[Peace-discuss] Obama’s 'public option' will fail

[C. G. Estabrook]

“The public option preserves all the systemic deficiencies that we see in the 
current system.  It maintains a finance system that is based on private 
insurance and private insurers and their drive to fight claims, issue denials, 
screen out the sick and make a big profit; and it generates tremendous 
administrative waste — 400 billion dollars a year.  You can expand coverage by 
just raising taxes and paying insurers to cover people, but that’s not a 
sustainable system.  It won’t cover every body and it will fall apart quickly 
due to rising costs -- as we’ve seen in Massachusetts, Vermont, Oregon, 
Tennessee and Minnesota.”

	Published on Sunday, June 14, 2009 by Single Payer Action
	Single Payer vs. Public Option
	by Russell Mokhiber

Nick Skala was in a bit of shock.

In early June, he was invited to speak before the Progressive Caucus of the 
House of Representatives about single payer health care.

There are about 71 members of the House who belong to the Progressive Caucus — 
about a third of the Democratic Caucus.

Skala is a true believer in single payer — having spent four years with 
Physicians for a National Health Program.

So, yes of course, he would love to speak before the Progressive Caucus to 
explain why single payer was the only way to control costs and cover everyone.

And that Obama’s public option was bound to fail.

He sent his presentation ahead of time to Bill Goold, the executive director of 
the Progressive Caucus, and Darcy Burner, executive director of the American 
Progressive Caucus Foundation.

Both were not pleased with Skala.

“Bill Gould emailed me after reading my testimony and materials I was going to 
present to tell me that they were not acceptable and that there could be no 
comparison between single payer and the public option with side by side 
comparison,” Skala told Single Payer Action. “Darcy Burner told me that they 
would construe talking about the public option  — even comparing it to single 
payer — as an attack on the members of the Progressive Caucus.”

“Now, I can’t see how honest discourse about whether or not a public option will 
work — especially when it comes from 16,000 doctors and the majority of nurses — 
as an attack on anybody who supports it. We see it as telling the truth.”

Despite Goold’s and Burner’s objections, on June 4, Skala went ahead and made 
his presentation to the caucus.

“During the presentation it was very nasty,” Skala said. “I got some very dirty 
looks from Darcy Burner. During the question period and once during the 
testimony, I was interrupted, told that the Progressive Caucus had taken a 
position on this issue and unless I had something positive to contribute, then 
there wasn’t really much point to answering my questions. At least one of my 
questions to the staff of the Chairman of the caucus was interrupted by the 
staff of the Congressional Progressive Caucus unfortunately.”

And what exactly was Skala’s crime?

He believes the public option being pushed by Obama and the Democrats will fail.

“The public option preserves all the systemic deficiencies that we see in the 
current system,” Skala said. “It maintains a finance system that is based on 
private insurance and private insurers and their drive to fight claims, issue 
denials, screen out the sick and make a big profit generate tremendous 
administrative waste — 400 billion dollars a year.”

“Now you can expand coverage by just raising taxes and paying insurers to cover 
people but that’s not a sustainable system,” Skala said. “But it won’t cover 
every body and it will fall apart quickly due to rising cost as we’ve seen in 
Massachusetts, Vermont, Oregon, Tennessee and Minnesota — state after state 
after state and it hasn’t worked.”

“Now the definition of insanity is to repeat what has gone on in the past and 
expect a different result. Yet that’s what we’re doing with the public option. 
And as a representative of physicians in that capacity, and certainly the 
relationship I have with nurses and patients, I feel it’s my duty to be honest 
about the best policy research, the best literature, and the best experience 
that we have and that all indicates that the public option is going to fail.”

The complete interview with Nick Skala, see video here or below:
<http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/14-3>

© 2009 Single Payer Action
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime 
Reporter.  He is also founder of singlepayeraction.org.