--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <r...@...> wrote: > > From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:fairfieldl...@yahoogroups.com] > On Behalf Of It's just a ride > Sent: Monday, August 17, 2009 9:16 PM > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com > Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: So, Raunchy, Obama has given up on the > public options, huh? > > > On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 8:50 PM, raunchydog<raunchy...@... > <mailto:raunchydog%40yahoo.com> > wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com > <mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com> , "It's just a ride" > <bill.hicks.all.a.ride@> wrote: > > > > The only way we are going to get a public option is to reject the idea > that a co-op is an acceptable fallback position. Co-ops are an admission for > defeat. > > > > Why oh why do you have to keep seeing this as Earth, The Final Battle > (a terrible former TV series)? Co-ops are not an admission for > defeat. They are the shits, as they deny people with pre-existing > conditions and toss out people who become expensive. But a co-op > system is closer to a public option system next go around than a poke > in the eye with a sharp stick. > > I want it all, so does Obama. But if we have to hammer away year > after year, any step would be a start. Stop hating insurance > companies and big pharma. They will both be put in their place, just > not in one swell foop. You know if we forbid pharma from advertising, > they'd have more money left over than what they spend on R&D? Water > can wear away rock. We'll get to a good place, just maybe not by > January. > I hope you're right. I think Obama wants to do the right thing and I think > that we armchair quarterbacks have no idea what he's up against. They say > that the job is like drinking from a fire hose - so much coming at you. I > find it encouraging that he finds the job exhilarating (his word) and not > overwhelming, as some of his predecessors obviously did. > Howard Dean was on the news tonight trashing the co-op idea. He says many of > them have collapsed. Maybe they'd be more successful it they became more > mainstream and millions were members. >
Howard Dean is right, co-ops suck. It's the insurance industry's wet dream and our nightmare. The reason Medicare is a low cost operation, is that they don't pay their executive millions like private insurance and they have bargaining power because they have a huge membership. Co-ops will never have that kind of negotiating power. Here's the kicker, Congress wants to reduce the Medicare budget and guess where that money is going? It's going to prop up mandated insurance, probably co-ops, for low income folks. That's fine but why short change an efficient system like Medicare and reward an inefficient system like co-ops when low income folks could have had Medicare from the git go. Eventually, the co-ops will collapse, Medicare will be belly up and the rapacious insurance/big pharma bastards who set this whole plan in motion will have destroyed their only competitor, Medicare.
