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House Democrat Would Choose the Public Option
August 31, 2009 - by Donny ShawOne of the Republicans’ talking point in the healthcare debate has been that, in proposing a public health insurance option, Democrats are trying to force Americans into a low quality, inhumane plan that they wouldn’t participate in themselves. They have even introduced a bill, H.Res.615, stating that “Members who vote in favor of the establishment of a public, federal government run health insurance option are urged to forgo their right to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and agree to enroll under that public option.”
Well, at least one Democrat in the House says she is willing to participate in the public option. Appearing on CNBC along with Rep. Mike Pence [R, IN-6], Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz [D, FL-20] expressed no reservations about agreeing to participate in the plan.
Asked by CNBC host Maria Bartiromo if she would participate in the plan, Rep. Wasserman Schultz said, “Sure I would.” When asked again for confirmation she said,
“I just said sure I would. What part of “yes” did you not understand?"
Watch the exchange below (at around minute 10:00):
For more information on exactly what the public option is, see this blog post.
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Comments
Great posting, its a shame Rep Debbie Wasserman never answered the question of how an additional 47,000,000 people will be covered and it will somehow cost less. I mean unless you are counting when she says that more people (who are healthy) in the system means more money for those who “need” assistance. Screw the public option. Check out Rep. Mike Rogers and his feelings (and mine) on this violation of rights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G44NCvNDLfc
It apparent by her age that Wasserman hasn’t lived long enough to understand the jeopardy she would be putting her health in, by stating she would would opt into the public option. Except for a few, our representatives have become brain dead, in regard to the American people. We need a change,from the top down.
We just had a change less than a year ago. Don’t you remember?
Yeah, how well has that change worked out. Goes a long way when after 1 year in office the country has completely lost faith in you.
To be fair there can’t be two sets of people, one employer insured and paying relatively little for it and a second of people who are not insured and under the present system are shunned by the private insurers.
A public plan for all would take care of the uninsured (the losers at the moment) by taking away the subsidy to the company-insured (the current winners) and everyone would pay a premium but the poorest.
But, just as no holder of a home mortgage is complaining about socialism when they take their mortgage interest deduction on their taxes and would fight like hell to keep this undeserved handout if it were threatened, so those who have it made with employer-paid insurance will not give it up, though it is at the expense of all of us since their employers get a tax break on what is paid for that insurance.
For national health insurance we would all have to be as equals in how we are treated under it, but those on the top in the current inequality want it to stay that way.
Create a patient cap on the public option. Make the cap 15% of the number of citizens counted in the most recent census. That would be 15% of 304 million people or 45.6 million people. Just coincidentally that is the number of people who are estimated to be uninsured in this country. We will need a priority list for who gets to enroll but those details can be worked out.