The Washington Post editorializes today: Of the many possible issues that could snarl health-care reform, one of the biggest is whether the measure should include a government-run health plan to compete with private insurers. The public plan has become an unfortunate litmus test for both sides. The opposition to a public plan option is understandable; conservatives, health insurers, health-care providers and others see it as a slippery step down the slope to a single-payer system because, they contend, the government’s built-in advantages will allow it to unfairly squash competitors. For …
Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary and Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt warned yesterday that a public health insurance option in any comprehensive health reform would be the “Trojan horse” that would force Americans into a single-payer health system. Proponents for a public health insurance plan, which has been suggested to be modeled after Medicare, employ “a real clever use of language,” using words like “choice” and “competition” when discussing the plan, Leavitt said in a conference call — one of his first commentaries since leaving the federal health agency …
In his Jimmy Carter-esque “New Foundation” speech Tuesday, President Barack Obama linked health care reform and deficit reduction claiming: “If we want to get serious about fiscal discipline … we will also have to get serious about entitlement reform. Make no mistake: health care reform is entitlement reform.” Problem is, Obama’s health care reform plan includes a Medicare-for-all like public plan that will “compete” with private plans. The idea that the path to reduced health care spending must go through expanding Medicare is laughable. former Political Science professor at the …
This past Monday, the White House co-hosted an invitation only health care forum with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles Times the event “was clearly programmed to showcase the broad goals” President Barack Obama has on health care, but “was light on details” with “no discussion of how to achieve those goals.” Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that back in Washington, Democrats Agree on a Health Plan that includes “a public health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurance.” Considering the cost …
A new study released today by the Lewin Group, one of the most well-respected health care consultancies in Washington, gives new estimates on “The Cost and Coverage Impacts of a Public Plan” like the one being considered by President Obama and the congressional leadership. The Lewin Group says that “If the public plan is opened to all employers…at Medicare payment levels we estimate that about 131.2 million people would enroll in the public plan. The number of people with private health insurance would decline by 119.1 million people. This would …
The Center for American Progress has a new report out titled “Competitive Health Care: A Public Health Insurance Plan that Delivers Market Discipline”. Listing everything that we disagree in their report would result in something much longer than a blog post, but since they mention us by name, we need to make one fact clear: including a public plan in a Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) health insurance reform model would destroy a competitive health insurance market. Here is what CAP writes: Promoting choice among health insurance plans to …
The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus tackled health care reform in an op-ed this Sunday, and her article nicely laid out many of the key areas of dispute and offered some interesting ideas for compromise. But in doing so, she exposed the internal contradictions of those arguing for a “public plan” and why a public plan cannot be part of reform. Marcus writes: Should there be a public insurance option? This is a question that evokes near-religious fervor and that could crash the whole enterprise. Republicans hate the notion of a …
