A Medicare-like Public Plan For All: Still Crucial

Over the weekend, the Obama administration may have weakened its support for a “public option” as one part of the health care package emerging from Washington.

On Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius told CNN that a public option is not “essential”, a day after President Obama, at a town hall meeting in Colorado, said that a public option is “just one sliver” of reform. Major media outlets wrote up what they saw as a shift in position: “Key Feature Of Obama Health Plan May Be Out”, blared the Washington Post; “‘Public Option’ in Health Plan May Be Dropped”, said the New York Times. But some commentators, like liberal bloggers Jonathan Cohn and Ezra Klein, voiced doubts that this represented a substantive change in administration policy.

Whether or not the Obama camp has changed positions, the real Washington action on health care right now isn’t at the White House — it’s further down Pennsylvania Avenue, at the Capitol. With House staffers now reconciling the three versions of its bill, the key battleground is the Senate. The Senate Finance Committee remains locked in negotiations on its version of the mainstream health care package, and now says it will pass its bill by September 15; merging that piece of legislation with the very different Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill will be a contentious process.

And no matter what way the winds of political calculation are currently blowing in Washington, the human rights position hasn’t changed. A Medicare-like public plan for all remains crucial for realizing the human right to health care in the the United States. Health care is a public good, not a commodity. Public financing and administration is the best vehicle for care that’s truly accessible and accountable. Setting up a new Medicare-like public plan in the current round of reform is a key aim for human right to health care advocates.

Senators Baucus, Dodd and Reid — the Finance chair, the HELP vice chair, and the Senate majority leader — need to support a public plan. Urge them to do that today!

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4 thoughts on “A Medicare-like Public Plan For All: Still Crucial

  1. President Obama rightly said that the USA needed to have its own solutions for its problems.

    In UK, the National Health Service has saved lives – mine included. I lost an arm when I was two years old, following an accident on a railway line. I was rushed to hospital and my life was saved.

    My wife suffered from meningitis around the same time (early 1956) and her life was saved.

    Our parents could never have afforded healthcare insurance at that time. My father worked in a coal mine. My wife's father had a low-paid job at the local steelworks.

    We could have died.

    The National Health Service, founded in 1948, removed the fear of poverty in health matters.

    I hope that the USA will put people first – not overpaid private insurance companies.

    The evil lies in greed – just as it did in the causes of the credit crunch.

    People of the USA, heed the lesson!

  2. President Obama rightly said that the USA needed to have its own solutions for its problems.

    In UK, the National Health Service has saved lives – mine included. I lost an arm when I was two years old, following an accident on a railway line. I was rushed to hospital and my life was saved.

    My wife suffered from meningitis around the same time (early 1956) and her life was saved.

    Our parents could never have afforded healthcare insurance at that time. My father worked in a coal mine. My wife’s father had a low-paid job at the local steelworks.

    We could have died.

    The National Health Service, founded in 1948, removed the fear of poverty in health matters.

    I hope that the USA will put people first – not overpaid private insurance companies.

    The evil lies in greed – just as it did in the causes of the credit crunch.

    People of the USA, heed the lesson!

  3. Why can't just those why pay taxes get health benefits…how b'out that Obama and the rest of the health care reform starters??? NO seriously, this I could be in favor of, but not just letting any old person that comes to America, even the illegal’s to get health care and our taxes go up the roof???? No, sure, I will cont. to fight this…

  4. Why can’t just those why pay taxes get health benefits…how b’out that Obama and the rest of the health care reform starters??? NO seriously, this I could be in favor of, but not just letting any old person that comes to America, even the illegal’s to get health care and our taxes go up the roof???? No, sure, I will cont. to fight this…

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