The CHARADE of a Public Option
According to Robert Reich, 70% of Americans want a Public Option for Health Care Reform. In Canada, 10% of their GDP goes to their health care system and they cover ALL Canadians. In the U.S., we spend 16% of our GDP and leave out 45 million Americans.
the compromise that ended up in the House bill is to have a mere public option, open only to the 6 million Americans not otherwise covered. The Congressional Budget Office warns this shrunken public option will have no real bargaining leverage and would attract mainly people who need lots of medical care to begin with. So it will actually cost more than it saves…
Our private, for-profit health insurance system, designed to fatten the profits of private health insurers and Big Pharma, is about to be turned over to … our private, for-profit health care system. Except that now private health insurers and Big Pharma will be getting some 30 million additional customers, paid for by the rest of us.
Upbeat policy wonks and political spinners who tend to see only portions of cups that are full will point out some good things: no pre-existing conditions, insurance exchanges, 30 million more Americans covered. But in reality, the cup is 90 percent empty. Most of us will remain stuck with little or no choice — dependent on private insurers who care only about the bottom line, who deny our claims, who charge us more and more for co-payments and deductibles, who bury us in forms, who don’t take our calls.
This is NOT reform, people. This is victory for the millionaire lobbyists and the billionaire Pharma and Insurance companies.
We need Medicare FOR ALL.
Imagine how stable the U.S. economy would be, if only 10% of our GDP went to cover all 300 MILLION Americans…
We’re all doomed! – (just kidding)
Tumult was sure to accompany this presidency, yet it’s an inconvenience this country needs to endure. As much as we’d like to believe that change would occur with the utmost expedience, the best we can hope for is a few generations down the line.
But it will happen, and it’s because of people like you who refuse to accept ignorance, hate and the status quo.
If President Obama is as good as I believe he is, a Health Care reform bill will pass.
And I don’t care what anyone says, the obstructionist tack the Republican party has embraced is racist and non-productive. Old white guys in expensive suits cherry-picking words and phrases, dismissing context and spinning them into fear-evoking mantras. Sad. History will not be kind to them.