New Ad Blasts Insurance Companies, Renews Push For Public Option
There’s a growing sense in Washington that the insurance industry inadvertently breathed new life into the public option by releasing that report yesterday predicting reform would hike premiums, creating a new argument in favor of creating competition for the industry in the form of a public plan.
Now the labor-backed White House ally Americans United For Change is going up with a new ad timed to capitalize on that sense to renew the push for the public option:
The ad, which is airing on D.C. cable in an effort to target lawmakers, concludes: “When health insurance executives fix the game, they get rich. Time for competition when it comes to health insurance. We need the choice of a public health insurance plan.”
The spot is designed to amplify the message — perhaps best delivered yesterday by Congressman Anthony Weiner — that the insurance compannies made one of the strongest cases yet for a public option by essentially vowing to raise rates. The report also makes it easier for reform proponents to argue that the industry, which had been making nice with the White House, is a bad-faith actor not to be trusted.
It seems like a potentially big tactical error by the insurance industry, and it’ll be interesting to watch how proponents of the public option capitalize on it to pressure the White House and Senate leadership to put a public plan — or some form of it — into the final Senate bill that’s being negotiated this week. The public option lives!
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Government “competition” is Orwellian.
my my my QB… you’re up early with the hyperbolic-to-patently untrue claims today
Yeah, the paid trolls are up early over at FDL too.
“hyperbolic-to-patently true” = unintentionally ironic
Who is paying you, msmolly?
I’m trying really hard not to be optimistic today. If we can just get this damn thing out of the Finance Committee today will be a win. And Greg, I think the title of your post should have referred to the bungling and role reversal by the insurance lobby which had chosen to hang back until yesterday. Their numbers don’t jive with the “excellent” CBO score the FC bill got (and I don’t really like the CBO when it comes to health care but it is a big metric on the Hill), and so their argument is not likely to get much traction in Congress.
I love Baseball, but I think that ad is too corny. It doesn’t hit them hard enough (the insurance industry) IMHO.
They deserve worse after threatening to raise rates 111% if they don’t get what they want from Congress. Something along the lines of extortion or the mob would have a little more kick to it.
lmsinca
I think the ad is corny too plus it seems to just hope that people are back to loving baseball enough (forgetting the recent steroids scandal) that they will look at MLB as some kind of good guy to the health insurance industry bad guy. Not what I would have went with thats for sure, but maybe capitalizing on the MLB playoffs will work. Who knows?
What of Medicare’s $38 Trillion in unfunded liabilities? How were you thinking anything being discussed even remotely addresses that number?
Sigh.
Democrats seem to be terminally incapable of hitting back with anything other than a pillowcase full of wet noodles. Who thinks up this lame stuff for them? Secret Republicans???
Dare I say that production-wise it’s a minor league ad? Still, it’s simple (always a plus) and it positions the execs alongside their ridiculous salaries and thus underlines for folks how monies they contribute to insurance goes to the caviar and yaught crowd.
From USA Today, March 1, 2005. A nice little legacy from Bush.
“Bush is struggling to win support in Congress for his plan to add personal savings accounts for the retirement program. Even so, many Republicans say enactment of a plan buttressing Social Security would win them gratitude from younger voters who think the current system will go bankrupt and is too financially stodgy.”
“A similar political gain from reshaping Medicare seems more elusive. Congress attached prescription drug coverage to the program in 2003, adding $724 billion to Medicare’s costs over the next decade, according to White House estimates. An immediate effort to cull savings from Medicare could be seen as an admission of error by Bush and the GOP-led Congress.”
“It would be embarrassing to suddenly say this is a program in dire need of restricting,” said Robert Reischauer, president of the liberal-leaning Urban Institute and former head of the Congressional Budget Office.”
The ad should have included the words public option and it’s not a great production; but it’s simple and effective messaging and that’s always a plus.
I think that the industry also made it harder for conservadems like Bayh and Nelson to not vote for cloture. The insurance industry made it clear how screwed folks will be w/out a real public option pushing reform.
My big hope; that folks will stop coddling them and push for the legislation to be enacted from Jan 1, 2010. That would be a huge pop for the democrats as people watch their health care costs go down; the system improves and people find more money in their wallets. Real health care reform that is enacted quickly with a public option tied to medicare rates would be a type of stimulus.
Terribly OT but I understand that Conservapedia is considering using R. Crumb’s work in their project to de-liberalize the St James bible… http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120501.html
“Terribly OT but I understand that Conservapedia is considering using R. Crumb’s work in their project to de-liberalize the St James bible… http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120501.html”
Holy Cosmic Man! Bernie – does Crumb know? I haven’t followed the link yet – I can’t imagine Crumb agreeing to that unless he is broke, which is possible.
As a die hard White Sox fan I find reminding us of the “Black Sox Incident” reprehensible.
LOL
I agree with posters disappointed in the production values. I could get past that but they picked a horrible comparison. Major League Baseball doesn’t compete…and that’s just it. They’re overlooking another scandalous rape of our country’s tax coffers…that of MLB taking taxpayer money to build their edifices and pay their athletes 100’s of millions of dollars. Not only should the Insurance companies lose their antitrust protection…SO SHOULD BASEBALL. Those familiar with the Yankee stadium debacle where a former Bloomberg administration NYC Staffer..got a land appraisal reversed and increased dramatically just so the Yankees could take advantage of even more taxpayers largesse in a scam called PILOTS. The reward for that Bloomberg staffer…he is now in the private sector working for…guess who…the Tampa Bay Rays who are now themselves in the midst of trying to bilk St.Pete residents out of a half BILLION dollars in subisidies…technically they only asked for a quarter of a billion the first time around…they lost because they wanted our waterfront…but they’re not done…and thanks to NO COMPETITION..MLB can dictate to cities…build us a stadium or we’ll leave for a town with taxpayers gullible enough to do so, and with a large enough civic inferiority complex to take advantage.
