Where's the Outrage?

When President Obama asked Democrats, liberals and progressives to forgive Joe Lieberman for his condescension, lies and treachery, we reluctantly said, “Okay.” It was the right thing to do. It was the JudeoChristian thing to do. Joe Lieberman now sits as the chairman of the powerful Homeland Security Committee because of our generosity. He is now made an appearance on TV, not having ever met a camera he doesn’t like, and threatened to filibuster the healthcare bill by voting with Republicans. Notice how Republicans have gone silent. They are allowing Democrats to implode without their help. My disdain for Joe Lieberman only grows.

From TP:

This afternoon, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) appeared on Fox News to defend his intention to filibuster any health care reform bill that includes a national public option. Lieberman argued that a public plan would “stifle” the economic recovery and increase “the debt.” “It’s just unnecessary,” Lieberman said. The public option is “a new entitlement program and the taxpayers and the premium-payers are going to end up paying for it, or else the debt will go higher.”

Contrary to Lieberman’s claims, the public option envisioned by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would be required to compete on a level playing field with private insurers and charge premiums “in an amount sufficient to cover expected costs.” Instead of stifling the “economic recovery” and increasing “the debt,” the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the self-sustaining public option (similar to the one envisioned by Reid) could actually save the government money and slightly lower premiums.

Like Lieberman, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — the insurance industry’s lobby — and the Business Roundtable have also argued that a public option that reimburses providers at lower rates than private payers would force providers to raise costs for Americans with private coverage in order to make-up the difference. MedPAC, the Congressional Budget Office, and numerous actuarial studies dispute the insurers’ claims.

These critics confuse cost shifts with price differentials. Economists point out that “price differentials are not necessarily the recouping of losses from one payer by overcharging another”; providers often “charge different prices to different market segments” to maximize profits, not to shift costs. MedPAC has concluded that “hospitals that are forced to run efficiently are adequately funded by Medicare payments. Therefore, increasing Medicare reimbursements to hospitals would not reduce rates providers charge to private insurers.” The research suggests that hospitals “are raising prices when they have the market power to do so,” not because they are reimbursed at Medicare rates.

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