Omitting a government-run health insurance program from a Senate reform bill will give private insurers “free rein” to increase premiums and “drive up the cost of federal subsidies,” according to a group of Senate Democrats.
In a letter, 30 Democrats urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to include the option in a final piece of legislation, indicating “absent a competitive and continuous public insurance option – health reform legislation will not produce nationwide access and ongoing cost containment.”
Sherrod Brown
“Support for the public option runs deep in the Senate,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who circulated the letter to his colleagues. “Health insurance reform is all about lowering costs, improving care, and increasing choice for consumers. In too many parts of the country, one or two insurance companies control the majority of the market. This isn’t good for consumers, businesses, or taxpayers. As we finalize health reform legislation, we shouldn’t forget that a majority of Americans, doctors, and Members of Congress support a public option.”
Brown added in his statement that in addition to the 29 other signatures on the letter, another 14 U.S. Senators have expressed support for a public option through a resolution, letter or by voting for a strong public option during committee markups.
Attempts were made by Sens. John “Jay” Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) during a Sept. 29 markup of the bill, but were voted down with no Republican support.
The letter states that the current health insurance market is “dominated by a handful of for-profit health insurers,” exempt from anti-trust laws that would ensure greater competition.
“Without a not-for-profit public insurance alternative that competes with these insurers based on premium rates and quality, insurers will have free rein to increase insurance premiums and drive up the cost of federal subsidies tied to those premiums,” the senators indicate. “This is simply not fiscally sustainable.”
To critics who charge that the public option presents unfair competition to private insurers, the senators say a program can be modeled after private companies, where rates are negotiated and providers are not required to participate in the plan. That approach was taken by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, who passed its bill earlier this year.
“The major differences between the public option and for-profit plans are that the public plan would report to taxpayers, not to shareholders, and the public plan would be available continuously in all parts of the country,” the letter states.
While the initial draft of the America’s Health Future Act, authored by Sen. Max Baucus (D.-Mont), shuns the public option, it does include co-ops for consumers to run their own coverage program. That initiative, the Democratic senators say, “is not realistic” in expecting local co-ops to “spring up in every corner of this country.”
“There are many areas of the country where the population is simply too small to sustain a local co-op plan,” the letter reads. “We are also concerned that the administrative costs associated with financing the start-up of multiple co-op plans would far outstrip the seed money required to establish a public health insurance program.”
In addition to Brown, the letter is signed by: Rockefeller; Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.); Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.); Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii); Tom Udall (D-N.M.); Kristen E. Gillibrand (D-N.Y.); Roland W. Burris (D-Ill.); Ron Wyden (D-Ore.); Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.); Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.); Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.); Michael F. Bennet (D-Col.); Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.); Jack Reed (D-R.I.); Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.); Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.); Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.); Al Franken (D-Minn.); Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-Pa.); Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.); Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii); Edward E. Kaufman (D-Del.); Arlen Specter (D-Pa.); Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.); Robert Menendez (D-N.J.); Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.); John F. Kerry (D-Mass.); Herb Kohl (D-Wis.); and Paul Kirk (D-Ma.).
Private insurers get ‘free rein’ without public option, Democrats say via IFAwebnews .