Democratic Senators Nelson, Bayh and Baucus have voiced their opposition to public health insurance. And Nelson, in particular, has come right and said that a public plan would succeed in making private plans look bad.
Nelson’s problem, he told CQ, is that the public plan would be too attractive and would hurt the private insurance plans. “At the end of the day, the public plan wins the game,” Nelson said. Including a public option in a health plan, he said, was a “deal breaker.”
In other words, a public plan would be less expensive and more efficient than the bloated, for-profit criminals who are selling health insurance now. The American people win. But Nelson, Bayh and Baucus think this is a bad thing.
Nicole Belle discovers the obvious reason:
Go to Open Secrets to find out who has donated money to Nelson last few years for his re-election and whaddya know? Blue Cross/Blue Shield is in the top 5 with $31K. In fact, Nelson received more than $230,000 from the healthcare industry in the last four years. Actually, HCAN lists more than $600,000 from the insurance industry to Nelson.
The insane thing is that under the president's plan, private health carriers get to keep selling health insurance. But now the government will offer a plan of its own at a fraction of the overhead. Won't that encourage -- what's that free market thing called? -- competition to win over people who might use the government plan? What Nelson, Bayh and Baucus (and all of the Republicans) want is a stacked game in which prices can remain high and services can remain shitty.
(Bumped)