With Cabinet appointees like these who needs opposition?
HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius channels her inner Baucus and pans a public option that includes a single payer component. Via NPR
As lawmakers on Capitol Hill hammer out legislation to overhaul the nation’s health care system this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says that a single-payer option is not on the table.
In the end, Secretary Sebelius represents and speaks for the President of the United States. So comments like these -
“This is not a trick. This is not single-payer,” Sebelius told Steve Inskeep. She added: “That’s not what anyone is talking about — mostly because the president feels strongly, as I do, that dismantling private health coverage for the 180 million Americans that have it, discouraging more employers from coming into the marketplace, is really the bad, you know, is a bad direction to go.”
Who is taking about dismantling the system? She goes on to address the main concern of the GOP that “a publicly funded insurance plan that would likely compete against private insurers”. The GOP really doesn’t link competition.
A public health insurance plan, Sebelius said, will put pressure on private insurers to keep costs competitive. “And that’s a good thing,” she says. “I think that’s a good thing for the American public. Medicare right now has lower overhead costs than private insurers.”
Did you catch that? Medicare, that federal single payer system is mentioned. And in a positive light. But wait there is more. Read this and tell me if you know what she is taking about
Asked if the administration’s program will be drafted specifically to prevent it from evolving into a single-payer plan, Sebelius says: “I think that’s very much the case, and again, if you want anybody to convince people of that, talk to the single-payer proponents who are furious that the single-payer idea is not part of the discussion.”
Sebelius says such concerns are unfounded because a single-payer plan is not under consideration, and these “draconian” scenarios have muddled the conversation over the president’s proposal for a public option.
“The whole idea of the public option has been difficult, in part, because some of the opposition has described it as a potential for a, you know, draconian scenario that was never part of the discussion in the first place,” Sebelius says. “So, disabusing people of what is not going to happen is often difficult, because there’s no tangible way to do that.”
Look - we need a health care system that is affordable, covers everyone, and so on - Medicare seems to be working. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel?
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If we don’t get vocal (i.e. write, call or donate to Howard Deans group) then we will get what we deserve. So get up and do something 76%!
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