This Makes Me Sick

That is what is behind much of the growing hostility to his plans.

Quote:

That is what is behind much of the growing hostility to his plans.

Bull!

The only thing behind the "growing hostility" to his plans is right-wing idiocy of knuckle-draggers can't bring themselves to admit that a black man is their leader-- harnessed by well-funded health industry hacks supported by Fox News.

The former Vermont governor was asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" about President Barack Obama's statement over the weekend that the public option for insurance coverage was "just a sliver" of the overall proposal. Obama's health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, advanced that line, telling CNN Sunday that a direct government role in a system intended to provide virtually universal coverage was "not the essential element."

Dean, a physician, argued that a public option is fair and said there must be such a choice in any genuine shake up of the existing system.

"You can't really do health reform without it," he said. Dean maintained that the health insurance industry has "put enormous pressure on patients and doctors" in recent years.

He called a direct government role "the entirety of health care reform. It isn't the entirety of insurance reform ... We shouldn't spend $60 billion a year subsidizing the insurance industry."

Dean also said he doesn't foresee any Republican support for a public option. "I don't think the Republicans are interested and in order to have a bipartisan bill, you've got to have both sides interested," he said.

The shift in the administration's stance on a government-run insurance program leaves open a chance for compromise with Republicans that probably would enrage Obama's liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., who is co-chairman of the Middle Class Caucus, said that "leaving private insurance companies the job of controlling the costs of health care is like making a pyromaniac the fire chief."

Compromise is all part of the American political process.

President Obama has now essentially killed the public option for health care reform. Though Obama clearly and unmistakably said previously that there would be a public option, he's since reneged on that promise (like he's done on numerous other issues).

Without a government-administered public option, any health care reform legislation will worsen health care in this country. This was the ONLY part of the legislation that had any potential to "bend-the-cost-curve."

Now insurers will receive the huge windfall of mandated health insurance enrollment for another 50 million Americans, without any competition from a non-profit driven government-administered program.

The Obama Administration is fully aware that a public option could be implemented without extensive government control, and without tremendous costs. But by imposing additional rules that currently don't exist, Obama gave public-option opponents (mainly the insurance industry and its shills) all the ammunition they needed to label this as "government-run" health care.

Some of the inclusions in the legislation"both vague general goals and certain specifics"helped torpedo the public option.

Requiring that any insurance, and any public option, offer the same coverage that Congress receives bolsters the claim that this really is "government-run" health care. Though I don't agree that this constitutes government-run health care, I certainly see how it might be used to support such claims.

Mandating too many specific benefits is problematic as well. It too makes it appear that government really will be controlling health care. Though I don't share that view, I can certainly see how this could be used to support such claims.

Had Obama and his supporters simply removed some of the most overbearing of those rules--such as the payment of doctors for end-of-life care counseling and panels to determine what treatments were most cost effective"the public option could have easily survived. Its opponents simply would not have had the ammunition needed to label it as "government-controlled health care," enraging the public as a result.

Now discussion is taking place to remove some of these same overbearing provisions, such as payment for end-of-life care counseling.

But now it's too late. Much of the public has been convinced by insurance industry propagandists and their dupes that the current legislation is government-controlled health care.

Any legislation put forward now will be nothing but Corporate Welfare for the health care insurance industry, with Big Pharma tagging along.

Without the public option, health care reform legislation will be nothing more than an extension of the Bush Administration's no-corporation-left-behind policies. By subsidizing the health care industry with public money, Obama is proving that even the most profitable of all industries can feed at the public trough"and share in the same taxpayer-funded largess that the financial industry currently enjoys.

A majority of Americans are in favor of having a public, or government-run, option in the US health care system as proposed by President Barack Obama, a poll showed Tuesday.

Fifty-two percent of 2,276 US adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive between July 9 and 13 said they were in favor of a government-run health plan, while just 30 percent were against.

The only thing behind the "growing hostility" to his plans is right-wing idiocy of knuckle-draggers can't bring themselves to admit that a black man is their leader-- harnessed by well-funded health industry hacks supported by Fox News.