Pete Stark: "Medical Unicorns"

Why are co-ops a non-starter in the health care reform debate? Because they won't work. On Thursday Pete Stark blasted them:

there is no real example of either the regulation [of health co-ops], or how you would establish them, or where they would get enough people to have a purchasing base. So you might as well talk about unicorns.

From a paper released Thursday,

a public health insurance option could also lead to a more transparent market. As long as insurers conceal provider prices, price competition in provider markets is unlikely. As long as coverage protocols and utilization data are concealed, quality competition among plans is unlikely. The coverage protocols and provider payment rates of the public option, on the other hand, would be open to the public. And data on the utilization of health care services under the public plan would be available for expert analysis and reporting, just as Medicare data are now.

Finally, the public option is necessary as a backstop against risk selection. It takes more than simply prohibiting risk selection to stop it. Even with risk adjustment and strong non-discrimination rules, private insurers are likely to find a way to dodge people whose costs are expected to be high in order to protect profitability. The job of the public option, on the other hand, is to accept, not to avoid, risks and to be accountable to the public, not shareholders.

What mcjoan said:

That's what all the fuss is about, why this has become the key element of a proposal for so many people. We want the damned reform to actually work. Co-ops won't make it work, they just aren't going to be robust enough to do the job. Insurance reform is really good, and we very much need that, too, but it isn't going to be enough either. For one thing, does anybody seriously believe that our government could set up a strict regulatory scheme that insurance companies would actually follow? That'd be a first.

Untold stories: thousands of American expats are medically exiled health care refugees

Moving testimonial about a little-known aspect of our current health-care system:

Cartoon Explains the Public Plan in under 5 Minutes

Great cartoon does an awesome job of explaining the proposed new federal health insurance plan:

"Take advantage of me and I will crush you"

Paraphrased: "You come straight at me and I'll come straight at you, but if you take advantage of me, I will crush you." Let's see some of this attitude against the Republicans in the health-care debate.

Paul Krugman on Obama’s Trust Problem

Paul Krugman a couple days ago wrote:

"it’s possible to have universal coverage without a public option — several European nations do it — and some who want a public option might be willing to forgo it if they had confidence in the overall health care strategy. Unfortunately, the president’s behavior in office has undermined that confidence.

On the issue of health care itself, the inspiring figure progressives thought they had elected comes across, far too often, as a dry technocrat who talks of “bending the curve” but has only recently begun to make the moral case for reform. Mr. Obama’s explanations of his plan have gotten clearer, but he still seems unable to settle on a simple, pithy formula; his speeches and op-eds still read as if they were written by a committee."

What we need most of all is for the President to cast this debate within the frame of the moral case for reform. It should have been so from the beginning.

Health Care Reform Countdown - The Wait is Killing Us!

God, please HELP us!

150 days, 14 hours, 0 minutes, and 58 seconds
have passed since the Democrats were entrusted with
total control over the government and promised us health care reform!

Deaths of people without Healthcare access 8,246

Total Deaths Today: 32

Since 9/11/2001, 175,451 have died due to lack of health care. That's the same as 62 nine-elevens.

http://www.potholes-business.com/dc1.htm