I Think Obama Is Bluffing

[patrice]

69. I agree with that. Also, HOW would a Public Option have dealt with rising health care costs???

Single Payer is what we want, BUT HOW WE GET THERE can make the difference between a viable program for ALL generations to come, or something that burns itself out in a decade.

I remember BO outlining the issues around health care costs. #1. was the need for universal coverage, the mandate, in order to create large enough pools of various sets of needs to make the market conform to the needs instead of the needs conform to the market.

So, we got that done and #2. Medical costs MUST go down, otherwise the whole raison d etre for national health care is negated, because the rising health care costs are one of the biggest cripplers of our economy.

I have to wonder how just slamming everything into Public Option gear would have worked out health-care-cost-reduction-wise. Maybe we would have seen some effect in the short term, from those who could position themselves, cold-turkey, in that market, but the evolution of that market toward what the PEOPLE want, which is more coverage of more services and service alternatives, would have been severely limited, right? by the limitations in those for whom relatively generic inexpensive "care" packages would have been acceptable. And those problems could have killed it, before the whole thing ever got anywhere near being the kinds of changes that we actually need that are systemically directed by policy toward prevention and health.

Everyone needs to do much more thinking about exactly how things would/could/should happen.

And in that spirit, universal pre-K, could very definitely have an effect upon many many many economic issues, not the least of which is downward pressure on "health" "care" costs.