Emanuel's "sufficient competion": Medicare Rx "benefit" led to MASSIVE increases in drug prices:

[Faryn Balyncd]

So now Emanuel wants to use the Medicare Prescription Drug fiasco is a RATIONALE of why we should cave on the public option!

(You just can't make this stuff up.)

WHITE HOUSE OPEN TO DEAL ON PUBLIC HEALTH PLAN

"The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest," he said in an interview. "The goal is non-negotiable; the path is" negotiable.

President Barack Obama has campaigned vigorously for a full public option. But he's also said that he won't draw a "line in the sand" over this point.

. . . . . .

Mr. Emanuel said one of several ways to meet Mr. Obama's goals is a mechanism under which a public plan is introduced only if the marketplace fails to provide sufficient competition on its own. He noted that congressional Republicans crafted a similar trigger mechanism when they created a prescription-drug benefit for Medicare in 2003. In that case, private competition has been JUDGED SUFFICIENT and the public option has never gone into effect.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124692407982802911.html#mod=rss_Politics_And_Policy

But the anti-competitive Medicare Prescription Drug "Benefit" was followed by MASSIVE increases in drug prices!

(And these increases effect ALL Americans, not only Medicare beneficiaries):



http://www.webmd.com/news/20070306/aarp-prescription-dr...




Since Emanuel thinks the Medicare Rx Drug "benefit" has a "sufficient" stimulation of competitive prices, what effect on INSURANCE PREMIUMS can be expected by a health-care "reform" stripped of a public option?


Such a fatally flawed bill will be a massive step BACKWARDS, and needs to be DEFEATED!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. The "non-negotiation" clause has been generally excoriated - but have they repealed that part

of the Drug bill? I don't think so. If not, why not?

(By the way, your WebMD link doesn't work)

[DJ13]

2. So much promise, so much capital wasted

"President Barack Obama has campaigned vigorously for a full public option. But he's also said that he won't draw a "line in the sand" over this point."


We thought we elected just what we needed to deal with the increasing crisis facing everyday people, another FDR who would stand up to the corporate interests and push to keep his promises.

........instead we ended up with another Jimmy Carter.

sigh

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. If we wanted someone who would have stood up to the corporate interest, Obama was the WRONG choice.

That is painfully obvious now. Should have been during the campaign. Too late now.

[DJ13]

7. Well, between an unknown in Obama, and the known corporatist in Hillary

There was really only one choice in the primaries.

(Sadly, Kucinich wasnt an option.)

Im still hopeful Obama will realize too many of his advisors are representing their corporate buds instead of the people and change course, but that hope dims with every passing day, every new position filled with still more corporate shills.

[napi21]

3. I listened to Thom Hartmann this AM on a Portland radio station.

Apparently Emanuel spoke about "triggers" in a NYT interview, but during an interview in Russia Obama said any bill MUST include a public plan. Thom said he thought Obama may be playing chess again by inviting the Pubs to join the discussions and stop saying no to everything, with the full intent that in the end he will be able to say I reached out to Pubs at every step and they refused, so now we'll just go it alone MY WAY.

I've thought this was a possibility for quite a while.

[RandomThoughts]

5. A trigger is a stall to push the issue forward to another day

Hoping that they can find a way to defeat it then. There are many that just want to make it through the populace uproar till people fall back asleep, then they can go back to full stealing mode again.

[madfloridian]

6. Recommended.

That bill infuriated me. It was meant to give pharma more profits, else why would they have the stupid doughnut hole?

Idiots.

Most complicated idiotic bill ever, and don't get me started on the Medicare Advantage plans.

[abumbyanyothername]

8. To put it in terms you will understand, Rahm

F you.

[loudsue]

9. Rahm Emmanuel only pretends to be a democrat.

He is DLC/NDN all the way. Fucking infiltrator.

[madfloridian]

10. Just think....there are two Emanuels helping to run things.

Rahm and Zeke

I knew the day that Obama chose Rahm to "get his back"....that real change was out of the question.