Occam's Razor: Obama Lied About Supporting The Public Option, Like He Lied About Everything Else Related To Health Care

It is amazing to me that some reporters honestly believe Obama would "prefer a strong public option." All the evidence points to the contrary. For months Obama has been trying to down play the public option. His advisers have been running around saying anything (triggers or co-ops) would be acceptable substitutes even after the CBO declared the co-ops unworkable.

With momentum recently building for the public option Obama has done nothing to help it (and a fair amount to hurt it). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is often praised for his ability to count votes. When he went to the president on Thursday to brief him about his support for the public option opt-out, Reid must have know he was extremely close to getting it passed in the Senate. A few calls from the president, some horse trading, and/or a public statement of support could have easily pushed the proposal over the edge. What did Obama do when it looked like, with a little effort, he could get a public option? He had word leaked that he would fight against the public option and wanted Snowe's worthless trigger instead. A trigger proposal Rahm Emanuel and other had advisers have been pushing for months.

It is important to note that Obama has been consistently less than true to his word when it comes to health care reform. Obama originally claimed to be against the individual mandate; now he is fighting to make sure it is included in the final bill--even though the all-important Olympia Snowe opposes the individual mandate. Obama promised not to tax employer provided health care benefits; now Peter Orszag claims it is a critical part of reform. Obama promised to allow drug re-importation and give Medicare the power to directly negotiate drug prices; several months ago, Obama made a secret deal with PhRMA in which he agreed to actively fight against both of these proposals. And, the president has clearly broken his promise about putting all the health care reform negotiations on C-SPAN. On issue after issue related to health care reform, Obama has, for all intents and purposes, lied.

All the evidence points to one simple conclusion: Obama does not truly support a strong public option.

Maybe Obama never really supported the idea of the public option because he thought it could not work. Maybe he sold it out as part of his still-secret deal with the hospital industry. Perhaps he promised some conservative Democrats in the House and/or Senate that he would kill the public option in exchange for them not criticizing health care reform. Months ago, Obama might have secretly promised Snowe veto power over any proposal if she agreed to support reform.

Regardless of why, Occam's razor dictates only one conclusion: Obama does not support--and likely never supported--a strong public option. There is no tangible evidence to support an alternative conclusion.

Unions Declare War On Baucus Bill In Defiance Of Rahm

Most of the major unions in American are not happy with the Baucus bill, which recently passed out of the Senate Finance Committee. Today, they chose to make their objections known very publicly, in defiance of Rahm Emanuel, by taking out several of full-page newspaper ads.

“He told us that we really don’t want to be looked upon as the group that stopped meaningful health-care reform,” [Gerald McEntee, president of American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees] said in an interview yesterday. “We would love to be on the exact same page as the White House, but we see ourselves as fighting for our members.”

The newspaper ad claims that the inclusion of “a public health insurance plan option is essential to reform.” The ad also stressed labor 's opposition to the new excise tax on high-end health insurance benefits. The ad called it an unacceptable, “new tax on the middle class.”

The fact that many labor unions strongly object to the Baucus bill should not be a surprise. The new excise tax on health insurance benefits would disproportionally hit middle class union members. The new tax is highly middle class regressive.

The Baucus bill also lacks a public option. In some ways the lack of public option symbolizes Baucus's refusal to truly rein in the different health care industries. The health insurance companies will not face new public competition, price control regulation, or medical loss ratio requirements. Both PhRMA and the hospital industries cut sweet heart deals, dramatically limiting the potential of health care reform to reduce the overall cost of health care in this country.

The spiraling upward costs of health insurance is crushing local government budgets and governmental employees. The incredibly high price of insurance and pharmaceuticals in America, compared to the rest of the world, is making our manufacturing sector uncompetitive globally. This is killing our manufacturing base and manufacturing unions.

The Baucus bill would hit many union members from both ends. It would tax their benefits above a set value, but too little to prevent the cost of their insurance to keep growing above that level.

The public opposition push from the Unions comes just days after the health insurance industry launched an attack on the Baucus bill. It is the latest sign that the White House's strategy of keeping all the stake holders at the table maybe unraveling

*Notably absent from the list of unions who sponsored the ad were the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the SEIU.

The Public Option Trigger: Naïveté, Insanity, or Trickery?

Olympia Snowe and Rahm Emanuel are both pushing hard for their “trigger” idea recently. The idea is the public option would only go into effect if the health insurance industry kept raising people's rates at a rapid pace. (I believe, after studying the trigger created by Snowe, that it was designed to never be pulled. I also agree with Robert Reich that the whole concept of “triggers” just doesn't work in a town filled with highly paid lobbyists, but let's leave that issue aside for now.)

The whole concept of a “trigger” is at least perpetrated on the idea that the for-profit health insurance companies can stop themselves from raising Americans' premiums. It rests on the belief that the insurance industry will promise to stop ripping people off, and they deserve another chance to prove that they can.

The recent “study” released by AHIP makes even the concept of a trigger patently absurd. In their study, AHIP not only promised to keep increasing people's premiums, but promised to do it at an even faster pace. They asserted that they were powerless to do anything to stop the increase. AHIP is telling Congress that they will not stop, they can not stop.

AHIP's own study makes a trigger predicated on insurance industry moderation look insane. There is no mystery now about what will happen in the future. The health insurance industry itself admitted that they will fail to bring down premiums if the Baucus bill is enacted.

At best, all a trigger will do is force Americans to endure several more years of skyrocketing insurance premiums. At worst (and most likely), it will give the lobbyists for the for-profit insurance companies several years to work on crippling or removing the trigger, so that there will never be a public option.

Supporting a “trigger” on the hope that insurance companies would promise to shape up sounds like naiveté. Supporting a “trigger” after the insurance companies promised to increase pre