RSS Feed MenuSure looks that way. First Howard Dean objects, next the AFL-CIO.
Now Mickey Kaus directs us to this Wall Street Journal poll showing that 45% think it “unacceptable” to drop the public option.
While exercising due skepticism that anywhere close to 45% of Americans know what the public option IS, there seems no doubt – the American left’s hatred of health insurance companies seems to be trumping its desire for healthcare reform. That trump may doom the president’s plan – and the party’s 2010 chances. For all the media attention always directed to anger on the right, perhaps the real news in 2010 will be the power – and the price – of the anger on the left?
SpartacusIsNotDead // Dec 17, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Frum wrote: “the American left’s hatred of health insurance companies seems to be trumping its desire for healthcare reform. ”
Unfortunately, this is the typical type of straw man argument conservatives have come to rely upon. Opposition to reform that does not include a public option is not based on hatred of health insurance companies. It’s based on evidence that premiums won’t go down and costs won’t be contained without real competition.
There is already a public option in 21 states for insurance in the workers compensation market. It has destroyed private insurers, nor has relied upon taxpayer subsidies. It has, however, lowered rates and provided a viable option for all businesses within those states.
http://www.allbusiness.com/insurance/insurance-policies-claims-insurance-premiums/13354009-1.html
SpartacusIsNotDead // Dec 17, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Frum wrote: “the American left’s hatred of health insurance companies seems to be trumping its desire for healthcare reform.”
If it weren’t for these types of straw man arguments, conservatives wouldn’t have anything to say about healthcare.
The left’s opposition to reform without a public option is not based on a hatred of insurance companies. It’s based on evidence that without a public option premiums won’t go down and costs won’t be contained.
There is already a public option in 21 states for workers comp insurance. These public options have not relied on taxpayer subsidies, nor have they pushed private insurers from the marketplace. They have, however, lowered premiums and provided a cost-effective option for every business within those states.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Dec 17, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Here’s a link that corroborates the claims in my previous post.
http://www.allbusiness.com/insurance/insurance-policies-claims-insurance-premiums/13354009-1.html
teabag // Dec 17, 2009 at 4:46 pm
The rights hatred of ANY healthcare reform is causing 40,000 Americans to die each and every year.
Not killed by Jihadist so they just don’t count.
Carney // Dec 17, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Really, teabag?
Nobody on the Right is offering any solutions at all?
http://www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/index.cfm
What about McCain in 2008, offering to break the artificial and unnecessary link between workplaces and healthcare, so that workers aren’t chained to jobs they hate just for health care benefits, and won’t lose their benefits if they change or lose their jobs?
Obama put on scare ads about how McCain wanted to take away employer-provided health care. Technically true but dishonest because it implied McCain wanted to provide nothing in its place, whereas Obama and his team knew perfectly well that McCain wanted to give individuals to have more choices and power.
There’s nothing about health insurance that necessarily makes it come from your boss, any more than fire insurance, homeowner’s insurance, auto insurance, etc. Employers offer it because it’s a holdover of World War 2 anti-inflation policy. In the mistaken belief that inflation results from rising wages (rather than loose monetary policy), Roosevelt banned employers from bidding up wages to attract then-scarce labor (much of which was overseas, fighting). So employers turned to non-wage benefits, like health insurance. It’s all a result of government distortion of the marketplace.
DFL // Dec 17, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I know a Naderite. He’s a very honest, good fellow. He likes to call Obama a Corporate Democrat, wants Single-Payer or nothing. A gradual reform is anathema to him. He not only wants the Democratic health reform to fail, he wants Obama to fail.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Dec 17, 2009 at 5:18 pm
“What about McCain in 2008″
Really, what about McCain in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 when he had a Republican President and, for most of that time, a Republican Congress?
If Republicans have all these great ideas about reform, why didn’t they enact them when they had the power to do so? There certainly weren’t any Democrats standing up in Congress screaming about Death Panels or doing other stupid stuff to stand in the way of a Republican reform bill.
balconesfault // Dec 17, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Not hatred.
I just don’t like any law that would force everyone to be willing to pay money to a corporation, or suffer a tax penalty, just for the privilege of living in America.
Were there a public option, the mandate would be stomachable – since the requirement to buy into a government run system is fundamentally different.
I do not mind corporations making profits off of me because of my choices.
I do not want to be mandated to send money to a corporation so that they can make a profit off of me. The precedent is particularly galling.
COProgressive // Dec 17, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I have no hatred of the insurance companies. They are doing their job of MAXIMIZING PROFIT. But in doing so, they’re squeezing the middle class out and squeezing American business into being less competitive.
This bill is a GOLDEN EGG for the insurance companies. Mandating Americans to purchase a product over which they have not control of the price or quaility is rediculious. 30 million more policy holders at about $12,000 a year is a ton of money (too lazy to get out the calulator) going into an industry this bill is suppose to reform.
We need to put a stake in the heart of the predatory, obsolete, expensive, yearly S&I Insurance industry. Let it go the way of the Buggy Whip and Slide Rule industries!
Single Payer is the least cost means of providing access to healthcare. We need to get away from the notion that healthcare = insurance. We need to start thinking healthcare is a national Trust Fund for our kids and grandkids and America’s future.
sinz54 // Dec 17, 2009 at 8:37 pm
The reason for the mandate is so that the insurance industry, with its profit margin of under 4%, will be able to afford to support guaranteed issue and community rating, by spreading those higher costs over a much larger pool of policyholders.
Otherwise, if guaranteed issue and community rating raise the insurance industry’s operating costs, and a public option squeezes their profits via unfair competition, that will be the end of the private health insurance industry–and the public option will morph into a single-payer system by default.
We all know that single-payer is the liberals’ grand dream. But we conservatives are determined to fight that one to the end.
balconesfault // Dec 17, 2009 at 9:08 pm
But we conservatives are determined to fight that one to the end.
Even if it means forcing every American to pay money to insurance companies simply to live in America. Very conservative.
Well, not conservative. Corporatist.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Dec 17, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Sinz wrote: “We all know that single-payer is the liberals’ grand dream. But we conservatives are determined to fight that one to the end.”
This is amazing. Even when conservatives try to discuss serious policy issues they still can’t prevent themselves from conjuring up imaginary boogeymen. Single-payer was never part of the Senate bill or any other Congressional proposal.
I guess after you’ve ruined the economy and run up the largest deficits in history you take comfort in saving the country from fascism, death panels and single-payer.
About senate bill, abortion, health vote, senator, health care bill | Find me About // Dec 21, 2009 at 8:02 am
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