Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold issued a statement today in support of the public option as a part of any health care reform package:
Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
In Support of a Public Health Insurance Option“A public option is a fundamental part of ensuring health care reform brings about real change. Opposing the public plan is an endorsement of the status quo in this country that has left tens of millions of Americans uninsured or underinsured and put massive burdens on employers. I have heard too many horror stories from my constituents about how the so-called competitive marketplace has denied them coverage from the outset, offered a benefit plan that covers everything but what they need or failed them some other way. A strong public option would ensure competition in the industry to provide the best, most affordable insurance for Americans and bring down the skyrocketing health care costs that are the biggest contributor to our long-term budget deficits. I am not interested in passing health care reform in name only. Without a public option, I don’t see how we will bring real change to a system that has made good health care a privilege for those who can afford it.”
Yes, yes, yes! Let’s hope Senator Feingold can urge some steel back into the President, Harry Reid, and all members of the Senate DEmocratic majority.
We’re behind you, keep it up!
The Constitution of the United States DOES NOT include HEALTH CARE for ANYONE. It is NOT the responsibility of the government to provided health care. Do any of you people know anything about the Constitution? The purpose of the Constitution was to LIMIT government and to protect the people FROM the government not allow the government to become a “nanny state.”
I will support health care reform of the type that Mr. Feingold is speaking ONLY after I see him and every other member of Congress who support this reform receive this “new” coverage for themselves and their family members for no less than 5 years. Once that has happened and they can show that it was comparable care to what I receive now, that they indeed were able to keep their family doctor, that they received tests, referrals, treatment and medications promptly and did not have to wait for such while some beaurocrat decided whether it was justified.
I am not rich and do not view “good health care a privilege for those who can afford it”. No, my health care is something I receive as an employee who secured a job that provides it for me only after I worked my butt off to put myself through college and graduate school and only after I did my time working my way up to the point that I now have the kind of coverage I have. Anyone else can do this too…they just need to stop looking to others to provide it and work hard to earn it for themselves!
Remember, we live by what is written in the Contsitution of the United States. Nowhere in that document does it say that Health care is a right and nowhere does it give the federal government the power to create, dictate or provide health care.
I agree that health care reform is needed and that pre-existing conditions should not be a reason to deny coverage, nor do I think that losing a job should mean losing coverage. But I believe that the last thing we need is a group of arrogant politicians who have perhaps the best coverage available dictating what the common person has as coverage while refusing to accept that coverage for themselves and their family.
Remember, you do not re-invent the wheel simply because you have a flat tire. No, you fix the flat tire. And if you find that you are having a high number of flat tires, you look into the reasons and through research you make improvements to the tire. We don’t need to re-invent health care in the US. We need to fix what isn’t working and only that. And to do this we need to stay within the guidelines of our Constitution and let the States work on this and find what works best for the people of their state. The federal government has no constitutional jurisdiction in this reform.
Great post! This legislation is nothing but a political power grab and our politicians have proven themselves to be frauds, Democrats and Republicans. Obama is the biggest fraud of all.
Thank you Sen. Feingold. As a new WI resident, I’m glad to have you in office working for us. Can you tell the other members of the Dem party to stop playing nice with the GOP. They don’t want to play. All they want to do is rip pieces off the bill till it’s nothing but tatters. Leave them out. It’s an OPTION after all. If they don’t want to use the option, fine, don’t use it. But let other people have an option. Thanks!
Thank you, Senator Feingold. I am so pleased that you have the backbone to stand up to the big money and propagandists and do what is right, moral, and just. The status quo is just the opposite of these. Republicans want only one thing: to defeat Democrats, especially our President. It is obvious now that they have no interest in solving this dire problem, so I hope the other Democratic legislators will also discover they have a spine and get this done without Republicans. We must have a strong public option!
