I was pleased to read what Rep. Maxine Waters, one of our most kickass progressives in the House, had to say about the public option as an essential elementof health care reform:
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) said she would refuse to vote for a healthcare reform package that did not include a provision for creating a government-run medical insurance plan that would compete with private insurers -- a statement that drew loud cheers Saturday at a town hall meeting at Los Angeles Southwest College.
...
"The people of this country elected you and gave you a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate. . . . Yes, we know that you are a nice man, that you want to work with the opposite side of the aisle. But there comes a time when you need to drop that and move forward," Waters said. "We're saying to you, Mr. President, 'Be tough. Use everything that you've got. Do what you have to do. And we have your back.' "
And she goes after the conservadems in the Senate that have been blocking real health care reform from happening by doing the kabuki dance over co-operatives in the Senate Finance Committee:
Waters reserved her most searing critiques for Senate Democrats who have not embraced the public option.
"Not only are we going to do everything we can to organize and put pressure on the senators -- some of whom are Neanderthals -- we're going to say to the president, 'We want you to use every weapon in your basket in order to get those senators to do what they should be doing,' " Waters said.
Thank you, Representative Maxine Waters, for standing up for the public option as an essential element of REAL health care reform! And it's time for us to show her just how much we appreciate her standing up for us in the Democratic Party!
Rep. Waters is currently at $4,576 on our ActBlue Page. I have a crazy idea--let's DOUBLE that total to $9,152 to thank Rep. Maxine Waters for standing up for us!
CLICK ON THIS LINK, SCROLL DOWN, AND DONATE TO REP. WATERS!
Progressives like Rep. Maxine Waters need support from us in the grassroots, and it's why I'm challenging every one of us to step up today, and show her our appreciation by donating $5 or $10 or moreto her.
Rep. Waters knows where the endgame is going, and she's one of the 60 progressives that will have to stand up strong after the August recess because the Blue Dog Democrats will likely throw a ruckus, demand that the public option be thrown out, have co-ops in, or have the public option with a "trigger" in order for the bill to pass the House of Representatives.
We MUST have our progressives' backs on this issue because if health insurance reform passes without a public option and with ineffective co-operatives, there will be no real cost containment on our rising premiums.
It's why we NEED our 65 progressives to continue standing up for us on the public option!
Once again for those who insist that the public option will do nothing as a cost containment, I'm copying and pasting mcjoan's front-page story on why the public option is the only cost containment in health care reform:
And if Congress fails to pass health reforms that control health care costs, premiums are projected to rise to 24 percent of a family's income by 2020. (Click on image at right to open chart.) In any economic climate, but especially in today’s recession, most families cannot afford to devote a fourth of their income to insurance coverage, nor can businesses afford their share of insurance premiums in addition to raises for employees.
The Public Plan: The Leverage to Set Rates
Although the Obama Administration may be scaling back its support for a public plan, Commonwealth Fund and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyses show that offering a strong public health insurance choice as well as private plans through a health insurance exchange will help all Americans, not just the uninsured, by slowing the growth in premiums. A recent Fund analysis found that offering a public plan alongside private plans to all individuals and employers is our most effective weapon in combating health care costs. The study found that cumulative health system savings between 2010 and 2020—compared with projected trends for that period—could be as high as $3 trillion if reform includes a public plan that adopts innovative payment methods that reward value and uses its purchasing leverage, along with a reformed Medicare program, to control costs. The annual growth rate in health system spending would fall from 6.5 percent to 5.2 percent – consistent with an industry coalition pledge to slow spending by 1.5 percentage points annually over the next decade.
The CBO estimates that a public plan premium would be 10 percent lower than those of typical private plans offered in an insurance exchange—a cost break that would provide much-needed relief to families and businesses in every state in the country. The average family would save $2,200 per year by 2020 with reforms that include a public plan. President Obama pledged during the presidential campaign to save American families $2,500 a year through health reform. This goal needs to be on par with a deficit-neutral health reform plan.
mcjoan:
The public option isn't just some kind of political litmus test. It's the last stand for affordable health care in the future. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this post is all full of numbers and wonky, but it's incredibly important to translate these numbers in to real life. The public option means that American families will not have to pay a quarter of their monthly income on health insurance in ten years. It's bad enough that we're now paying 18 percent. In fact it's criminal, and that's only among the people who can actually pay for it.
Isn't that basically what fiscal responsibility is supposed to be all about? And isn't that what Steny Hoyer's band of Blue Dogs, who are now making empty threats about their political clout, are supposed to be about? Fiscal responsibility? It seems that the Blue Dogs fiscal concerns are less about the American public than the state of their own reelection coffers.
And don't forget to donate to our public option fund at FDL since Nyceve, Jane, I, and others are working hard night and day on this issue for us all!