Carper’s Co-Op Compromise Plan
Tom Carper is reportedly floating a new/old compromise with Democratic leadership:
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) is quietly talking with the Senate Democratic leadership and Finance Committee members about an alternative to both the government insurance option and the nonprofit insurance cooperative.
In a one-page document he began circulating last week, Carper suggests giving states the option of creating a competitor to private insurers, which could include a government plan, a network of co-ops, or a large purchasing pool modeled after the revered Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan.
…
“If we report a bill out of committee, I hope it at least includes the co-op,” Carper said. “Then, as we attempt to merge that legislation with the HELP committee bill, a good compromise between where the HELP bill is with the public option and where we are with coops would be along the lines of what I just mentioned to you. It may occur during the merger of the two bills.”
…
Carper said Congress adopted the trigger approach in the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill. “That hasn’t been necessary but the threat of it was helpful to make sure there was competition,” he said.
This is a pretty weak compromise, but I do think this is a positive development. The SFC bill is the last bill to get out of committee. If it has some kind of co-op that means that all the bills will have some form of the public option, with the SFC bill having the worst one. Once the bills are merged, it looks like the HELP “level playing field” option will be the centrist one. We’re inching closer and closer to a real bill. Remember – the media has declared the public option dead numerous times but each time it stays alive and the conservaDems are creeping closer to the progressives position.
Another positive development is the rejection of a trigger. I’m glad Carper is doing this and I think he’s probably trying to get Snowe to vote for the bill.
I think there are some battles still left:
1. Getting the best possible bill out of the SFC
2. Merging of the Senate bills
3. Ensuring all Democrats vote for cloture on the bill
4. The House/Senate conference
Tags: Health Care Reform, Tom Carper
You’re misreading Carper.
Carper is saying we should have a trigger just to push private insurers to “compete” just enough to avoid any kind of public option altogether. Carper is 100% pro-trigger, and will make sure there is a trigger weak enough to prevent any kind of meaningful change.
I agree with X — the trigger business certainly is not dead. But I am astounded that anyone is treating this with any seriousness — there is no real competition in Medicare Part D now and no one is going to suit up for what we just went through in order to approve co-ops for a state with no competition.
And one more thing about this competition. If you have Blue Cross and Humana operating in Delaware and no one else enters the market, how — exactly — is a co-op supposed to jump in and get cheaper rates than these two? A co-op won’t have especially lower overhead until it passes some startup threshold. A co-op won’t be able to negotiate lower prices until it get some critical mass. None of the established co-ops out there now are not a factor in their markets for lowering costs. They ARE a factor for affordable coverage.
What a co-op option does do is to ensure that insurance companies never have to worry about real competition — they just get to be beneficiaries of alot of new customers, some of them subsidized by the government with no real incentives for efforts at cost or quality control.
What Carper isnt telling us is that to begin a “co-op” costs $12M dollars. That is wasted money. Carper wants the Co-op because it continues to give billions to the for profit insurance company pigs.
Carper knows there are no Co-ops anywhere in this country that save a dime. Its giving those in the Co-op all the money, no choice in Doctors (you have to take the ones they provide)! Carper is feeling the heat and his one pager is nothing but a ruse to hide the fact that he is a corporate crook who has boxed himself in.
His vote for the Schumer amendment (a watered down version of the Rockefeller bill) is so transparent and obvious is just proves what an insincere, blatantly pro-corporate republican he really is.
Carper is willing to turn millions more citizens over to the for profits so his campaign chest can continue to grow.
There is only one solution that will cut costs of health care and truly reform the system and that is single payer. We can only hope and pray these corporate Senators don’t put something in the final version of the bill that prevents the States from enacting their own single payer legislation.