That’s what Eli Sanders is reporting over at Slog, and if true it would be very good news indeed.
Cantwell’s apparent opposition to a public option was always a bit puzzling, which made her low hanging fruit for organizations and activists looking to move a few crucial senators from nay to yea. All those constituents who made phone calls, sent emails, showed up at rallies and otherwise kept the pressure on Cantwell deserve a ton of credit for their effective grassroots activism.
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Cantwell’s apparent lack of enthusiasm for a public option has always been puzzling. It’s a no-brainer for a senator from a state as blue as Washington (and, actually, for any rational and informed American citizen, but I digress). Perhaps, she simply wanted to give the appearance of having carefully pondered the options before buying off on the obvious.
Hmmm…if “co-ops” means something based on the Group Health/Kaiser model, that does have something to be said for it–and it’s not unreasonable for a Senator from Seattle to give it due consideration.
On the other hand, while staffers from GHC have been in the “other Washington” getting their brains picked about how to deliver quality care more systematically and at lower cost, back here they’ve largely priced themselves out of the market for employer-funded health plans and they’ve been jacking private-plan premiums, exclusions and co-pays just like everyone else.
There are some who would argue that GHC’s administration has become dominated by bean counters trained in the same way as the management of for-profit health insurers, and that the organization has become too focused on organizational minutia and nuts and bolts instead of flesh-and-blood caregivers and patients. That being said, until the smoke clears there are many of us who remain loyal members, certain that things are worse anywhere else.
Really! This is great news!
The argument against the state co-ops is that they won’t be big enough to provide real competition for the insurance firms, and so lower prices.
Krawk!
I cornered Dwight Pelz Thurs. P.M. and asked if cantwell had heard of this stuff called ‘health care’ or 1948 or harry truman.
he had some blather about how that day she had come out … waffling or whatever –
I told him that she was doing little better than debating what the definition of is is.
from table A-34 of the 2006 State and Metropolitan Data Book, appx. 1759000/2382000 households in WA live on less than 75 grand.
WHO the f*k is she representing? the 600,000 at the top who don’t want things to change cuz they got most of what they want, AND, they’re too f’ing stupid to realize how close they are to falling into the bottom?
I REALLY wish she’d just join the other side.
rmm.
For one thing, Washington State has been penalized in Medicaid disbursements because our cost of health care is lower per capita than some other states such as New York. The more it ‘costs’ the more you get. So she thinks we should bet more money to cover more people. She is leary that a federal plan would do the same thing.
Second, she wants local control – something that a single-payer federal plan won’t necessarily give.
I am very glad she is willing to switch over to the single-payer plan because this is the only viable option given the goals we have set forth.