Democratic senators say they have a tentative deal to drop a government-run insurance option from healthcare legislation.

No further details were immediately available.

via Senators strike tentative deal to drop public option for health insurance | D.C. Now | Los Angeles Times.

Ah well, on to the next one. The 60 votes have got to be here now.

Senate Majority Leader  Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Monday that the bill he will bring to the Senate floor will include a public health insurance option that individual states could decline to participate in.

“I’ve concluded –with the support of the White House, Senators Dodd and Baucus — that the best way to move forward is to include a public option with the opt-out provision for states,” said Reid, referring to the Senate health and finance committee representatives, respectively, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). “The public option, with an opt-out, is the one that’s fair.”

via Reid: “The Public Option With An Opt-Out Is The One That’s Fair”.

Personally, I will take it. Its a start. Let’s see where it ends up after the most exclusive club gets done with it.

I think an opt out puts pressure on GOP Governors and legislators who say they are anti-government health care option. They now actively have to deny this choice to their own constituency for their “small government principles”, but they have to reject a public option with their own political capital. Its more than adequate cover for any Senate Blue Dogs.  They can vote for cloture and then vote against the bill on the floor if they would like. Reid needs to get 51 votes. Only the most conservative House Blue Dogs (aka future Republicans) will vote against this.

If the stimulus battle was any indicator they will call Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Dodd dirty socialist commie fascist liberals, stomp their feet, cross their arms and snort derisively until a bill is passed. Shortly thereafter, on the local news in every red State, these same governors will be front and center at all the ribbon cuttings for new health centers and public health programs funded under this health care reform package, giant scissors in tow.

It will be interesting to see how health insurance industry stock prices do tomorrow. Wall street tends to have a knee jerk reaction to what they see as bad news. A public option that the health insurance industry fund managers think will pass should trigger some sell offs.

Huh?

U.S. Senator Max Baucus has finally broken his silence regarding his personal position on including a public option in health care reform legislation. Last Monday night (8/17), in an unprecedented conference call to Montana Democratic central committee chairs, the powerful leader of the Senate Finance Committee told his strongest supporters that he supported a public option.

While discussing the obstacles to getting a public option through the Senate, he assured his forty listeners, “I want a public option too!”

The conference call was groundbreaking in that none of the recipients could ever remember this kind of call ever happening before. The teleconference was set up seemingly in reaction to rising discontent among the local Democratic leaders with the Senator’s failure to take a clear position on the issue.

The discussion, which became contentious and rancorous at times, also touched upon the wisdom of creating insurance cooperatives as an alternative to a public option. When several of the county chairs objected, commenting that they did not trust the health insurance companies to police themselves and limit their outrageous corporate profits, Baucus commented, “Neither do I.”

via The Seminal » Baucus: “I Want a Public Option”.

If any of this is true, then why negotiate with a Blue Dog/GOP delegation that says they will never sign a bill with any “public option”?

The question that needs to be answered before Rep. Weiner’s question can be addressed: how much does a health care routine really cost? Is there a list that says $Y dollars is the cost for treatment X? We know our co-pay, our pre-tax pay check deduction but we really don’t know the pre-tax premium contributions of our employers or “employee group”. Health care is a service we buy, through a non-transparent market, without any broker on our behalf and then hope that whatever deal we implicitly agreed to works for us and our provider when our health goes bad. That isn’t a free market nor is it an equitable one. Private payer to provider market distortions are exposed when you compare “full billed charges” to Medicare payouts to providers:

…a survey by America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, which detailed a series of exorbitant physician charges. The survey examined out-of-network bills where — as opposed to in-network services — contracts do not exist between the provider and insurer. Also known as full-billed charges, it’s what the uninsured face every time they see a doctor.

In some cases, patients received charges 34 times what Medicare pays for the same procedure in the same location, the AHIP survey found.

For example, one doctor billed $4,500 for an office visit when Medicare would have paid just $134. Another doctor billed $14,400 for removal of a gallbladder when Medicare would have paid $656. And a hip replacement cost $40,000 when Medicare would have paid $1,558.

via Health Articles | A Little Haggling Might Pay Off at the Hospital | Miller-McCune Online Magazine.

Rockefeller has sparred privately with Conrad and Baucus during their Democrat-only Finance Committee meetings about what Rockefeller views as a disregard for measures that would make insurance truly affordable to the poor in West Virginia. But when Rockefeller emerged from those meetings, he tended to deliver only cryptic statements to the media.

On Thursday, however, he stopped putting on a polite face. In a warning shot of sorts, he sent letters to the Government Accountability Office, the National Cooperative Business Association and the Agriculture Department, asking dozens of questions about the history, success rate and legal, regulatory and licensure requirements of cooperatives — questions he said he has yet to receive answers from by the committee.

“I don’t think he is very happy with me, and I regret that,” Rockefeller said of Conrad. “I can’t worry about that.”

via Senate Democrats spar over public plan – Carrie Budoff Brown and Patrick O’Connor – POLITICO.com.

3 Democrats, 3 Republicans guiding health care is not what the American public voted for. No solution should be 50/50 bipartisan with the way the country split the senate 60/40. Since true universal health care is off the table and the real conversation is around a public option, the Republicans have gotten as much as they 40% they deserve. The fact that Baucus and Conrad insist on meeting the GOP on their side of the debate, should not only concern the Obama administration going forward but should make democratic senate leadership seriously consider enacting and making permanent Sen. Tom  Harkin’s proposals for choosing new committee leadership at regular intervals and by other criteria in addition to Senator tenure.