Please confront this lousy op-ed on the public option

[DonCoquixote]

From:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/18/AR2009081803449.html

Here are some gems (sarcasm), get your barf bucket ready..

"The public option is nothing more than a political litmus test imposed on the debate by left-wing politicians and pundits who don't want to be bothered with the real-life dynamics of the health-care market. It is the Maginot Line of health-care policy, and just like those stubborn French generals, liberal Democrats have vowed to defend it even if it means losing the war.

So there was Howard Dean, the former Democratic Party chairman, over the weekend declaring that health reform without a public option simply isn't worth doing. My colleague Ezra Klein pointed out on his must-read blog that Dr. Dean's fascination with a public option is rather recent since it was nowhere to be found in the reform plan he proposed when running for president in 2004.

Or how about MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who opined that the failure to deliver on a public option would represent nothing less than the "collapse of political ambition" for American liberalism?

The public option has become for the left what "death panels" have become for the right -- an easily understood metaphor that can be used to wage an ideological war over the issue of Big Government, and mostly a sideshow. "

Now, I apologize for having to vomit this onto our fair page, but I need people to refute this, and refute the author. This is exactly the same pseudo "reasonable" BS the enemies of the public option have been cooking all summer.

[Hello_Kitty]

1. He is full of shit. eom

[Hello_Kitty]

2. I found the end of the piece particularly hilarious

That's not to say there aren't other things we could do, including many that are already included in bills before Congress. These include the government-sponsored health-care exchanges that would bring national insurance companies to nearly every market in the country and proposals to begin paying doctors and hospitals for the quality of the health care they provide rather than the quantity. There is also a provision requiring that companies participating in the new insurance exchanges use no more than 15 cents of each premium dollar for administrative costs and profits.

Finally, there are the government-chartered cooperatives that key members of the Senate Finance Committee are pushing. Although public-option enthusiasts scoff at the idea, the experiences of a number of communities show that cooperatives could significantly contain costs, provided the cooperatives are big enough and built around networks of hospitals and physician practices that accept a fixed, annual fee for treating patients rather than billing for every procedure. The key isn't that the cooperatives would be not-for-profit, but that the annual payments would give doctors and hospitals a financial incentive to control costs, better coordinate care, and eliminate procedures with little or no benefit.

A few other ideas not in any bill but worth considering: To address the pricing power of the big hospital chains, the government could require that they offer the same set of prices to all private insurers. Congress could also toughen antitrust laws to make it more difficult for hospitals in the same region to merge and require the breakup of chains that charge rates that are significantly higher than in other markets.

To bring down drug prices, Medicare could cap what it is willing to pay for any drug at 150 percent of the average price paid by other industrialized countries, where governments negotiate prices that are significantly lower. That would become a new benchmark for what private pharmacy benefit managers would pay.

Such approaches would not only be better policy than a public option, they'd also be better politics. By insisting on a government-run plan, liberals have played right into the hands of Republicans who aim to defeat any reform by mischaracterizing it as a government takeover.

He suggests a plethora of government regulations and subsidized programs and then pretends that the Party of No will view them as anything but a "government takeover". What planet is he on?

[DonCoquixote]

3. Now thisn is the cream of the piece

That's not to say there aren't other things we could do, including many that are already included in bills before Congress. These include the government-sponsored health-care exchanges that would bring national insurance companies to nearly every market in the country and proposals to begin paying doctors and hospitals for the quality of the health care they provide rather than the quantity. There is also a provision requiring that companies participating in the new insurance exchanges use no more than 15 cents of each premium dollar for administrative costs and profits.

In other words, let the foxes regulate the henhouse, make sure every area is a tangle of "competing brands" that make sure the price is jacked up ala Coke and Pepsi, and find an excuse to underpay doctors, which ensures they take the rage out on the patient more than they already do.

[and-justice-for-all]

4. The same shit was said about the new deal...nt