-
Obamacare’s Medical Mercenaries
April 13, 2012 | 58 comments
-
Obama’s Broken Promise to Wounded Warriors
March 27, 2012 | 32 comments
-
Obama Sells Out Science for Campaign Cash
March 21, 2012 | 21 comments
-
Netanyahu’s Purim Gift to Obama
March 9, 2012 | 91 comments
-
Republicans Rock the Airwaves
February 24, 2012 | 56 comments
The Public Policy
ACORN’s Public Option
Health exchanges will do just as well.
Coming to a neighborhood near you: nonprofit health coops administered by ACORN designed to use state Medicaid programs to usher in single payer health care.
A Tea Party conspiracy theory? Hardly. While the catfight over the cost of reform and the nature of the public plan escalated as details unfolded, no one paid attention to what the harmless sounding exchanges actually do.
Few policy analysts or policymakers have carefully examined the role exchanges will play in expanding government run health care with the help of community organizers (known as “navigators” in the health bills). As American Enterprise Institute health scholar Tom Miller points out: “The national exchange initially was marketed as a means to provide new choices to those largely shut out of the traditional employer-sponsored group health insurance market. But the House bill gives away its ultimate objective by authorizing the Orwellian ‘Health Choices’ commissioner to open the national exchange to ALL workers, even in large self-insured employer plans, by 2015…. It empowers that commissioner and her forthcoming bureaucracy to fill in most of open-ended opportunities for regulatory commands and controls, over time.”
Specifically, Miller notes that health exchanges will be used to limit what Americans can spend on health care each year by deciding what type of benefits they will receive, the plans they can choose from, and how much health plans can charge.
Health exchanges are, in one respect, just another name for the Health Alliances that regulated health plans under the Clinton health proposal. In Clintoncare, as in current proposals, only qualified health plans would be eligible to sell insurance inside an alliance (exchange) and would be required to cover all the benefits a National Health Board (Health Choices Commission) established for a certain amount of money per person.
Exchanges would also have the power to implement premium targets, control the rate of premium increases through regulation, or impose taxes on high-cost health plans consistent with federal regulations.
If that sounds like it would lead to less choice, you are right. Heritage Foundation health scholar Robert Moffitt observes: “If the President wanted to create a national market for health insurance, he could simply propose the repeal of outdated provisions of federal law that erect barriers to the purchase of health coverage across state lines. The President is obviously not interested in creating anything like a normal national, competitive market for health insurance.”
Instead exchanges reduce the number of private health plans by controlling prices and the introduction of new technology. Moreover, exchanges also have significant power to introduce an “all-payer” system if other health care plans are deemed not affordable. The House health bill allows the Health Choice commission to terminate state exchanges that do not meet federal standards of price and benefits. The Baucus bill, by letting the exchange regulate premium rates and benefits levels, paves the way for the steady erosion of private coverage as well.
But that’s not all. The Left is already planning to push for exchange-led expansion of a combination of Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to compete directly with health plans. By aggressively cornering the market on “navigation” contracts, these groups seek to lobby for such alternatives at the state level.
None of the current proposals prohibit Medicaid or SCHIP (both have no requirement to screen for illegal immigrants) from participating in state exchanges. States could use both to form their own “public options” or health cooperatives and compete alongside private plans. (Similarly, a decade ago community activists pushed to use Medicaid for SCHIP instead of private health plans.)
Government-run health care could rapidly expand through exchanges. All congressional proposals would add 28 million more Americans to Medicaid. Why create a new public plan for the rest of us when states could use the two existing public options, Medicaid and SCHIP? Why not have “navigators” use them to create health cooperatives?
Best of all, the establishment of and enrollment in these exchange-sponsored public plans would be aided by a familiar nonprofit organization.
Exchanges have to contract with “navigators” — nonprofit organizations that know health care and know how to enroll hard to reach people. Enter Nets2Ladders, “a powerful, automated benefits enrollment platform” designed to “increase the efficiency and effectiveness of enrolling low-income families in federal and state benefits programs” such as Medicaid and SCHIP. By January 2010, all 50 states will be covered by this platform. And nearly 26 states have contracts with the group that administers the program already.
The organization? ACORN of course. No organization is better suited to be a health exchange “navigator.” Which tells you everything you need to know about the real intent and impact of health exchanges.
About the Author
Robert M. Goldberg is vice president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and founder of Hands Off My H ealth, a grass roots health care empowerment network. His is new book, Tabloid Medicine: How the Internet is Being Used To Hijack Medical Science For Fear and Profit, was published last month by Kaplan.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (25) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Robert M. Goldberg
More Articles From The Public Policy
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/15/acorns-public-option
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
H/T to National Review Online
ADVERTISEMENT
Brubaker| 9.15.09 @ 7:03AM
"Reform" has such a positive ring to it. Who could oppose "reform"? Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans don't ask questions and don't seem to understand that "reform" can be good or bad. The reforms envisioned by Obama definitely fall in the bad column.
