Senate Republicans Send Obama Letter Opposing Public Health Plan
By Perry Bacon Jr.
Nine of the 10 Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee signed a letter to President Obama today outlining their opposition to a so-called public option in a health care overhaul, illustrating what has become the sharpest divide between the two parties on this issue.
"Washington-run programs undermine market-based competition through their ability to impose price controls and shift costs to other purchasers," the Republicans wrote. "Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition."
Only Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) declined to sign the letter from the GOP members of the committee, which has been meeting for weeks to hash out a bipartisan comprise on health care legislation. The letter comes less than a week after Obama wrote to Congress declaring his support for creating a government-sponsored insurance program to compete directly with existing private insurance plans.
The top Republican on the Finance Committee, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), has sharply criticized Obama's embrace of the public plan, but the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of more than 70 of the most liberal Democrats in the House, is insisting any health care legislation include such a provision.
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June 8, 2009; 7:15 PM ET
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Posted by: cautious | June 9, 2009 3:36 AM | Report abuse
Sign these petitions for single payer universal health care http://BIT.LY/single_payer_baucus http://BIT.LY/single_payer
Posted by: DEMOCRATZoORG | June 9, 2009 5:16 AM | Report abuse
Without a robust, fully-competitive public option, it's not healthcare reform, it's 50 million new customers mandated for the insurance companies, paid for with our taxes. With a strong public option it's a real breakthrough -- real choice for all Americans and an instrument for pushing prices down. We can do it! ps- My HMO Blue family plan went from $1400 to $2050 last month, for no discernable reason than that the company could get away with it.
Posted by: watt | June 9, 2009 8:47 AM | Report abuse
It is a dog chasing its tail. Modern medicine has lost the fight with disease is the root cause of the problem that everyone overlooks. Lets just look at a few of the problems, there are 140 autoimmune diseases and they are at epidemic numbers (of every 4 people in the USA 1 will have an autoimmune disease), arthritis has 100 different forms alone. Obesity is also epidemic (34% of the population and growing) and every one of them will have multiple diseases and medications for the rest of their lives. If it wasn't such a tragedy for so many people it would be a colossal joke! They ask for donations and government money (it must add up to 100’s of Billions of dollars) to find a cure but they have not found a cure for a single disease in 60 years, something is very wrong here. Think about this, if every time you took your car to the mechanic and he told you "I can't cure the problem but it's treatable at a cost of $80 to $150 dollars a month for the life of your car." How long would it be before you would be bankrupt? Paul
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Posted by: 1pau1l | June 10, 2009 12:23 AM | Report abuse
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What if Bill Gates decided to start a non-profit health plan with a huge reserve fund. What if the premiums collected were less than the cost of the services provided. Would the "Bill Gates Plan" be banned from offering its product on the Insurance Exchange?