I get that the public option isn’t a cure-all and I also get that it would be nice if they passed a law preventing insurers from denying patients with pre-existing conditions. But what strikes me the most is how the instant the public decides it’s fed up and really wants something, all these arguments suddenly appear in the press showing why they are unreasonable and uneducated and should take a more “nuanced” (God, I hate that word) view of things. It seems to me that if you pay careful enough attention to the underlying theme of a lot of these articles, the pundits’ biggest concern about the public option is that their readers are demanding it in spite of what they are being told. Me personally, I think the time to consider what good stuff might be in a public-option-less bill is after you’ve lost that battle, not before.
Matt Taibbi, Health Care Rats Come Out Of The Woodwork (via soupsoup)
Without the public option, the government has no significant way to control costs. It was one of the major decent top town efforts. But, since this looks more and more like the private insurance industry has won, “Insurance Reform” now just looks like “Insurance Handout.”
In effect, the government has told the insurance companies, “Here are 50 million new customers. Carry on.”