Chuck Schumer's Magic Healthcare Tonic

As indicated in reports from the New York Times, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) seeks to water down proposals for a public health insurance plan by offering a new "compromise" with the private insurance lobby. The development of a public plan modeled on Medicare has been the dominant proposal in response to the failed, inflated, and corrupted private system that has left almost fifty million Americans without any health care and millions more under-insured. Of course, President Obama campaigned on the idea of a Medicare-style public health plan, and, to the best of my knowledge, won that campaign. So why is Schumer, the third ranking Democrat in the Senate, effectively trying to block healthcare reform?

According to the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, Mr. Schumer has received almost a million dollars from the insurance lobby during his Senate career. He has also received another seven million dollars combined from commercial banks and investment companies, many of whom were also intertwined with insurance companies (bailout recipient AIG being the most devestatingly notorious.) Sorry, New York citizens, but those are obviously Mr. Schumer's real constituents, as this horrible health care capitulation makes clear.

From what I can tell, Schumer simply proposes a new insurance plan designed almost identically to the failed private model, with the single exception that no one can be turned down. Here are the main pillars of the compromise as reported by the Times (with my responses in red):

• The public plan must be self-sustaining. It should pay claims with money raised from premiums and co-payments. It should not receive tax revenue or appropriations from the government.

So, apparently we can give billions of tax dollars to failed private ventures like banks and auto companies, but Schumer will be damned if we dip into any tax dollars for affordable health care for regular citizens. Instead, let's just have the government create a private-style company dependent on high premiums and call it "public." I mean, people really just like the word "public," right? Affordability is hardly the point.

• The public plan should pay doctors and hospitals more than what Medicare pays. Medicare rates, set by law and regulation, are often lower than what private insurers pay.

Thanks again, Chuck! I appreciate you lobbying AGAINST discounts for consumers. After all, discounts might make the plan more affordable which is apparently what you aim to disrupt. Besides, how can a hospital hope to make a profit by only charging $8 per Tylenol instead of $10?

• The government should not compel doctors and hospitals to participate in a public plan just because they participate in Medicare.

Now you're talkin'! Let's make this baby as inaccessible as possible. That's like a three-for-one in your effort to keep this thing from competing with your insurance buddies. Limiting access means limiting growth which means limiting bargaining power which means... You guessed it! Higher prices!

• To prevent the government from serving as both “player and umpire,” the officials who manage a public plan should be different from those who regulate the insurance market.

You are so on fire, Chuck! Let's not give this "public" thing too much power. We don't want the dirty, rotten government that we, the taxpayers, own to have a leg up on those private, corporate insurance companies whose greed created this health care crisis in the first place.

Look, Schumer, I know you're in a tough spot here. On the one hand we, the taxpayers, pay your salary and vote you into your job. But on the other hand, those healthy campaign contributions the insurance companies give you provide the means to keep your sweet-ass job. And, besides, your insurance buddies have pinky-sweared to clean up their own act, according to the same Times article:

"Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said, 'We are very, very grateful that members of Congress have been thoughtfully looking at our concerns.' But she said she still saw no need for a public plan 'if you have much more aggressive regulation of insurance,' which the industry has agreed to support."

So, the insurance companies are now publicly lobbying for "more aggressive regulation" of their own industry! Now, a true public servant might realize that when an industry makes their desperation that plainly obvious, you kind of have them by the short and curlies. Instead, Schumer labors to devise a "public" plan so watered down, ineffective, and uncompetitive that the private insurance lobby could actually endorse it. Schumer continues the Washington tradition of creating the perception of reform while continuing to cash in on the status quo. In other words, Dr. Schumer's Magic Healthcare Tonic is nothing more than snake oil culled from his own greased palms.