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.”
I’m a breast cancer survivor who will lose affordable coverage when my husband retires. Our daughter has asthma, another preexisting condition. I need single payer, or a public option at least, to continue getting the care I need. My daughter needs me. And I shudder to think of her future health care if the insurance companies are left in charge.
Thank you, Senator Feingold, for keeping the public option alive. Medicare works. Single payer works. Health care for profit does not.
Thank you, Senator, for being a voice of reason and sanity. I support you and agree with your comments wholeheartedly.
Public Option is the only rational way to approach reforms health care in the USA. Any for profit Insurance plan daily makes decisions on rationing the care offered. Remember the HMOs. Some primary care physicians received bonuses for how few referrals they made.
A public option that individuals and businesses could opt for would allow reasonable premium rates for all. But, like medicare, you can’t opt out and then opt in when health problems arise, and private insurers cannot drop insured when their medical costs exceed the premiums. Insurance is a bet we make with a company that we will need their promised payouts while they are betting they’ll earn more that we pay them.
Kathy, without art without heart.
Since republicans are not coperating, let us push MEDICARE FOR ALL.
Voting for the status quo will not keep the status quo.
Just 62 percent of businesses are sure they will continue to provide coverage over the next 10 years. 43 percent of businesses offering health insurance plan to move to health savings accounts: http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/26/24/63.php
A Watson Wyatt survey of businesses found that 66 percent of respondents that shifted healthcare costs to employees see that shift as permanent. Another 40 percent are planning to shift more health care benefit costs to workers. Another 41 percent of companies expect to increase the deductibles, co-pays or out-of-pocket maximums for their 2010 health care plans.
But the real problem is that health care will bankrupt the country as well as individuals and businesses if we just sit on our hands and do nothing.
How did the bankers that run our Health Insurance convince so many people that they WERE American Medicine. How is a public insurance option Socialized Medicine?
These tolls that have inserted themselves between me and my doctor are just interested in taking their cut and provide nothing medical.
I know Obama is up against it, and probably thinks nothing will happen if he does not cave,and the coop idea is ludicrous and not proven. The public option is something we must have now, or it will be 15 years before it is ever again a possibility, and only that. All we who worked so hard and believed so totally that Obama could get this done are just now realizing that it might not. All of us need to call their reps now and often. It is almost too late!! think of the energy we had then and use it now!
In regards to below NO THAT IS NOT TRUE… the RED PENNY BIT (his message included below)
My husband is a disabled Vet due to Agent Orange exposure. He has “acute” peripheral neuropathy. He throws up every morning. No..to your statement that the Government pays for all. NO.. despite the fact that my husband served in Vietnam, feels electrical shocks throughout his body .. ALWAYS, NO we do NOT in fact pay for meds to the tune of about $100. a month for just my husband. Thank you America.. for NO yellow bumper stickers for those guys that came home from Vietnam.. no… we spit on them then.
$100 a month? Not that much to some I suppose, but to me a HUGE amount when I listen to my husband vomiting in the toilet, due to serving this country.
So to that statement below? …”NO”
and dare I say that my statement is made with a very bitter pill.
Author: John O’Hern/Comment:/To Col Richard Ippolito, Sir, I suspect that the “Col” title you signed means you are an officer in the Armed Forces. Do you skip the health care that the government GIVES you to go to a private Doctor and pay for it yourself? I bet not. And guess What?
The health care you receive in the Armed Forces IS socialized medicine.
Every tax payer helps you with your health care expenses. As far as I suspect, if you go to the Armed Service Doctors you don’t pay a “red penny” for health care.
My comment was a reply to a specific statement by someone representing himself or herself as a “Col” and that probably doesn’t apply to your husband. I suspect that your husband was not a Colonel when he was in Nam and I expect that Colonels get considerably better benefits than non-commissioned soldiers.
What the VA and our government did to the Agent Orange victims is unconscionable, immoral, and if there is a God, He will take that in to account. It will remain a black stain on our national honor until progressives like the members of this discussion can get a national single payer healthcare system passed.
All health care for all, no exceptions!
I don’t quite understand just what the “public option” is. How are rates going to be set? Will it be a regulated plan with a private insurer? I agree with a comment in a radio discussion that without the public option, all the reform would be is another boon to the insurance industry, with the addition of many more clients forced to have insurance. There has to be some mechanism to control costs. Is that going to be the function of the public option, or will there be price controls?
Russ is dead wrong. I pray his “public option” fails and takes him down with it. A safety net, yes. Another unfunded, mandated entitlement, no.
And if the current herd of Marxists were more responsive to the majority of their constituents, we wouldn’t have to show up in an already frustrated state of mind.
And Russ, don’t bother sending me another one of your form letters. I have plenty of TP already.
RWE – In referencing your comment,
“…a safety net, yes. Another unfunded, mandated entitlement, no.”
