printAs members of the two-party monopoly come together to hammer out a “compromise” on how best to send the health care we have to hell in a handcart, I thought you ought to know a bit about the co-op option; it is, after all, the buzzword being bandied about to replace the less-than soothing “public option” phrase. A co-op is “simply government-run health insurance by another name.” Over to Cato’s Michael D. Tanner:
“Now, if this was really going to be a co-op like rural electrical co-ops or your local health-food store — owned and controlled by its workers and the people who use its services — it would be a meaningless but harmless diversion. America already has some 1,300 insurance companies, so it’s hard to see what one more would add, but it would be unlikely to do much harm.
But these aren’t true co-ops. The members wouldn’t choose its officers — the president would. Plus, the secretary of Health and Human Services would have to approve its business plan, and thus could force it to offer whatever benefits, premiums and reimbursement schedules Washington wants. Finally, the federal government would provide start up, and possibly ongoing, subsidies.
[This is a] ‘co-op’ run by the federal government, under rules imposed by the federal government and with federal funding…
The Senate compromise also drops the job-killing employer-mandate that businesses provide their workers with health insurance or pay a penalty — and substitutes a more regressive employer mandate.
The compromise would have no specific mandate for employers to provide insurance. But any employer who failed to do so would have to pay the cost of all subsidies that the government provides his or her workers to help them pay for insurance on their own.
It is hard to see how this is different from any other employer mandate — except that it will hurt low-wage workers most.
Business owners care about the total cost of hiring a worker, not how that cost is apportioned between wages, taxes, health insurance or other benefits. If they have to pay the cost of subsidizing health insurance for their workers, employers will simply offset the added cost by lowering wages, reducing future wage increases, reducing other benefits (such as pensions), cutting back on hiring, laying off current workers, shifting workers from full-time to part-time or outsourcing.
It will ultimately be the worker who pays the subsidy’s cost. The government will be giving the worker a subsidy with one hand, and taking it back with the other. Does that make sense for any reason other than ‘compromise?'”
The complete Tanner piece here.
Michael D. Tanner is a Cato Institute senior fellow and the author of Healthy Competition: What’s Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.
What baffles me is why a majority of peeps do not get behind the common sense solutions to health care that Michael Tanner has come up with.
But they will trust Captain 0 to run health care, car co. , banks and everything else he wants to take over.
But how can anyone come up with a plausible argument that Capt’n 0 is qualified to run anything when (as Don Jeror pointed out to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer ) it took Capt’n 0 ” six months to pick a dog for his kids ” Unreal.
[I’m not convinced that the dog dilemma is what disqualifies BO.]
While everybody is tangled in the thousand pages of confusion, the obvious incredible cost increase, despite government lies to the contrary, and the atrocity tales,true, of substandard health care they are forgetting two thought provoking facts. We don’t need health care reform. Also why are the corrupt scoundrels running the government shoving it up our noses so hard. Most people who actually have an opinion on the subject are against this form of health care reform. While Obama and his minions are showing one hand so we can make sure there is nothing up their sleeve they are preparing to pick our pockets with the other hand.
Their lies are not even particularly clever. They are obviously blowing smoke because they don’t care what the voters think. What’s in it for them? There’s certainly nothing in it for us.
By the way, the Obama administration is publicly requesting stoolies to report to a white house web site any negative communication, even overheard conversation, about the health care debate. I assume the administration, in the best Marxist tradition, will start “shutting up” those who disagree.
This administration simply wants to control the cash flow of medicine, not provide better or increased availability of care. No, if you control agriculture (genetically modified foods), control medicine (one payer system) and control energy (cap and trade) you then control a LOT. Game over.
Actually, we do need health care reform. We need to get the federal government out of the health care business. Regrettably, with sixty Communists, excuse me, Democrats, in the Senate, the reform we need seems unlikely. I’m puzzled as to why there’s any need for bipartisanship in this matter.