Has Schumer figured out how to shut up the foes of "big gummint"?

More and more it seems that the real battle on health care will involve the issue of setting up a public option to the private insurers. On the one hand, this is a victory for health-care advocates: this tie around, even opponents of health-care reform have conceded that some kind of reform is coming. On the other hand, a reform plan without the public option is pretty toothless: as Obama pointed out, the only way to keep the private insurers honest is by setting up the public plan. As I noted earlier, the insurers bought Senator Nelson’s vote for $600,000. More ominously, one of theDemocratic leaders of the reform effort, Baucus, apparently opposes the public plan too. Also in opposition is new Democrat Arlen Specter, despite his striking comment this week that Jack Kemp would be alive today if not for Republican obstruction on health issues.

Now Chuck Schumer is trying to keep the public option alive, by offering a compromise wherein the public plan would need to meet the same regulations and requirements as the private plans.

The ostensible reason for opposing the public plan is that it will drive up costs. That is nonsense: it will bring them down. Our current system costs Americans twice as much, per capita, as the rest of the civilized world pays for health care.

Let’s look at some numbers.

Medicaid covers 49 million people for 208 billion.
Medicare covers 43 million people for 440 billion.
VA covers 26 million vets for 87 billion.

So these three programs cover 118 million people for 735 billion, about $6000 per person.

This is thousands of dollars less than the rest of us are paying the private insurers. The government programs are cheaper that the private companies.

Also, the private companies are overwhelming covering healthy people in the prime of life. The government programs are overwhelmingly covering the young, old and poor – the people who cost the most to cover.

In other words, the government outperforms the private sector.


One must keep in mind the GOP’s effort to demonstrate, by means of egregious misrule, that government is incapable of delivering the most basic services.

One thing we need to remember is that before Bush came along, our government actually functioned.

The military conquered the world twice in the last 100 years. Then Bush broke it.

Marshall's State Department built the postwar world, and fed and clothed the whole world, friend and enemy alike; his successors have prevented dozens of wars and conflicts. Then Bush marginalized it and made American diplomacy a joke.

The FDA, USDA and EPA protected us from unsafe food, water, air and drugs. Then Bush gutted them.

The Coast Guard and FEMA saved thousands of lives before Bush dorked them up.

The Fed and the SEC gave us a couple of trillion in prosperity and kept the markets running properly. Then Bush wrecked it all.

The VA took care of our troops. Until Bush.
Social Security took care of the elderly; Medicaid and Medicare take care of the sick.

Now they are all in jeopardy due to Reaganomics and Bush.

The CIA used to hunt terrorists. Then Bush politicized them.

Homeland Security never worked right because Bush mismanaged it from the beginning. And that was a priority project for him.

The FEC made elections fair. Then Bush politicized it.


And of course there are other parts of the government which Bush didn’t have enough time to destroy:

The FBI and DEA solved the WTC bombing is days and keep criminals and drug dealers off the street.

The post office can carry a document across the country for half a buck.

The Department of Transportation built the interstate highway system, one of the most staggering engineering projects in human history; without it we'd starve. They also keep our airports safe.
The USTR saves us billions in trade deals

The DOE gives us cheap energy and protects nuclear technology from terrorists

So let’s stop whining about "big government".