Public Option is a Debate Very Much Needed

The announcement this week from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that he is moving forward to introduce legislation offering a government alternative to compete with private health insurers was welcomed news. Before I go further, let’s review (per a summary from USA Today’s October 28, 2009 edition, p. 6A) all three of the public options being considered by Congress:

Robust-includes the original House health care bill; would be available nationally to people—except for workers of large companies that provide coverage. Doctors and hospitals who accept patients in the plan would be paid at the Medicare rate.

Opt Out-this is the option that Sen. Reid is offering. It would allow individual states to opt out by 2014, meaning residents in those states could not enroll. The program would negotiate how much to pay doctors and hospitals for procedures, just as private insurers do.

Opt In-some moderate Democrats, including Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, have said they prefer a public option that would not take effect unless individual states choose to opt in. The idea has been floated in Congress but is not included in any bill.

Trigger-in this situation, a pubic option would be triggered by a state-by-state basis only if certain conditions are met—such as the cost of premiums not falling by a set date. The idea is backed by Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican who has voted for a Democratic health care plan.

So here’s my thinking…

What’s needed more than anything else right now is a vigorous debate about this topic occuring outside of Washington. One criticism—and a valid one, I think—often touted by the pro and anti side of health care reform is that much of this health care discussion is an “inside the Beltway” one. By pushing the debate out to the states via this very controversial public option, there can finally be a good and candid debate that will let the chips fall where they may.

Understandably, opponents of health care reform from both sides of the aisle are not warm to this idea. For certain it will force a level of transparency about motives and what is actually being presented that has not been present so far. Also, it is likely that by going the route of encouraging states to debate the issue, other issues can become part of that discussion—such as parity for mental health services, something we in Michigan have been fumbling around with for a number of years.

Yes, let’s let the states decide—and let’s do it quickly.

Obama is the Tiger Woods of Politics

Last week, shortly after President Obama was announced to be the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner I was inclined to make this week’s post the focus of this development. I was especially motivated to do this when the brouhaha came forth from the president’s many critics who felt he was not deserving of the award. The rationale was that peace, as of yet, has not come about as a result of his adiminstration’s foreign policies.

That’s a valid point, to be sure. The only flaw with it is that Obama, as with the other two sitting presidents who were awarded the prize—Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson—also did not actually have tangible evidence of lasting peace from their actions. Rather, like Obama, they were recognized by the global community as being tireless workers for peace in their time. And given the other day-to-day challenges a president faces, it takes one of exceptional commitment to the concept of peace to make inroads in this area.

But that is the entry I would have written had I not also been intersected by critical developments occurring in the health reform debate. It appears that, despite the partisan bickering, there will be a health reform bill coming forth by year’s end.

Also, economists are now all pretty much in agreement that the worldwide recession has come to an end.

So I think what needs to be said most about President Obama is that he really does appear to be the man for the job. Irrespective of his skin color, he is someone whose gift is leadership and public policy management. He is the Tiger Woods of politics. And like the president, Tiger Woods had his share of critics and naysayers—that is until people (and particularly potential sponsors in the corporate world) realized the golfer was a true prodigy. Everyone is good at something, and some people are really, really good at something. Tiger Woods fits this bill in golfing and Barak Obama fits this bill in politics and public policy.

Perhaps what the president’s critics need to figure out is how to benefit from his brilliance instead of standing in the way of it.