Have Democrat politicians backed away from pushing a government run insurance plan, a.ka., the “public plan” or “public option”? They are now backing a tax-subsidized “co-op.” There are some reasons to be suspicious.
| If you like podcasts, listen to Co-ops and the health care debate with Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute. Or listen to it right here. Cannon argues that a government co-op is just a “public plan” with an other name. He offers two ways to “keep insurance companies honest” through free-market reforms: let us buy insurance available in other states & removing the tax bias toward employer-provided insurance. |
Read more critiques of the government co-op proposal:
Cannon writes:
The definition of a cooperative is a health plan governed by its enrollees. Since a government chartered co-op won’t have any enrollees at first, it will be governed by—guess who?—the Secretary of Health and Human Services, just like any other government program.
In June, Sebelius told Bloomberg.com, “You could theoretically design a co-op plan that had the same attributes as a public plan.” In July, President Obama himself told Time magazine, “I think in theory you can imagine a co-operative meeting that definition” of a “public option.”
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) makes it clear, for example, that the co-op’s officers and directors would be appointed by the president and Congress. He insists that there be a single national co-op. And Congress would set the rules under which it operates. As Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) says, “It’s got to be written in a way that accomplishes the objectives of a public option.”
Echoing this, the Huffington Post reports:
Schumer wants the board overseeing the plan to be appointed by the president. Conrad said that according to the state of negotiations, the Health and Human Services Secretary would be charged with appointing the board.
Conrad wants the board to be temporary and eventually disappear, leaving the co-op to be run by its members. Schumer, said Conrad, still wants the board to be permanent.
Michael Cannon critiques the idea that government would turn co-ops over to members:
So even if Democrats promise that someday the new program will become a co-op, what they mean is: “We’re going to create that new government health program, just as we intended all along. But we will turn it over to the members in, oh, five years or so. We promise.”
That makes Sebelius’s announcement yet another cynical ploy to achieve health reform by deceiving the public.
A “co-op” run by the federal government, under rules imposed by the federal government and with federal funding is simply government-run health insurance by another name.
Or, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put it, “We’re going to have some type of public option, call it ‘co-op,’ call it what you want.”
See also this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by a former Secretary of Health and Human Services: Health ‘Co-ops’ Are Government Care: The Democrats’ latest proposal bears no resemblance to the voluntary organizations that are known as cooperatives.
