“Opting Out” Undermines Core Democratic Values.

[Tom Rinaldo]

Most core Republican Party special interests, with a partial exception for some elements of the Religious Right, essentially believe in Social Darwinism. They heap high praise on “The Individual” because they usually are, as individuals, heaped high with special privileges. If not they are wealth groupie wannabes. Which is why Mike Huckabee meets with such disdain from the Republican establishment – he sometimes gives a nod toward right wing populism. The Republican establishment prefers an ideological argument that supports “every man for himself”, since the members of their establishment start out with big advantages in that scenario. Even IF “a rising tide lifts all boats”, the boatless eventually drown, but that is not a yacht owners problem, in a sink or swim world.

The living core of the Democratic Party though celebrates the common good, and our common humanity. It is the Democratic Party that strung America’s social safety net to keep the less fortunate among us from falling through prosperity’s cracks to shatter on the rocks below. And the Republican Party has never ceased their efforts to cut widening hole in that social safety net, stealing the twine that protects the least of us to tie down their own high privileges.

The “Opting Out” option is the knife the Right wields when they try to cut up social safety nets. The “Opting Out” option is how they hobbled the ability of Organized Labor to organize workers to effectively counter the concentrated power of mega capital interests. They call it “Right to Work” legislation. The “Opting Out” option is the battering ram they are using to bring about the collapse of public education in this nation. They call it “School Vouchers”. The “Opting Out” option is their plot to divert multi billions of dollars that our government saves for all citizens for retirement into capital “investments” to fund the growth of their multinational corporate empires. They call it privatization of social security.

“Opting Out” is divide and conquer. We need the unity of many to oppose the power of a few. Once that simple solidarity is compromised, the peeling off of the support necessary to guarantee the basic rights and needs of all starts. Siren calls to narrow short term personal interests pierce and tantalize while less immediate appeals to the long term common good don’t get past call screening.

The privileged in America advance their interests through “cherry picking. Those advantaged enough to send children to private schools want their school taxes back to enrich private schools with extra curricular activities, while those who can’t afford private schools, or whose children aren’t deemed acceptable enough by private schools, remain in public schools unable to update their text books with modern curriculum.

No where is cherry picking more obvious than in the insurance industry. The less inclusive insurance providers must be, the more profitable insurance providers will be. Create a system that does not insure that all will be provided insurance, and the games begin to game that system for all the insurance providers. But even leaving “cherry picking” aside, the economy of scale always requires that our social safety nets be supported by the inclusion of all of our citizens, or they will be bled dry caring for the needs of those dependent most upon them, who have no other options, while those who are blessed with other options are independent enough not to care. And then that net grows tattered, and then that net fails.

Like with Social Security, like with Public Schools; affordable Universal Health Care will never be universal AND affordable until we mandate that health care be affordable AND universal. “Opting In” is a core Democratic principle. The people united will never be defeated. Or, harkening back to yet an earlier generation possessed with revolutionary fervor; United we stand, divided we fall.

[Warpy]

1. If the rich and powerful are allowed to opt out of a national system

you can bet they will make sure that system is underfunded precisely to prove that it doesn't work.

The only way a rich man should be allowed to opt out of a national health insurance system is by leaving the country, something he can't do if he's facing an emergency like a heart attack. He's going to make sure that system is up to par if he realizes underfunding it is going to lead to his death.

[jody]

2. Is it the rich and powerful or healthy, young people who pose the greater threat if they opt out? nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. The rich and powerful.

The young and healthy know that accidents happen - they are, in fact, the liklier to have accidents BECAUSE they are young and healthy. The reason the young and healthy don't have coverage is because they are YOUNG - low wages, and given the choice between rent and insurance, they'll go with rent.

The wealthy opt out because they know that if something SHOULD happen they can cover it. Has Paris Hilton EVER worried about a medical bill?

Given the means for coverage, 95% of the 'young and healthy' would get coverage.

[jody]

10. Do you have a source for the 95% figure you assert? n/t

[conflictgirl]

12. Do you mean if the coverage was free?

They're running BCBS ads around here aimed at the young and healthy demographic to encourage them to sign up for insurance and highlighting how inexpensive it is - that suggests that there aren't a whole lot of people in that demographic that *would* take insurance if they had to pay for it. I used to work as an office manager for a landscape company that did offer insurance, and many of our employees were under 25 without spouses or a family and they would opt out of insurance in favor of getting an extra $20 per pay period or whatever.

