how no rational Americans are pumping for the status quo to damn hard. Is it because they have all experienced an insurance company telling them what they can or cannot have for their health care, while premiums go ever up and up? Every extended family has a story about how a health emergency destroyed a family or a life savings by a hard working, decent guy.
Remember the healthcare industry says pay us or meet my friend Dr. Death… not a comforting situtation for any citizen.
The sample in this poll is so skewed on two counts.
First, 73% of those polled claimed they voted, which broke down 34% for McCain and 66% for Obama. The 2008 election went 46% for McCain and 53% Obama.
Second, those polled broke down ideologically this way: 27% liberal, 37% moderate, and 29% conservative. The Gallup poll last week (which has been consistent for years) broke Americans down ideologically this way: 21% liberal, 35% moderate, and 40% conservative.
The poll’s sample is so off-based.
Sean2,
FYI, also from Gallup:
“Almost 4 out of 10 (38%) Republicans have an unfavorable opinion of their party, while just 7% of Democrats have an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party; overall, just 34% of Americans view the GOP favorably.”
That isn’t relevant to this topic at all, Nitro
Sean2,
And yours is?
Mine shows the sampling error in the poll that Jeff reported on. That is highly relevant.
Yours contributes nothing.
40% conservative? Somebody at Gallup is high.
Their numbers throughout the past two decades haven’t changed signficantly:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/Conservatives-Single-Largest-Ideological-Group.aspx
Sean2,
If our health care is so great, and France/Canda/Britain’s sucks so bad, why is there ZERO public uproar for other countries to emulate our supposed greatness?
By all conglomeration of evidence we have the worst health care system in the modern world. Yes, we do better in some areas and worse in others, but when you take all statistics and factors we are 37th in the world.
Sean2, Why do you want to pay more than anyone in the world for care that is horrible for the country?
Under free enterprise, people have very, very few choices. You take the plan your work provides, and you take the doctors your plan allows. The current system limits access in general and choice specifically.
I never expressed any opinion on the issue in my comments to this post. I only showed the skewing of poll data by a gross mis-sampling. I’m not sure how you jump to the conclusion that I oppose this public plan for healthcare, or that I “want to pay more than anyone in the world for care that is horrible” Both accusations are way off.
Medicare is underfunded because cost shifting at the delivery level allows the insurance companies to charge higher premiums. While you might think that it is counterintuitive that the insurance companies prefer to pay higher prices than Medicare, you are wrong. By allowing this, they see more money flowing through them. They make their money from money, not from health care.
The premiums charged by the insurance companies (ours went up 28% last year) also provide a back door mechanism for politicians to fund Medicare without raising taxes. The underpayments by Medicare are balanced by overpayments by private insurance so that Dr’s and Hospitals won’t go broke. The politicians get to appear to be holding the line on taxes and the insurance companies and their friends, the device and pharmaceutical companies, get a lot more of your money to play with.
Apparently there are many folks out there who are uncomfortable with the prospect of paying taxes directly for health care services but don’t seem to mind paying much more than necessary for their health care in the form of premiums, copays and deductibles and taxes that support the tremendous profits of the industries that siphon profits off of this system.
A list of to whom (I think that’s the proper useage) the insurance industry is paying it’s campaign contributions to might be helpful here. Democrat or Republican, if you are not for bringing the U.S.’s healthcare system into the 21st century, you need to be voted out of office. I’m hoping HR 676 gets passed. It’s the only plan that solves the problem.
If this is about railing on the insurance industry, I’m not sure you’ll get dissenters. I think health insurance is an industry that is incented to not allow people to receive comprehensive healthcare services. You’re not going to hear me defending them.
Nor are you going to hear me defending a Medicare system that is freaking insolvent (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/12/politics/main5009169.shtml) by 2017. I would be insane to say “sign my kids up for a program that is going to bankrupt my entire family tree.”
So our employer-based system isn’t the answer, and Medicare-for-all isn’t the answer. We have two options: A total government-run healthcare system like European countries, or a system where people have more control of their health dollar like what Rahm Emmanuel’s brother, an advisor to Obama, advocates.
I don’t like the governmet-run option because we are Americans. We value choice. We value building our consumer transactions based on relationships. We like having transparent pricing, and making the decision on where we want our money spent. We like freedom in commerce.
I do like the consumer-driven approach for the inverse reasons of why I don’t like the single-payer model.
Perhaps the gap between our health costs and Europe’s has less to do with who runs our insurance program and more to do with the rate of obesity in the respective nations.
Pardon my oversight, we do have a third option, and one I’d like you to comment on.
What if the “public option” — the government-run healthcare system — had to operate based on its member premiums alone. It was fully expected to be self-sufficient. I see a few benefits:
- The risk pool would be large enough so the healthy young would be able to subsidize the chronically ill (dealing with the chronic conditions is a huge issue). You’d have lots of uninsured families who are making a decent living able to buy-in to the plan, spreading out the risk.
- If this public option is going to be as efficient as you all claim, it will smoke the private insurance companies on profitability (which in this case will lead to lower premiums) anyway, right?
- It won’t cost the taxpayer a dime. If you can come up with a plan that doesn’t require tax dollars, you’ve neutralized the right’s reason to oppose it.
This makes sense. Will you go for it? If the desire is to have a “public option to compete” with private insurances like Obama says, then it should truly be an apples-to-apples competitor and not a huge, subsidized, government-run plan. That isn’t competition. That is a government program.
So you guys up for it?
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“What if the “public option” — the government-run healthcare system — had to operate based on its member premiums alone. It was fully expected to be self-sufficient. I see a few benefits:”
That’s the plan, except that the “healthcare system” won’t really be government run, just regulated.
I have seen public plans that are totally funded by premiums as well as others that leave the door open to getting general fund revenues.
To get moderates on board, I think any public plan needs to be forbidden from dipping into any kind of general fund operating revenues. If it can’t survive on premiums alone, we let it die. If it will operate as efficiently as advertised, nobody should be afraid of that.