I like pounding the Insurance Companies on what is obviously the best reason for the P.O. yet offered. But what a bad choice to compare them to..and not just because of steroids and horrible business model but because MLB is actually WORSE than the Insurance Companies when it comes to scamming consumers and taxpayers alike.
“The public option lives!”
And “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!”
The Dems’ll get something they will call a “public option” – but how weak will it be? That’s the question – it’s survival is not in doubt, is it?
Yes, not a good idea to depict baseball in an unflattering light in the middle of the playoffs!
@sbj…as a former sportscaster and all around lover of athletics and sports in general I understand the the dangers of pointing out the Emperors new clothes.
I hve fought this battle on a very personal level here in St Petersburg for a year and a half now. The fact that we have an MLB franchise is like the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads in St. Petersburg. The owners of the Rays are very shrewed New York Investment bankers who made tons of money in our economic bubble and then cashed in for greener pastures…MLB where they could use that anti-trust exemption to bilk taxpayers out of ridiculous sums of money.
BTW sbj..even though I love sports…I gave up on MLB long ago…how exciting is it to watch the Yankees who spend 4-5x what the Rays could EVER afford. You’re a bright guy SBJ but I’d still love to go up against you in the business of your choice if I get to start with an incredible market size differential and then to add to it..I get to spend five times as much as you on my product and promotion.
The reason the NFL is great is because of the salary cap (which alas may go away)and equitable sharing of broadcast revenue. This means tiny Green Bay Wisconsin can compete against the mighty teams from New York and Boston year in and year out. Kudo’s to Wellington Mara..New York Giant owner back when all this was created…instead of being a totally greedy power crazed……like Steinbrenner…he realized competition is at the core of any good athletic product. MLB is the most non competitive sport available today.
I like this ad. It follows the KISS principle, and points out that the Insurance execs are allowed to fix the game. Nice short crisp punches which land on target.
Keep in mind who this ad is intendeded to reach; those who were being swayed by simplistic claims, such as “death panels”.
Baseball and Competition good. Private Insurance Executives and price fixing monopoly bad.
That is what the ad is saying. Very timely, since the Insurance weasels overplayed their hand yesterday.
The answer is still the same as it has always been. Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines, and prevent the multi-million dollar rewards for suing a doctor for something that he may already have corrected. But, of course, these are two of the liberals sacred cows, and such thinking doesn’t even enter into their realm of possibilities.
Here is another thought. All you guys are lamenting how “Big Insurance” is reaping huge profits. Now, I want an honest answer here. How many of you have 401K plans with at least some holdings in insurance? My guess is at least 70% of all well structured plans have some. See? We all are part of “Big Insurance”. The money being made is ours.
Get rid of the present GOVERNMENTAL restrictions to competition across state lines, and hold down tort costs. The “no cost” fix is always the best.
Compared to Medicare’s $38 trillion in unfunded liabilities, how are all the other healthcare pros and cons not simply piddly? Yet no one even broaches the gargantuan topic?
The phony excuse, as always, is Tort costs. They amount to about 2% of the overall costs.
When Doctors and Hospitals open up their records, instead of covering up for the bad ones, who make most of the medical mistakes, then we can talk about tort reform.
When I can look up the medical history of any Doctor, before selecting one, to make sure that I am not getting one with a history of making major medical mistakes, then I will get behind tort reform.
When the Medical profession lifts their veil of secrecy, and allow the public to know who the bad doctors are, in order to avoid using them, then we can talk tort reform.
Over 60% of All US Bankruptcies Attributable to Medical Problems
Most victims are middle class, well educated and have health insurance
August 2009 issue of The American Journal of Medicine
In 2007, before the current economic downturn, an American family filed
for bankruptcy in the aftermath of illness every 90 seconds; three-quarters of them were insured. Over 60% of all bankruptcies in the United States in 2007 were driven by medical incidents.
The share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems
rose by 50% between 2001 and 2007.
http://www.amjmed.com/webfiles/images/journals/ajm/AJMMedicalBankruptcyJun09FINAL2.pdf
They are crushing the overall markets from coast to coast – skimming as much of the froth off the top of the middle class as they can so much so that we can’t even afford movie tickets anymore. And they have an anti-trust exemption (like baseball) – the whole insurance industry is an albatross around the neck of the entire economy.
Paul Burke
Author-Journey Home
Liam
You make a valid point. However the 2% figure you site represents only the tangible, provable impact of tort law run amok. What this figure fails to address is the impact of over-prescription on the cost of healthcare. This is a cya tactic that doctors employ to stave off lawsuits before they can occur. You know, it’s a battery of tests ordered, when they aren’t necessary. Why? Because people have unrealistic expectations for medicine and what doctors can do.
Where do we draw the line for ‘human rights’? Is home ownership a human right? Is driving a car a human right? Is happiness a human right? What about a sense of fulfillment? If you can’t expect people to get educated and provide some measure of security and happiness for themselves and their families, well just what can you expect?
Clearly the best argument yet for a public option. Hold the Insurance Executives accountable for the ruined lives and dead Americans resulting from their greed. These people, the Karen’s and the Betsy’s, deserve jail time for the lies and deceptions they have perpetrated on the American public. America is watching this Republican inaction and stall strategy and will punish their blind greed. They are just a little too stupid to understand the intertoobs and the fact that we are keeping score. We will settle with them next elections. It will be ugly!