That is interesting, and I would appreciate hearing from you about what type of safety net you recommend.
Thank you.
Very interesting, but…
One minute we’re Nazis and the next we’re Commies. You might be more effective in you smears and lies if you got better coordinated.
RWE,
Calling names and making scatalogical refernces to a Senator is a poor way to impress people with the intellectual soundness of your opinion.
Nick Freeman (I complement Nick on a great name for public discourse) has already requested more detail about your safety net. After all, “the Devil is in the details,” as the saying goes.
What I am curious about is this other unfunded, mandated entitlement program you mention. Please tell me what it is, so I can sign up?
And finally, if you choose to use the language as you have, please have the courage to disclose your full name. For all we know, you might be Rush Limbaugh or Karl Rove
I wholeheartedly agree we cannot have health care reform without the public option. I would support the single payer system, but it looks like that’s off the table. If we give up the public option, we are doomed. Please keep the public option.
The hostility, faulty logic, and false outrage evident in this ‘debate’ demonstrate who is driving the debate – those in power. Until there is systemic change, and real accountability, we will continue to have wars under false pretenses, the best government money can buy, and distractions, not substance in our discourse.
For reasons unknown to me, health care reform is a stalking horse for Newt Gingrich’s unflagging presidential ambition, and a spew target for Rush Limbaugh.
Does it really truly matter if health care is reasonable, rational, and accessible. Of course it does. Those who vow they are not going to pay for others’ insurance are either so full of venom that they have poisoned themselves, or are reading straight from the scripts issued to morons for regurgitation.
Over the past forty years, the rising tide of righteous corporate sponsored know-nothingism has brought us food that isn’t safe (but, boy, is it cheap!) housing folks can’t afford, bankers that are thieves, a dangerous angry world, soaring education costs, loss of jobs in the millions, less safety in the streets, in the schools, on the job, and everywhere you look.
Heck of a job, Brownie. If this country can’t take care of itself, protect our citizens, and earn the trust and loyalty of the young and old, as a society, we’re toast.
I am for public opition and if the citizens would look at the facts and stop listening to all the lies. The fact is that everyone has a right to health care and I am tired of the big insurance compianies making decision when it comes to my health. I support you Sentor Feingold. I will be helping with your campaign here in Verona.
The public option is essential to reform. It will compete with the insurance companies and such competition will work for the best interest of all of us. It is a viable solution and can work well for everyone’s benefit. The status quo is not working.
Thanks for supporting the public option. Passing this is imperative if we are to expand health care to the millions who don’t have it or who have lost it. If the insurance companies had any sense, they would support this effort with the hope of selling the new millions their health insurance. But since they are fighting it tooth and nail, there has to be a public option.
Maybe they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know. Too bad. Let them exist with the customers they have. The rest of us can go to the public option.
Americans need to be much better educated about how to take care of their own health, but also in the ways that the medical care, pharmaceutical, health insurance and food corporations willfully mislead millions to get our money. We are blessed with compassionate, capable doctors and staff and excellent technology — but a lot of it is undone by our own unhealthful habits and compounded by blind faith in Big Pharma and Big Insurance. A public option will start to reduce the wasteland that has been created by these entities and provide what we have right to: straightforward, comprehensive, affordable coverage so that no one and nothing — profit and loss calculations, bureaucracy, CEO or corporate greed — stands in the way of medical care. Millions go bankrupt due in large part to medical costs, people are denied treatment if their plan doesn’t cover it, LIVES ARE RUINED because our medical system has been hijacked by impersonal corporate interests. ENOUGH DEBATE! PUBLIC OPTION!
Tim T:
During the aftermath of Katrina, while our Medical community fled the hospitals leaving ill behind, a public funded medical system from another country offered to send 600 of their Doctors to New Orleans to help. Of course, the arrogant administration in Washington refused the help.
If the Medical Schools are opened up to accept more students and the supply of Doctors increases then the system will be able to provide adequate health care without concern for overloading caused by a public option.
And since most people without insurance eventually end up in an emergency room in near critical condition, we are now already paying for their critical care which the hospitals pass on to their other customers. With a public option and good education, those cases will be able to be treated at the on-set before a critical condition develops and at a minimal price.
With a single payer option Medicare expansion, you as a small business owner would no longer have to provide any medical subsidies to your employees, thus allowing you to compete more effectively in the global marketplace with companies from other industrialized nations that do not carry the burden of health insurance. Business owners, especially small businesses should be in the front line demanding a single payer public option, to completely eliminate their business medical subsidy and to help control their poersonal medical costs. A double whammy for you, dude!
A single payer public plan covers everyone! No ifs, ands, or buts.
The claim of Tort reform lowering medical costs is a straw dog propagated by wealthy interests to avoid responsibility for their incompetence.