Senator Feingold, If you believe that offering a public option will increase competition among insurers, please consider what public schools did to our education system. Public institutions dominate while private schools that may offer a better alternative struggle. Private schools CANNOT COMPETE…why would someone PAY for an education when they can get one for FREE? Why would someone PAY for health insurance when there is a government option for next to nothing or FREE!?
Our public schools are facing unprecedented hurdles and are largely failing to provide a competitive education in the world’s workplace.
Respectfully, if history is the example, it’s clear that a government option is not the solution.
In America, If you don’t have health insurance or cash to pay for medical care, you can just go to any hospital and they have to take care of you for free, or send you to a facility or clinic where you will be taken care of for free. People who are indigent are taken care of thorough this social safety net. We are already paying for the health care of those who can’t pay, and spending $2.6 Trillion per year nationally for health care. Lots of waste in this figure.
How is this service (for those who can’t pay)getting paid for? How are the hospital and clinic expansions and opulent new facilities getting paid for? The people who do have health insurance or cash to pay are paying extra in the form of higher premiums and higher fees for the services they receive. They also pay more by not getting a pay raise because employers have to shell out more money every year for their portion of health care premiums. The insurance companies use the cost transfer above as an excuse to jack up insurance premiums year after year, and then pay fat bonuses and juicy compensation packages to their executives. They are getting your pay raise, not you.
If there was a public option to cover the indigent, disabled and those with expensive health issues, taking these people out of the private health care insurance “pool”, then everyone’s premiums should go down dramatically, and the prices for most health care services should go down as well. Prices are artifically higher under the status quo. The health care industry and private health care insurance industry is not a true competitive market as it stands right now. People need the option to take their business elsewhere, unfettered and without penalty. There will never be true competition until the customer rules.
Lastly, here is a real problem that I think needs to be fixed: People who lose their job and health care insurance and then get sick, should not be forced into bankruptcy and lose their house. There should be an affordable public option to resort to when you lose your job, to replace COBRA insurance, which is way too expensive. COBRA is a joke!
Thank you for your determination and persistance. America willl appreciate your efforts and recognize your great worth – ultimately.
My recent experience shows the absolute necessity of a public option. My health insurance company brought in a so-called expert to analyze my
appeal. This expert ignored my surgeon’s report, used an incorrect
definition applied to the pathologist’s report, ignoring other information in the report which contradicted his position, and a pre-operative report to change the identification of the medical procedure, which was not part of the appeal. A letter from the pathologist to me corrects the “expert’s” outrageous error. The insurance company then sent a report with all these errors along with a false claim that they had not received all the information requested. It took over 2 hours to force a corrected letter, and it has taken over 40 hours to correct this blatant attempt to avoid a legitimate payment.
But having the government be in control will be sooooooo much better.
My health care company had no qualms about denying me the bone marrow transplant I desperately needed. They are a for profit business but we have allow them to run the show and set the terms for too long. Do you know the percentage of profit in insurance? It is time to set some reasonable rules. Thank goodness for Senator Russ, Let’s hope the whiners do not succeed this time.
I’m encouraged by the respones I’ve read here, and I’ve only covered about half of them. I’m a lifelong Democrat, now 79 years old, in generally good health. But I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m covered by a policy that continued into my retirement from my employment with NY State, and although I have to pay for some of the premium, it’s really minimal, when compared to what I read and hear about others’ premiums. So I am lucky.
But I’d like to see all Americans covered by a health care plan that would be available without reference to existing conditions or age or dispositions toward certain ailments.I’d like to see health care that’s affordable to all, and not a treasure chest for a relatively few “health insurance industry” executives. The gap between uninsured and health insurance executives is obscene. But most of all, I want to figure a way of raising this issue quickly as a grass roots issue, just as we did in getting President Obama elected. I want to see a government health care plan that will eliminate the current industry excesses. I agree that a plan with a governmental portion is no reform at all.
