Public option dead? Oh crap!
I saw this story and thought to myself: why are we all so worried about being swallowed whole by the giant shark when the piranhas are busy nibbling us away to bare carcasses as we speak? That’s what we should really be worried about.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A key Senate negotiator said Sunday that President Barack Obama should drop his push for a government-funded public health insurance option because the Senate will never pass it.
Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota said it was futile to continue to “chase that rabbit” due to the lack of 60 Senate votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
“The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for a public option. There never have been,” Conrad said on “FOX News Sunday.”
Good news? I suppose. Except…they’re going to pass something. Maybe not this time. Maybe not this year. But they will, and it’ll be smaller.
That may sound like a good thing, but…well, here’s what Robert Samuelson wrote last week:
Originally, Medicare covered only those 65 and older. In 1972, Congress added the disabled, now about 15 percent of beneficiaries, notes Diane Rowland of the Kaiser Family Foundation. It also covered dialysis for kidney failure. In 2003, Congress created a drug benefit. Along the way, other services (hospice care, mammograms) were added.
Medicaid — the federal-state program for the poor — is the same story, says Rowland. Initially, it covered mainly people on welfare, as defined by states. Gradually, eligibility broadened. Now, children ages 6 to 18 in households under the poverty line ($22,050 for a family of four) get it. Congress also set higher limits (133 percent of the poverty line) for pregnant women and children under 6. In 1997, Congress created the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to expand coverage further.
Meanwhile, open-ended reimbursement by government and private insurance has ballooned health spending despite repeated pledges to “contain” costs. For example, health payments for individuals rose from less than 1 percent of federal spending in 1965 to 23 percent in 2008.
A little more here, a little more there. Attempts to scale back beaten away by the same kind of public reaction that’s killing the public option now. And then a little bit more…
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