For exactly the reason you named - that the combination of low wages and having to make the choice between rent or insurance, they would choose rent - I'm confused about why you say that given the means, 95% of the 'young and healthy' would get coverage. My experience doesn't suggest that's true, unless you mean that if cost were no factor they would get the coverage. I'm sure I'm just misunderstanding you because I'm not following the logic.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. Just as i said, if they have the means to pay both their living expenses

AND get coverage, they would do it. Being 'young and healthy', coverage is one of the first things to go away if things are tight. Few would sacrifice their phone or cable in favor of insurance, unless they had previously experience the calamity of not having it and needing it, but if they could get it without losing money for living expenses, they'd do it.

And where is the world are you getting coverage for $20/paycheck? Even on a weekly payday that's only $80/mo, and I haven't seen any insurance rates like that in 20 years.

[zalinda]

15. Honey, I don't know where you find your young

people, but most that I know, think that nothing bad will ever happen "to them". This is one of the reasons why the young join the military, they think that it only happens to some one else. In fact some body did a study on this (if I was young, maybe I could find it), that said that our brains work differently when we are young as compared to when we are mature. I think it may have something to do with war and fearless hunting, when we were much less civilized. Any way the young are wired to take chances, and you can see this on any college campus.

No, young people are the very people that will opt out, that includes rich young people. Older rich people that I knew ALL carried health insurance, why, because they KNOW that a week's stay in the hospital would cover their insurance premiums for a number of years. Some rich people are rich, because they know when and where to send their money. Health insurance is ALWAYS a safe bet.

zalinda

[Horse with no Name]

28. Yet Obama said "you can buy it at the ER" if you need it

Do you think the rich will play that card?
Pay the fine and buy the insurance only when they need it?

[zalinda]

35. No, I don't

For the most part rich people are rich because they pay attention. Most have all their monthly payments on a schedule, and health insurance would be one of them. It's just smart. When you have to figure out the rules of the game, they don't want to play. With not getting health insurance they would have to figure out "how to play the game" and pay the fine or whatever to get health care. They don't do that. They plan, they leave nothing to chance, that's how they got rich.

It's only people who are risk takers who would opt out of health insurance even if they could afford it. Most rich people aren't risk takers. They take out as much risk as possible in any transaction they get into, whether it be stocks or real estate. One guy I know bought a Corvette, and it seemed really out of character to me. When I asked him about the car purchase, he said it was the only car that didn't lose most of it's value as soon as you drove it off the lot, it kept it's value longer than any other car. Most rich also have blue chip stocks, stock that pay less than the glamor stocks, but are always dependable and the companies have little risk in going under. Yes, they will take a portion that they are willing to lose and invest in high flyers, but that is just a small portion. They want to keep their money, and they are not penny wise and pound foolish.

zalinda

[CTyankee]

34. You've hit that right on the head. It IS low wages by and large.

But it is also our materialistic culture that makes more and more "things" so important to our lives that we feel we can't live without them. The advertising directed at young 20 and 30 somethings is relentless. I see it on TV and shake my head.

Low wages are a result of our inefficient and costly health care "system" in this country. We've got to step off of this vicious cycle...

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. I prefer to globalize the question

Different individuals are tempted to opt out for different reasons based on the options they are presented with, but the rich and powerful are best able to rig societal rules to squeeze profits out of the majority of our citizens and support their cadillac quality benefits, when they are given a free reign through the private market to bury people, literally and figuratively, under a mountain of false choices that all come back to servicing their needs first and foremost. The illusion of freedom has been turned into a potent tool for social control.

And as long as health care is not truly universal control can be as blunt as paying workers crap wages because a business knows the only way theri workers can afford health insurance is to stay working at a crap job.

[eridani]

30. Or he can just buy extra bells and whistles if he wants

Even if his kids go to private schools, he still has to pay for the public ones. Same thing should apply to health care.

[Warpy]

31. Right, insurance for heroics not covered by a national plan

like the things that generally do not work, liver transplants for actively drinking alcoholics and trying to save premature infants that weigh less than half a kilogram or last ditch bone marrow transplant to cure cancers that generally don't respond to it.

