Great joy in the ranks of progressives (?) in the USA. Lots of congratulatory back slapping, high-fives all around, and breathless waiting for Obama to pontificate, again, about something, or other, to woo his jaded apostles and pump air into deflated hope . Why? It seems the US Senate will include a Public Option in the health reform legislation they will vote on. The US House had already indicated that their legislation would include some form of the same option.
But after reading Trudy Lieberman at CJR I have to wonder what the hell is really going on.
"Currently, lawmakers would restrict the public option to small businesses buying coverage for their workers and people seeking policies in the individual market. The plan would be off-limits to the millions of Americans who get their insurance from employers. The limitation, of course, is meant to prevent “crowd out”—that’s jargon for taking too much business away from private insurers. With so few people using the plan, though, it’s hard to see how it will lower health care costs or compete against the likes of insurance giant WellPoint, which is aggressively marketing very cheap and very limited insurance products to individuals.
What's all the fuss about, eh? Do you think maybe there is some real stage managing going on for the benefit of slipping approval ratings? I wonder if there wasn't a lot of red-herring delivered to the WH and Congress sometime over the past week. If what Lieberman writes is true, could this be a variation of the proverbial tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?
I'm too cynical about pretty well most things but particularly when a very strong smell of rooting fish pervades even the web tubes.
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