Robert Reich: Harry Reid, and What Happened to the Public Option

First there was Medicare for all 300 million of us. But that was a non-starter because private insurers and Big Pharma wouldn't hear of it, and Republicans and "centrists" thought it was too much like what they have up in Canada -- which, by the way, cost Canadians only 10 percent of their GDP and covers every Canadian. (Our current system of private for-profit insurers costs 16 percent of GDP and leaves out 45 million people.)--- Our private, for-profit health insurance system, designed to fatten the profits of private health insurers and Big Pharma, is about to be turned over to ... our private, for-profit health care system. Except that now private health insurers and Big Pharma will be getting some 30 million additional customers, paid for by the rest of us. Upbeat policy wonks and political spinners who tend to see only portions of cups that are full will point out some good things: no pre-existing conditions, insurance exchanges, 30 million more Americans covered. But in reality, the cup is 90 percent empty. Most of us will remain stuck with little or no choice -- dependent on private insurers who care only about the bottom line, who deny our claims, who charge us more and more for co-payments and deductibles, who bury us in forms, who don't take our calls.
2 commentscategory: Abuse of Power/Corruption karma: 154

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  1. #1    So Robert Reich, Harry Reid, and the Public Option walk into a bar...
    (sorry)
    written by kladner since 81 days 14 hours 19 minuteskladner
  2. #2    " It's a token public option, ... so small and desiccated as to be barely worth mentioning except for the fact that it still (gasp) contains the word "public." "

    What more need be said?
    written by quousque since 80 days 17 hours 8 minutesquousque
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