I'd be perfectly happy with that. However, his increased coverage should not cover a separate hospital wing for VIPs or any of the other things hospitals do to massage the egos of the ultra rich. It should absolutely not cover concierge medical care, one doctor paid a flat fee to cater to his every hiccup and whim.

[FLDCVADem]

33. Warpy, this is where you and I disagree

As far as I'm concerned, so long as everyone is paying into the single-payer system (via taxation), I couldn't care less whether or not people opt out of actually using it, nor do I care what they might be using it for. If someone wants to pay out of pocket or via a private insurance plan for "concierge care", I say let 'em have at it. I'm vehemently opposed to telling doctors and other health care professionals that they are prohibited from working outside a single-payer system, and I'm equally opposed to telling people that they are prohibited from seeking care outside of a single-payer system.

[Warpy]

36. Hunh, nobody gonna tell ME what to do!

I've seen both worlds. I've worked in government funded health care that was state of the art when it was first started and left underfunded for decades by rich men who knew they'd never need to use it--the VA system.

I've also worked in VIP wings of big city hospitals with Oriental rugs on the floors and fake fireplaces in the rooms (but the loo down the hall, very impractical). I've seen what the misallocation of resources does to ordinary folks and it's not pretty.

The VA system, one that is the best I've ever seen at taking someone who is basically dead meat after a traumatic injury--half the skull gone, unable to talk or do anything for himself, multiple fractures, a leg gone--and turn him into a walking, talking person who will be able to care for himself within a year. The facilities themselves have been allowed to crumble and staffing is so short as to be criminally negligent because Congress won't fund the system.

The rich, you see, will always underfund anything they don't need.

Under a socialized insurance system, they'll still be able to choose their own doctors and hospitals and they'll likely still get the VIP wing with the carpets on the floor and the fake fireplaces. However, everything will be under the same umbrella and they'll need to fund it in order to get the care they think they're entitled to.

There is nothing like a dose of reality to smash the edifice created by libertarian dreaming into smithereens.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. Which is why we need single-payer, taxpayer supported not-for-profit

healthcare.

Something NEITHER candidate supports.

[question everything]

4. I dunno. I have opted out of empoyers' health insurance

and have been paying for my own. I got tired of being shuffled between carries whenever one of us lost a job or the employer changed carrier. And I don't think it is any employer's business to know which health provider I visit.

As for universal health insurance, I compare it to public education. Yes, everyone pays for it and everyone is free to go private.

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. When no choice is good, no reason to be loyal to the one in front of you n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. There you go. Taxpayer supported universal healthcare should be like

taxpayer supported public education. If you choose to go private, you are NOT exempt from paying your taxes - though maybe you can get a certain tax credit if you do so. THAT would force the private insurers to REALLY compete and bring down prices.

[OhioBlue]

9. Oh Please!

I wish Hillary and her supporters would stop pretending like they have some morally superior position on Health Care.

Neither Plan is Single Payer, Universal Health Care. Quit pretending like hers is.

Both candidates are proposing attempts to put band aids here and there - but neither is comprehensive Universal health Care that is true to the "common good" and core Democratic Values.

I just about spit my coffee out the other morning when she (Hillary) tried to put her plan in the same category as Dennis Kucinich's.

Freakin' Stop the pretending!

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. A Single Payer plan is head and shoulders, torso and legs above

any other option. But true universal is better than "sort of" universal.

And while we are at it, Clinton has drawn a clearer line in the sand against school vochers than has Obama also.

[OhioBlue]

13. Her plan will not be Universal

just because she says it doesn't make it so.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. At the very least I believe it would get us a lot closer to it than Obama's plan

And if nothing else that impacts on the economy of scale. But I also appreciate the rhetoric. Seriously, Democrats need to at least be making the case for why addressing certain basic needs must be universal - like public schools. If we give up on making that case before the fight is even fully engaged we will never get there.

[jody]

18. And your point is you have the "morally superior position on Health Care".

:rofl:

[OhioBlue]

19. not at all

read it again.

My point is that neither plan is Single Payer and Hillary and her talking heads try to pretend that hers is.

