Cong. Giffords Embraces Third Way Hybrid Health Insurance Plan Favored by Industry

Say 'No Way' To Third Way's Health Care Hybrid

By Isaiah J. Poole
June 9, 2009 - 11:09am ET
Campaign For America's Future

Third Way, an organization of so-called centrist Democrats, is promoting what it calls a "hybrid" proposal for a health insurance public plan option that it says progressives should be able to support.

No, we shouldn't. It's an unacceptable attempt by people too wedded to the status quo to protect the tail ends of the health insurance industry.
The proposal is outlined in a draft document that was published first by mcjoan at Daily Kos on Monday. It is the latest effort by Democrats aligned with the insurance industry to find a way to say to progressives that they back a public health care option while rendering that option meaningless.

The "Third Way" document is filled with right-wing talking points, such as this gem:

The proponents of a public plan seek the right goals—to broaden access and lower costs. But there is a very real danger that an overly intrusive public plan can ultimately undermine these very goals and destabilize the private-sector coverage that middle-class Americans—i.e., Harry and Louise—depend on and are largely satisfied with.

What would be "overly intrusive"? While the proposal makes much of wanting "a level playing field" between public and private plans so that private plans are not "forced to compete with one hand tied behind their back," it proposes to tie at least one hand behind the back of the public plan.

It suggests that the public plan be limited to "certain market segments" such as very small businesses or to the individual market, effectively ghettoizing the public plan to segments that the private insurance industry has traditionally not been interested in serving.

It also suggests that the public plan be relegated to a regional pilot project "until its worth is demonstrated."

Third Way has effectively embraced the argument that a public plan can't be allowed to succeed in a way that threatens the hegemony of the private insurance market.

And heaven forbid that a public plan be "a gateway toward a single-payer system," to use the draft report's words.

Instead, it wants Congress to have faith in the vague promises made by the health insurance industry to cut costs and expand coverage.

In exchange for a hybrid plan, "industry should be encouraged to deliver on their pledge to reduce the annual growth rate in health care costs by 1.5 percentage points," the draft says. But it is not clear how industry would be encouraged to change its business practices without the combination of a robust public plan that operates at a sufficient scale and freedom to drive market efficiencies and better patient outcomes, and regulations designed to enable patients to get the care they need at reasonable cost.

This report surfaces as some conservative Democrats are considering a proposal to keep a public plan shelved unless some trigger mechanism goes off. The trigger, of course, would be set largely by the insurance industry. The Health Care for America Now coalition has already made it clear that such triggers are off the table.

Third Way's Senate chairs are Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Tom Carper of Delaware, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

The organization's House chairs are Jane Harman and Ellen Tauscher of California, Joseph Crowley of New York, Artur Davis of Alabama, Melissa Bean of Illinois and Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona.

Tell these members of Congress that the only acceptable way to health care reform is through an unencumbered, universally available public health insurance option.

Editorial Note:

A form letter sent by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to CD 8 constituents who participated in the National Day of Service Flower-in at the Congresswoman's office on June 26, listed these four points of a health care reform plan that she says she would support.

1. Allow states the freedom to develop innovative models for universal coverage;
2. Allow people over 50 to buy into Medicare before they retire
3. Study state models for examples of cost-savings measures that have worked, such as reducing paperwork and allowing governments to purchase medications in bulk.
4. Allow the importation of high-quality affordable prescription drugs from other countries.
   

The Gifford's plan, resembles the Third Way draft, contains weak half-measures that keeps insurance companies in the drivers seat, contains no details, does not advocate for a strong public option or cost control mandates, supports studies which delay or block timely effective action and merely allows the importation of drugs without restraints on power of pharmaceutical industry monopoly tactics.

In short this is a status quo plan that does not address these facts:

• Failure of the Massachusetts model
  
• 72 percent of the U.S. that supports the more cost-effective single-payer model, including 65% of doctors,
• Every other industrialized nation offers non-profit comprehensive health,
  
• Administrative costs balloon costs to the government, small businesses and individual policyholders,
  
• Majority of bankruptcies are caused by denial of coverage or underpayment for catastrophic costs
  
• Insurance and pharmaceutical companies are the cause of the failing health of the American nation.

[UPDATE: Courtesy of Open Left, you can also contact Third Way's leadership—particularly health policy senior fellow David Kendall dkendall@thirdway.org—and tell them to stop undermining support for a public insurance option.] Note: Kendall is a former consultant for the Blue Cross-Blue Shield Association, one of the most powerful insurers in the nation. He is on the board of directors for the Wye River Group on Healthcare, which is funded to the tune of a million dollars by CIGNA, a major health insurance player. Courtesy of Rootswire