The sticky part absent any public option (and does anybody know what a "coop" would look like?) is coverage for those with low wages. Since many workers make low wages, it is hard to shoehorn in a mandate on the firm. You need big subsidies, relative to the worker's wage level. The other sticky wicket is very small firms who will escape the mandate, and the impact that might have on firms just above the cutoff -- downsize and contract out to get under the ceiling.
I'm also hearing of provisions to gouge "savings" out of Medicare and Medicaid that could entail benefit cuts which will affect those currently covered, all for the sake of bogus 'fiscal responsibility' reasons.
Once the exchange is set up, it's possible that pressure to control subsidies and premiums in general will lead to the addition of a public option, as well as efforts to jawbone medical providers to keep prices from increasing as much.
Getting a near-universal system is a necessary prelude for raising the ratio of good care to expenses. No matter what happens this fall, this will not be over.
On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 11:14 AM, Michael Pollak<mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 17 Aug 2009, farmelantj at juno.com wrote:
>
>> I am reminded that in the weeks just prior to Obama taking office, the
>> news media were running stories comparing Obama to FDR. But one major
>> difference between the conditions that existed when FDR took office from
>> those that greeted Obama, was that the US was facing civil unrest by the
>> time that Roosevelt was sworn into office versus the relative quiet that
>> greeted Obama. Hence, the differences in the actions that the two presidents
>> took in their first months in office.
>
> There was at least one other major difference I noticed when looking at an
> exhibit of newspapers and magazines from FDR first 100 days at the New York
> Historical society: the enormous deference and benefit of the doubt that all
> the major national papers and magazines gave to the president in those days
> simply because he was the president. It was quite shocking, literally like
> nothing I'd ever seen in my life. We hear so much about the vitriol of
> local papers and campaign literature against him that I at least never
> imagined just how high was the divide between that and what was allowed in
> respectable, national debate defining publications. At least during these
> first 100 days. You think people around Obama were mesmerized by Hope?
> That was nothin' compared to the way papers treated FDR.
>
> Like I said, quite a revelation and the opposite of what I expected.
>
> Michael
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