I see Senators on one side of the aisle fomenting fear with exagerations and outright lies, and on the other side of the aisle, I see too many Democrats who are so afraid of losing votes from the victims of these lies, that they forget that their job is to work for the betterment of the nation, not just their own offices. Dems are afraid again, just as they have been in the not so distant past. They need to get some spine, like Senator Feingold, and I think the best way to stiffen their spines is to get a groundswell of opinion going, to convince them that Americans want and need real reform, and not just words.
Unfortunately Felix is already paying for the uninsured. We all are. Because Medicaid and Medicare do not re-imburse the actual costs for many hospitals, and because they are required to treat the un-insured whether they can pay or not, the left over costs of service (which are a lot) are billed to those who have insurance or who pay for services. This is one reason American are paying so much for their health care.
The purpose of health care reform is to cover everyone so that we as a nation can pay less than we now do to be healthy. Countries that cover everyone pay less (as a percent of their total gross national product) than we do. You don’t have to be a humanitarian (which clearly Felix is not!) to support health care reform.
Thank you Senator, for performing your duty to the general public responsible for your election, rather than pandering to the demands of the moneyed special interests. Special interests who are only interested in increasing and protecting their profits, rather than protecting the health of the US public as a whole. As a person of european background I am well aware of the benefits and low costs of state run health insurance schemes, and equally aware of the dismal state of health insurance and health care in the USA. I am glad to see that you correctly identify US health care as a privilege reserved for the wealthy; that condition is a national disgrace making a mockery of the supposed principles of the society in which we dwell. It is long past time for the Congress and the President to do their duty by the great mass of the American people and create a health care system which delivers comprehensive medical care to all, on the basis of need, not ability to pay.
Thank you, Senator Feingold. You’re taking the right stand – AGAIN! As a Wisconsin resident, I’m proud to have your representation.
could I please see a straightforward definition of “the public option.”
Barbara
We need health care reform in some form – BUT keep the government out of it!! They have proven that they aren’t able to run any type of private industry – they are spenders!
Thank You Senator Finegold for once again showing that you are the conscience of the Senate. When every other industialized country in the world has had universal health care for going on 60 years and countries poorer than ours even have it, the richest country in the world should have it! There would be lots of money for universal health care, national day care, and many other worthy programs if we would stop engaging in wars. The position of going into countries and destablilizing their governments to get at their resources serves primarily the rich who are always looking for another market to exploit. We need to take care of our own before we go on these crusades for democracy that we have a hard time protecting here.
Thank you Senator Fingold for having the guts to stand up for the little guy!!!!!You will always get my vote and my admiration!!!
Marsha
I live in Oklahoma where our two Neanderthal senators, Coburn and Inhofe support the do-nothing status quo of healthcare…They are clowns
As I knew he would, Mr. Feingold has come to the correct opinion on this matter. My brother worked in the insurance industry for about 30 years, so I know what he has had to say about this whole topic of health care, the private insurance industry, the drug industry, etc. The best health care obviously takes a secondary role, while the profit motive takes a big primary role, when it comes to the insurance industry, and drug industry, yet we continue to have some small minded, unthinking, brainwashed Americans who contend that Government involvement in anything is a bad thing, thanks to their beloved Ronald Reagon starting such nonsensical talk years ago when he was President. Among this crowd, we have the blue dog Democrats who fear people in their districts who share such stupid views, and also fear the lobbyists from the insurance and drug industries, who donate heavily to their reelection campaign. And, of course, we have the crazy wild eyed extremist Republicans, who work hard to protect big business, the insurance industry at all costs, while trying to convince the public otherwise. These people all deserve the sort of second rate, extravagantly expensive health care we have in this country now. Nobody yet seems to appreciate the fact that health care costs, and health care premiums will continue to rise rapidly until a peak is eventually reached, that dramatically effects too many people in this country, when Government intervention WILL HAVE TO TAKE PLACE. To think anything else, is simply ignoring the facts.