A couple of cool articles on Max Baucus health insurance listening tour appeared in Montana media today. There's the piece by Vince Devlin in the Missoulian about pesky Montanans who want single-payer health care on the table in the discussion on health care reform. John Adams has a similar report on how single-payer advocates across the state are giving Baucus an earful:
"Max is really making me mad now because he's not really trying to change the system, he's just trying to tweak it," said a Helena business owner who drove over for the meeting. "If Max really wants to leave a monumental legacy to show for all of his years in the Senate, then he's going to have to find the courage to tear down (the current system)."
But make no doubt about it. Single-payer health care is off the table. While a majority of Americans would prefer universal, nationalized health care, a bill supporting single-payer health care can't even get off the ground in the House. And that's the more progressive body, by far. Whether Baucus is responsible for that fact, or he's just pragmatic in scripting reform that doesn't consider single-payer health care is moot.
Still it's good to see the anger and mobilization of Montanans. While it's possible the listening tour was intended as a way to placate Montana voters, it's quickly turning into a daily news story about how Congressional health care reform is falling far short of what everyday Americans want. In short, it's one big black eye for the Baucus health care plan.
Again, the real issue at hand is whether there's a robust public insurance option in the proposed health care reform. And I can't help but think that this increasing pressure is making the inclusion of a public option politically mandatory. Details of the health reform plan Ted Kennedy is crafting on the sly are surfacing, and it apparently includes a very strong public option, including opening up Medicare to families of four earning $110K or less. And it looks as if there's going to be a tussle between Baucus and Kennedy in the Senate over the direction of health care, which will be a lot of fun to watch.
A Billings Gazette article reminded us there are other issues involved in health care reform:
That goes especially for health insurance plans, which can be so confusing that consumers avoid making potentially beneficial coverage changes because they don't understand their policies.
"I quit selling (some plans) because I can't explain them," said Webb Mandeville, a Columbus insurance agent....
Several speakers on Thursday complained that the current system is too complicated to be functional. Whatever reform the government implements needs to simplify what already exists, they said.
But not everyone was convinced a government fix could make health care less complex.
That's right. What about the administrative mess our current insurance system creates? It reminds me again of that interview with Princeton health care economist Uwe Reinhardt in which he said that Americans' problem with our health care system isn't the care we receive, but in the way we purchase it. That should be a vital component of any health care reform, but an aspect of health care that doesn't seem to be getting much airtime. Right now, talk about health care reform seems to be concentrating on two things: universal coverage, and reducing costs.
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