Public Plan or Co-ops

When the public plan died, I could no longer support the reform. But with co-ops, I guess something is better than nothing.

A public plan would be far more efficient than co-ops. The overhead would be far lower because decisions would only have to be made once, rather than 50 times. There would be only one electronic medical record system, rather than 50 different ones that may or may not talk to each other. Negotiations would occur once, rather than with 50 different groups.

The only benefit I see with co-ops is that the bill just might pass. If the co-op would have some negotiating powers with drug companies, then that might help too. The public plan had acquiesced on drug price negotiations.

Still, a co-op system would be much less efficient and would cost the overall healthcare system much more. All of the cost savings from this plan would have to be recalculated, and I'm sure it would be much less. It may be so much less that it does not fix the system. In that case, the anti-reform people can wag their fingers in a few years in an "I told you so." But there is always the hope that another bill may pass in the future to fix the things we couldn't fix this time.

Here is an interesting blog post from another perspective. RC3.org says the prize is the universal mandate.

Here is my response to that post. Interesting perspective. No one will vote to take away their own insurance, true.

I'm concerned about the viability of the system as a whole. If it costs so much that it drags down our economy, then it's essentially bankrupting our country.

So if we mandate that everyone is covered without a public option in place, then the insurance companies will make a giant profit and be able to further fund the suppression of a public non-profit option. They will bankrupt the country by concentrating power and wealth in the hand of a few CEOs, taking it away from us, the little people.

I still think that we need a non-profit mandate in the insurance mix to compete with those evil health suppression (insurance) companies. This co-op compromise is my last straw. If they weaken this reform any further, then my liberal vote is gone.