Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s massive Senate health bill (H.R. 3590) contains a “public option”, a new government run health plan to compete against private health plans within a federally designed system of state health insurance exchanges. Federally Designed State Health Exchanges. Under Section 1311 of the bill, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services would be required to provide states grants for the establishment of American Health Benefit Exchanges, and by 2014 states would be required to establish these exchanges for the purchase of “qualified” health …
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that the health care legislation he is drafting will include a government-run health insurance plan, or as many on the left like to call it “the public option.” The new wrinkle that Reid has thrown into the proposal is an “opt out” clause which would require states to pass legislation by 2014 rejecting participation in the federal government run plan. None of the committees in the House or Senate ever even voted on this new opt out scheme. But that does not …
The Washington Post and New York Times both have front page stories out today on Sen. Kent Conrad’s (D-ND) co-op fall back for President Barack Obama’s imperiled public plan. The NYT reports: “The history of health insurance in the United States is full of largely unsuccessful efforts to introduce new models of insurance that would lower costs. And the health insurance markets of many states suggest that any new entrant would face many difficulties in getting established.” WaPo reads: “There are at least two major health-care organizations that could serve …
Last month, Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) suggested that maybe some form of “consumer cooperative” might be a politically acceptable alternative to the “competing public plan” idea. Since then, growing opposition to the “public plan” has fueled growing interest among Sen. Conrad’s colleagues in his “co-op” idea. However, as with the various other “compromise” ideas now floating around Congress, what really matters is the contents of the package– not the words on the label. If by health care “co-op,” Congress means allowing private associations to collectively buy health insurance for their …
President Barack Obama’s desire for government-run health insurance, aka the “public option,” is threatening to kill health care reform. Now some Senators are floating a “compromise” plan that would create cooperative plans as an alternative to a government-run public plan. True co-ops have a long and proud tradition in many sectors of the U.S. economy, including health care. But the plan currently being floated in the Senate takes the co-op concept in the wrong direction. The Washington Post reports: In its place, the draft circulated yesterday outlines a co-op approach …