She actually implied in a speech that Barack Obama wasn't a Democrat because Democrats take the "moral" position of Universal health care - she said she had a plan, Edwards had a plan, Chris Dodd had a plan and Dennis Kucinich had a plan for Universal Health Care because that's what Democrats do and Barack Obama doesn't. I've paraphrased - but that is essentially what she said.

Their plans are essentially the same. She has mandates, he doesn't - she will have to make exceptions and the plan that emerges from Congress isn't going to be the same one they propose anyway.

[2_CentsWorth]

17. Thanks for a great post --

I hope the political fervor present during the Democratic campaign will become even stronger when the Democratic nominee takes office in January 2009. Then is the time for all the DUers to support the policies you have described so they will be implemented. Again, thanks for your great post.

[annabanana]

20. rec this up! the "opt-out" is at the root of privatization!!. . . n/t

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

21. People dont exist to serve the government!

If they wish to opt out of a governmnet program they should have every right to do so..

[jberryhill]

23. That's great news

I'll just opt-out of the Iraq war and reduce my tax payment for it accordingly.

[Hippo_Tron]

26. That's not a bad idea, I feel like we'd go to war a lot less if people could opt out

[bvar22]

29. Great Idea!

* I am opting out of Education, since I already have mine and don't have kids.

* Of course, I'm opting out of WARS and military presence on foreign soil.

* I'm opting out of the Corp of Engineers, Coast Guard, Coastline Preservation Programs, and Hurricane Relief since I live inland.

* I'm opting out of ALL Federal Programs in every state except mine.

* I'm opting out of Unemployment insurance, since I'm retired

* I'm opting out of ALL agricultural programs and Farm subsidies, since I grow my own food.

Boy, there's all kinds of stuff I can opt out of.


BTW: Forcing all Americans to purchase private insurance from "For Profit" carriers is NOT "Universal Health Care".

Expanding Medicare to cover ALL Americans IS Universal HealthCare.

Implementing a Mandatory Health Insurance Program moves America AWAY from Universal HealthCare, and w2ill make it HARDER to implement a true Single Payer Non Profit HealthCare system.

America DESERVES better, and should DEMAND better.

[Hoof Hearted]

38. I think you may have stumbled into the wrong party.

I elect to opt out of the taxes that fund your kids school, and your social security, the streets you drive on, and the war, I opt out of that too. As a matter of fact, any government service you recieve, or your parents, or your grandparents - I opt out.

[Hippo_Tron]

22. Car insurance is mandated for drivers, plenty of people still opt out

[SIMPLYB1980]

24. Thats why those of us who have Insurace pay a uninsured fee.

Which is what will happen under Obamas plan. I'll end up paying more because some people think they don't need it.

[Hippo_Tron]

25. The same will happen with Clinton's plan, you can't force people to purchase something

Single payer would be pretty much the only way to solve this problem.

[SIMPLYB1980]

27. It will be worse with Obamas plan because it's a fact it leaves out vasltly more people.

[Hippo_Tron]

32. Vastly more people is pretty vague...

Obama's plan leaves out those who can afford insurance (which will be everyone under Obama's ideal plan) but choose that they do not want to do so. Do you know exactly how many people that will be and how much more that will cost everybody?

Notice I said ideal plan because I don't think that once this shit gets through congress, everyone will be able to afford health care. Whether Clinton or Obama is elected, some of the subsidies to provide low income insurance for people will be cut. The Republicans will suddenly decide that balancing the budget is important again and in order to get 60 votes in the Senate, the bill will have to be "fiscally responsible".

Then comes the problem with Hillary's plan in that you will have mandates but not as much money spent on subsidies as she factored into her model of what is affordable health insurance for everyone and so you will be mandating for people who can't afford it. How many people that will be is also hard to say.

The bottom line is that there isn't a whole hell of a lot of difference between these two plans. Hopefully both of them will be able to drive down the cost of insurance, both of them will be able to offer subsidies to low income people, and both will be able to forbid insurance companies from denying people due to pre-existing conditions and all of those things will be helpful. But neither plan is truly universal health care. In order for that to be the case, we would have to create an entitlement program and neither Hillary nor Obama's plan is an entitlement program.

[Tom Rinaldo]

37. kick n/t