Ed Coyne | 9.15.09 @ 8:00AM
Gotta love those Goldbergs (Bob, Bernie, Jonah)! Keep rockin' the intellect! The opposition is woefully out-armed.
GringoBob | 9.15.09 @ 8:22AM
Obama IS ACORN and ACORN is Obama = ObamAcor
for all your Hope, Change and Trust needs - look nowhere else
the end .....
GringoBob - in the republic of Costa Rica - remember those days ?
Henceforth I will vote only for known and proven followers of 912
Glenn Beck - Fox news channel - Monday thru Friday - 5:00 pm EST
here is the Voting matrix = http://Group912.org
help stop the EPA = http://StopEPA.com
Galen| 9.15.09 @ 9:14AM
As Senator Roscoe Cockling said"the man who said patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels overlooked the posibilities in the word Reform"
Tim| 9.15.09 @ 10:40AM
What a bunch of Hypocrates!!
For the past 40 years or so, the "America" haters have employed the very tactics that these two young folks have used to expose and hopefully destroy Acorn...against businesses and individuals and politicians into doing their bidding and to buy into their corrupt world view of the ends justifies the means.
Yet now that the Saul Alinsky, "Rules for Radicals" is being used against a bunch of these corrupt out of control lefties the "Obama News Media" is going nuts.
Remember the old line....
"It's the Economy Stupid" well that still fits but you now need to add...
"It's the Corruption Stupid"
Next stop....go under cover in the SEIU union offices....and bring the other leg of these socialist corrupt radicals down.
Wouldn't it be funny to see SEIU's Andy Stearn trying to walk with his pants pulled down around his ankles for all to see not the least which will be his long suffering Union Members?
2010----looking better with each passing day.
Talk about using the left's weopons against them...
It's about time!
Pay Backs are a real Bitch......aren't they though?
MPR | 9.15.09 @ 2:48PM
ACORN has been criminalizing the way in which the government and housing programs are supposed to work. ACORN has flexed it's muscles and made the possibility of Obama as president, almost in control of our census and commited fraud in about every way possible. Discuss it at www.speakoutforfreedom.com
Louis Jenkins| 9.15.09 @ 7:37PM
Dear ACORN:
I have a very large family. My wife and I have a wonderful relationship as she works hard all night to provide a living for me. Her friends are calling all the time. The phone never stops ringing. I also have four 14 year old daughters that we have adopted from Guatemala, and they are very busy at night with their homework. The never ending parade of boyfriends are over at all hours helping them too. The girls are such sweet little darlings. Can you help me find some health insurance for my family? We're really in a needy way and I am worried about the girl's and my wife's health. I want them to have access to cheap health care, particularly if those American Taxpayer saps are footing the bill, and especially if they get a virus or something from their boy friends.
Signed
Concerned Parent and Father
chi hair straightener | 9.15.09 @ 10:17PM
As the currency in the Warhammer world, plays an important role in the economic system.
The experience plays take in game kinda depends on how much
chi flat iron they have.
To amateur players, they do not have much time to play the game,
not even farming chi flat irons.
Pingback| 9.16.09 @ 4:46PM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : ACORN's Public Option [spectator.org links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
tim| 9.16.09 @ 5:45PM
NEWS FLASH.....
Acorn launches internal investigation into disturbing practices.
Wow I feel better all ready.
You see there, if only Al Capone in the 1920's has launched an internal investigation into Mob killings it would have saved thousands of lives.
And if Andy Stearn of the SEIU launched an internal investiagtion of corrupt Union Leadership practices Unions would be as pure as the new falling snow.
And if you buy all of this I got some newly built stimulous bridge that I can sell you.
Pingback| 9.16.09 @ 6:29PM
D. Jason Fleming (djasonfleming) 's status on Wednesday, 16-Sep-09 22:29:53 UTC - Ide links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Brendon Burke | 9.17.09 @ 4:31AM
I have read many articals of Robert M. Goldberg,he is a good writter.I like him better than Obama lol
Bailey Button Ugg Boots
ugg boots sale
FedUpLibBs| 9.17.09 @ 5:03PM
Acorn, which IS a Sister ORganization to the SEIU, and JUST as Dangerous, and just as ANTI-AMERICAN!!!. THIS entire Administration, or, REGIME or .. REICH is daily, reminding me of the Early days of NAZI GERMANY (1933-1935)!!! HITLER had Universal health care, Gun Control, controlled the BANKS, the AUTOMAKERS, ... hmmmmmmm !!
Hue| 10.8.09 @ 7:10PM
Where is all the opposition to Blackwater. They have scandal after scandal, including murder, rape, arms smuggling, underage prostitution. On top of receiving billions and billions of taxpayer money. Who is going to expose them. Or does the hypocrisy just continue with the right.
aaaaa| 3.3.10 @ 3:15PM
Free Downloads Sotware - Free Downloads Sotware New Software Free Downloads Sotware