Think a health care public option is just some communist plot to send all old people to death camps? Well, I have a barometer for you on just how important this option is to reduce costs on health care....The Stock Market.
While the broad market was slammed, shares of large health insurers rallied as the Obama administration apparently backed off its plan to give Americans the option of signing up for a government-run health-insurance option. See full story on prospects for a public option.
"Health care can outperform in a declining stock market, but what's going on today is that investors have a growing belief that a public plan will not be part of the final solution," said John Sullivan, director of research at Leerink Swann, a health-care investment bank.
"If a public plan is not part of the solution, that's good news for managed care," he added.
I suggest clicking on the article link and start tracking on those health sector stock tickers if you do not believe health insurance company lobbyists and big pharma are going to make out like bandits. This is what the debate is really about...not getting you health care, but protecting their profit margins.
Warren Buffet just bet the American people will get screwed on health care. The United States pays over double what every other industrialized nation pays for health care. It's pretty clear these for profit health sector interests want to keep it that way.
Anything short of a strong public insurance option.
will be a complete give away to private insurance (Big Pharma already got its deal). The Senate Finance Committee version with co-ops is a joke. Co-ops won't do anything to bring down the cost of health care.
Single payer still the best option.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
yup
and now CNN is "fact" checking but of course the "fact checking" is ignoring the details outside of a particular clause which defeat that particular clause
(i.e. one can have something in a bill, but let's say another piece of legislation in that bill or elsewhere, prohibits that clause from being implemented....makes the clause being discussed "just for show").
But I've been staying out of it, watching our insurance company lobbyists spin, craft and gut...
I mean Daschle on TV representing health care reform when he is now the insurance companies main lobbyist?
Please, this is everything wrong with the Democratic party.
Then we have others who clearly are lobbyist stooges with the really far out there stuff on "that's socialism" and so forth that ...well, I don't know why they should get air time with it, why promote more so far out there arguments, give them any credence?
What a zoo, all designed to kill anything which might limit this sectors profits and they could care less if they bring the entire U.S. economy crashing down...never mind about people.
All this is correct
As are the comments. But why is the stock market the arbiter of everything? Why this Divine Right of Capital?
(That would be a good addition to your "Reads" tab, IMO)
Good point
Watching the stock market really is a good reinforcement of the fact that they are just protecting their profits. If the public option wasn't going to have a cost reducing effect then healthcare companies wouldn't really care about it. But the fact that they do care so very very much is testament to the fact that costs, and therefore their profits, would be reduced with a public option.