Let's get down to business then, shall we? Howard Dean really needs to stop saying things like this:
According to Dean, the most important component of the health care bill is the public option.This is wrong on two separate levels. First, as TAP founder Paul Starr noted in the New York Times the other day, less than 2 percent of the population will likely be enrolled in a public option in the form in which it is currently being proposed. It will also likely have higher premiums than private plans, meaning that it will not be able to pressure private insurance prices downward, as was the proposal's original intention. Why providing this very weak public option to a very small slice of the public is a make-or-break aspect of the health-care bill for Dean is beyond me."If we don’t have a choice, this bill is worthless and should be defeated," the former Governor of Vermont said.
More important, here Dean is actively undermining some of the most positive aspects of the health-care bill. This statement effectively argues that the 25 percent cut in the cost of individual health insurance for families that would result from the bill is "worthless." So too are its community rating and guaranteed issue provisions, which will finally prevent insurers from discriminating against patients based on pre-existing conditions. And, of course, providing insurance to 31 million more people is "worthless" to Dean as well.
Promoting the public option is all well and good, but the other components of the House and Senate bills will have a far greater impact in reducing the cost and increasing the accessibility of health insurance. It is insulting to those who have worked for these reforms for decades for Dean to minimize these reforms as a means of promoting another.
--Dylan Matthews