Tell me the total amount for last year of all medical malpractice awards, the total amount of all malpractice insurance premiums, the total amount of malpractice lawyers fees, the total amount of fees for Doctors, ambulances, hospitals, pharmacies, rehabilitation providers, travel expenses for families, funeral costs, insurance co-pays and medical insurance premiums associated with all malpractice suits filed, and the total amount of all health care costs for all consumers.
Until we have these facts, an intelligent analysis of the cost to the average consumer for malpractice suits is impossible.
On the other hand: On or about August 6th, 2009, United Health Care (a health insurance provider) reported an increase in their profits from 2008 until 2009 of 155%. (Source: MSNBC News) This is not revenue; it is their profit margin. How can they possibly increase profits this much in one year when we have seen how bad the over all economy has been for everyone else?
Limiting Tort awards will only increase the profits of the insurance companies and the health care providers. Have you ever been given a reduced price from a hospital, or a Doctor or an insurance company? I daresay that you have NEVER seen a reduction in cost volunteered by any of these providers. Can anyone in this forum say that their insurance company called them or wrote them saying, “Hey, we are making too much money, here’s some back?”
And once again the driving cause of higher costs associated with malpractice suits is not the awards themselves; it is the malpractice insurance premiums passed on to all Doctors due to the incompetence of some Doctors. Limiting the awards available to a family that has suffered irreparable harm from an incompetent health provider does nothing to solve costs and issues an “all-e, all-e in free” card to the insurance companies and incompetent health providers.
A number of years ago a friend of mine worked in a hospital as an Operating Room Technician. My friend told me about a particular surgeon who showed up to operate under the influence of alcohol. Another Doctor in the hospital performed his operation for him. I asked my friend if it was reported to the AMA. My friend replied that the inebriated Doctor’s reputation was widespread in the hospital community but no reports were ever made to the AMA and that this situation was not the first, that it was (pardon the pun) standard operating procedure and would not be the last time this happened. Doctors are an exclusive club of arrogant profiteers daily exercising the power of life and death over us commoners. Remember Doctors get to bury their mistakes!
I can’t believe I’m reading these posts in the United States. When, specifically, did “profit” become a bad word? In this country, the health insurance sector ranks 86th in profit margin (less than 4%). That means there are 85 other sectors that make more profit than these companies. My hope is that those ripping on profit aren’t receiving a pension or dividends. Cover the 4-5% of documented American citizens that can’t get insurance and pay for it with the “waste and fraud” that our President says is rife in the Medicare system. There. Problem solved without legislation.
Hi Rockne,
Thanks for using your whole name!
Nobody said profits are bad. (A word cannot be good or bad; only people have the ability to be good or evil. I hope that you wish to be a good person.)
I quoted MSNBC’s business report that United Healthcare’s profits increased 155% in one year, a year when some other businesses were losing up to as much as 60% of their value or even worse completely failing. If this discrepancy between a health insurance provider and business in general doesn’t give you cause for concern, then I guess you should state exactly what you think is a fair rate of return for a business as a general rule of thumb.
Your statistics about ranking health insurance profit margins at 86 percentile seemed out of line with my expectations for an insurance provider. What is your source for this ranking?
Your claim concerning the lack of profitability of the health insurance industry sent me off on a search for information this morning. I found the following information at CNN Money’s Fortune 50 most profitable industries report. To get an overview of the healthcare industry I have summarized all of the rankings for a variety of health care providers, not just insurance companies. For comparison, the only other industry group that I could see of comparable scope is the Energy industry (oil drilling, refining, energy, utilities etc.) Both groups have 6 to 8 participants in the top 50 most profitable. To make a general comparison I averaged the rankings and percentages. See the tables below.
Revenues
Industry Avg rank Profit as % of revenue
Energy 22 9.73%
Health 22.3 8.58%
Assets
Industry Avg rank Profit as % of Assets
Energy 23 6.25%
Health 32 4.27%
Equity
Industry Avg rank Profit as % of Equity
Energy 23.3 17.08%
Health 33 12.50%
I think you are under estimating the percentage of un-insured at 4-5% of “documented citizens.” What do you mean by documented citizen? So I went to the US Department of Health and Human Services Medical Expenditure Survey report that states that for the population under 65 years of age the un-insured rate is 22%. For the total population the rate is 19+%. I suspect the difference is a result of Medicare.
I find it amusing that when President Obama is positive about reforming health care you are opposed to it. Yet when President Obama is critical of “waste and abuse,” you accept his word on it.
In my opinion, discussing only health insurance will not solve our nations problems concerning healthcare. If you consider all of the money already spent for all aspects of health related expenses (insurance only being one segment) the amount is enormous. I believe that we are already paying enough to provide health care for all, especially if a one payer Medicare plan is used!
Thanks for not letting us down Senator Feingold!