You can read the piece here:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/08/opposing-view-forget-bipartisanship.html
Reforming health care in this country is an urgent matter. For decades, we have endured a broken system that restricts and denies coverage when individuals need it most, leaving many of us one illness away from bankruptcy.
If healthcare is such a disaster, why are 80% satisfied not only with their health insurance, but also with the medical care received? This doesn’t sound like it’s nearly as bad as the author claims. And in fact, it isn’t. Some reform is needed, absolutely, but a total rewrite of the system is not.
Let's call it like it is. Most of what the Republicans want in the health care reform bill represents a victory for well-financed, private-interest greed. It's a gift to corporations, not consumers.
Keeping government out of our health insurance IS a victory for consumers. That is why I oppose the government option.
The basic principle of any bipartisan deal must be to ensure that health care is about the individual, not the corporation. We can achieve this through a public option.
How? How does clamping down on private insurance and ELIMINATING a lot of our options, by mandating we purchase health insurance AND controlling what features we MUST have in our policy… how does that increase our choices and make health insurance “about us?”
Thus far, Republicans have refused to look at the public option through a bipartisan lens. Instead of giving it a solid evaluation, they have waged a war of words in an attempt to discredit something they do not seem to fully understand.
Oh, please. I don’t WANT to look at this through a “bipartisan lens,” I want to consider options that might actually WORK! None of the plans introduced so far by the liberals would meet the goals of improving health care AND cutting costs. If looking at things through a “bipartisan lens” means we have to settle for bad legislation that will make our problems worse, than I agree that bipartisanship is for the birds.
For example, this month the Republican attacks on the public option have been rife with doublespeak. In one breath, we hear that "the government can't do anything right" while, in the next breath, we hear that "the government would run a public option so well and so inexpensively that it would knock out competition." Which is it?
Both, actually… there is no contradiction. The President himself held up the Postal Service as an example of a government agency, and then admitted that IT is the one that always has problems. That’s true. The REASON that a “public option” will run insurers out of business and lead to a de facto single-payer system is because it won’t be competing with private insurers on a level playing field. The government will control what features private insurers must offer and how much they can charge for the policies. Then the government can undercut the private insurers, fail to break even, and subsidize the government insurer with taxpayer dollars. It’s not the efficiency of a government insurer we think will lead to problems, it is the INEFFICIENCY of it.
The public option that so many of my colleagues and I support is not the downfall of health care, as Republicans would have you believe. Rather, it is what will end the insurance companies' monopoly and control over our individual health.
Do liberals ever think about what they’re saying… or in this case, writing? How can many different companies have a monopoly on something? The very definition of the word “monopoly” implies that ONE ENTITY controls the commodity. If we have many different companies providing health insurance, then there is no monopoly. This is kind of like saying that we must have government-run restaurants and grocery stores because the privately run restaurants and grocery stores “have a monopoly on food.” Ridiculous, isn’t it?
The public option is one of the choices that individuals would have as consumers of health insurance. Furthermore, studies have found it to be cost effective for all taxpayers, as it would lower the cost of subsidies while preserving private coverage for most people.
Just for giggles and grins… what studies are you referring to, Rep Grijalva? I’ve seen studies that show just the opposite, so how about a little more detail here? But here’s a question: How can it be choice if it’s mandated? Isn’t forcing people to do something the OPPOSITE of choice? I sort of thought it was.
The Republican agenda is to stop health care reform and, specifically, the public option; the Trojan horse of malpractice and frivolous litigation is part of that strategy.
Again, I can’t speak for the Republicans, but I would LOVE it if the so-called “public option” was stopped. We do need some reform, but destroying the entire system we already have is NOT the best way to approach this problem. The “public option,” yet another liberal-sponsored, government takeover of the private sector, is anathema to the very spirit of this country that made it what it is today.
Though the liberals love to characterize those of us opposed to Obamacare as obstructionists, aren’t THEY really the “party of no?” When they can't get the votes for their introduction to single-payer health care, several stand up and said they won’t pass any bill without a public option. Isn’t that just as much a position of “opposition for opposition’s sake” as they accuse the Republicans of having?
When it comes down to it, the health care plans championed by the liberal extremists in Congress and in the White House are a very bad idea that will do great damage to this country. It MUST be stopped, and fools like Rep Grijalva need to be voted out of office in 2010… forever.
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