The Public Option, like Charley Brown's fictitious Great Pumpkin, keeps periodically rising from the dead to entice the public and scare conservative legislators and then disappears again. Now it has become a great ' Bait and Switch ' scenario which so far has completely fooled the American Public ~ for the vast majority of most Americans will still not have access to a Public Option under its current costume: Allen L Roland
I'm so tired of Pelosi's so called 'Robust Public option' and various other descriptions of a public option Health plan ~ when it's obvious America needs a single pay Medicare type public health plan but eventually will settle for a watered down version of a public option which was not the original actual "option" proposed in the Senate HELP Committee bill and HR 3200 but instead a Senate and House ' reform ' bill ~ which will be available only to about 30 million people, or about one American in ten and, get this, would apparently not be unavailable to the approximately 160 million people already covered through employers.
As Carolyn Lochhead writes in SF Gate ~ " House and Senate bills limit the option to the smallest businesses and to individuals who cannot get insurance, or whose health care costs exceed 12.5 percent of their income. Even seven years into an overhaul, an estimated 90 percent of Americans, including nearly everyone who has employer-based coverage now, would be shut out of a public option." Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/10/29/MNAL1ABCOT.DTL
It's the old Bait and switch fellow citizens ~ so be prepared to read the fine print before you buy into the long awaited Public Option ~ which may well be as real as Charley Brown's mystical great pumpkin.
Kip Sullivan explains ~
BAIT AND SWITCH ON 'PUBLIC OPTION' FOOLING PUBLIC
Kip Sullivan, Physicians for a Public Health Plan ~ " The New York Times reported on Saturday, October 17, that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is warning his constituents that the "public option" is not going to be available to the great majority of Americans. No one who has actually read the Senate health committee's "reform" bill or the House "reform" bill disputes this. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the "option" will be available only to about 30 million people, or about one American in ten. As the Times put it (slightly inaccurately), the "option" in the Democrats' legislation "would be out of bounds to the approximately 160 million people already covered through employers."
Does the public understand this? According to Wyden, they don't. Wyden says his constituents are shocked when they are told the "option" will not be available to the vast majority of Americans. When he began informing his constituents about this truth last summer, "They nearly fell out of the bleachers," he said .
I have written several papers warning the public that they have been the object of a "bait and switch" campaign by the leadership of the "option" movement. The "bait" in this campaign was the original version of the "option" promoted by Jacob Hacker. This version would have created an enormous public program that would have insured half the non-elderly population. Among several provisions of this first version of the "option" that would have ensured large size was one that said the "option" had to be available to all non-elderly Americans. The "switch" occurred when Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and three chairmen of House committees drafted legislation that would create a very small and weak "option."
After reading Wyden's warning, I examined over 50 polls to see if any pollsters had bothered to investigate the issue Wyden is raising. . . I discovered that the nation's best known polling firms have allowed themselves to be fooled. Pollsters are asking the public the wrong question. They are asking the public to comment on Hacker's original version of the "option" (the "bait"), not the actual "option" proposed in the Senate HELP Committee bill and HR 3200. Not surprisingly, the polls tell us very little about whether the public thinks the "option" will be available to everyone or to just a small minority. " http://prorev.com/2009/10/word_21.html
Why is this not a surprise to me or most Americans ? Because the vast majority of Americans know that Congress listens to special interest groups before they listen to their constituency ~ and then only when their election is at stake.
Next year is a mid-term election ~ so let's turn the tables and demand the truth and transparency regarding the so called Public Option. In summary ~ lost amid the ideological battle for a public option is a key overlooked fact ~ The vast majority of Americans would have no access to a public option even under its most expansive versions.
States should be free to create the best possible healthcare plans for their residents. If Congress gives States the right to "opt-in" or "opt-out" of a national "public option," it must also give States the right to "opt-in" to a State Single Payer plan.
Tell Congress the "Kucinich Amendment" must be included in a "Managers Amendment" to H.R. 3962 immediately. Pelosi will decide on Monday.
http://democrats.com/state-single-payer?cid=ZGVtczY1MzMzZGVtcw%3D%3D
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/10/31.html
