We Want the Public Option, a novel approach to online petitions
Adam sez, "Online petitions are a dime a dozen these days -- it takes something special for the citizens to break through and get the attention of politicians. The folks at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (founded by Reddit co-inventor Aaron Swartz and former MoveOn.org folks) may have found it. Today, they unveiled www.WeWantThePublicOption.com featuring a new TV ad that you can sign -- which will then be aired in Washington DC on MSNBC, CNN, and the Daily Show. It contrasts the 76% of Americans who support President Obama's proposed public health insurance option with the insurance interests who oppose it and have given Democratic senators $80 million. It asks those senators to pick a side. You can sign your name as a member of the 76%, and names will be continually rotated into the actual ad aired on TV. Pretty innovative. Check it out."
We Want the Public Option (Thanks, Adam!)
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Brilliant marketing!
Umm, you have to donate to even sign the petition? That's pretty weak.
Nice design, good strategy. They had me up until I had to pay something (cough, cough). Have to (cough) save that cash to pay for what my workplace insurance doesn't cover. Oh, wait, I'm in the UK.
"WE WANT A PUBLIC OPTION"
(We just don't want to pay for a public option and we really don't want to pay to say we want a public option.)
"WE WANT SOMEONE ELSE TO PAY FOR A PUBLIC OPTION AND TO PAY TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT TOO."
(Just doesn't have the same ring to it)
Screw the public option. I want all-out single payer. Obama's plan is just weak and getting weaker.
We want the government to control our health care options because the clown-Congress has done such a great job on the auto company bailouts and all the TARP money has done wonders for the economy! Yaaaaaay!
Jeagilar-- Totally, you nailed us. Democracy is absolutely a pay for play system where someone asking for your signature is entitled to demand that you pay for the privilege. The page also has a nice disclaimer about how they don't actually guarantee that your name will actually appear anywhere, so they're essentially raising money for an advert with a bunch of names that isn't really a petition that will be officially submitted to anyone. Nice.
@Freddybear, We want private corporations to control our health care options because we like health insurance being tied to employment, we like over-paying so they can make billions off of our pain, and we like that they spend a huge amount of resources looking for ways to deny legitimate claims.
I attend Harvard University's Department of Health Care Policy in the joint MD/MBA program. The program melds the two opposing sides public health and business. After soul-searching and research almost all graduates come to the same conclusion over our disastrous health care system.
Still take my words with a grain of salt depending on your political biases:
There is no meaningful reform without a public insurance option. None. Zero. Zilch. The monetization of public health will always, always put the heath and well-being of the citizens behind profits. The only way to improve the situation without doing away with the whole private insurance option altogether is to force it to compete against a not-for-profit insurance option. Even in other countries, with entirely socialized medicine private insurance companies thrive albeit with smaller markets.
Obama's critics will hate anything he does. They reject his overtures for true reform, but will be the first to jump on him when his neutered attempts at reform do little to address the underlying problem: Valuing profits over public health reduces our competitiveness globally and hurts every other industry but private insurers.
Wake up America. For your own sake.
We already have a decent petition going for a public option.
http://standwithdrdean.com/
Over 350,000 signatures which will be delivered to Congresspeople in DC and around the country tomorrow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzDwXr9szxw
@Freddybear, @Cmaceachen,
I don't really trust either to do the best job... however, which would be the less of two evils?
Realistically, I think a simpler dualistic system would be best. Have a low-cost federal health plan for those that can't afford it. But also allow for simplification and reduction in the current bureaucracy for those that want to purchase additional health insurance.
I think its stupid that I don't know how much my routine checkup will cost (co-pay) until after my appointment. And the receptionists get offended when I ask... So there isn't an incentive for hospitals to be efficient... just charge as much as possible... hey you're not really sick, but I'll just give you a prescription for this $100 aspirin... The good ol' insurance boys will pay for it.
Encourage people to be pro-active with their health, make it easy for people to get quick inexpensive advice and help (not just webmd baloney). Whatever 'side' of the debate you are on, its easy to see the current system is inefficient and sucks. However, there are more than two ways to solve this problem (despite what your demos and repubs are saying). Be pragmatic and logical, and don't eat the same old party lines.
Chris, you should find a different doctor if they can't tell you what your copay is prior to the visit. My doctor's office even collects payment while I'm waiting for the doctor.
Freddybear, right, because the current health insurance system is perfect!! Oh wait, it sucks balls.
Freddybear, right- and clearly unregulated corporations are the way to go because they would never need a clown congress to bail them out.
It seems the sensible plan is to allow for those who would prefer to have private health care insurance opt to do so without having to pay into a public fund of it. Those who would prefer to have socialized health care can pay into that system (presumably taken out of wages) and have access to national health care that they pay for.
Thus, those who want national health care get what they want by paying for it, and those who want private health care don't have to pay taxes and can seek whatever the market gives them.
It's a win-win-WIN solution, imo. Everyone gets what they wants, and nobody is left out.
@Anonymous, unfortunately it's not that simple. Universal health care only becomes viable when everyone is involved. Young, healthy people will almost certainly opt out when given the choice but will then join when they get older or need care. Without the involvement of everyone, it just gets too expensive. What you suggest has been tried to one extent or another by a few states with sub-par results. This, of course, gives conservatives an example to point at and say government run health-care can't work, even though the example they use isn't at all the ideal solution, or even one worth trying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhpUG4apgrE&feature=related
Uh, no, the current system of for-profit insurance is not perfect, but thinking that the government can craft a centrally-controlled system that is better is simply ignoring the history of the 20th century.
And claiming that the only choice is between a government takeover of the health care insurance business (disguised as a "public option") and total deregulation (strawman "conservatives" there) is an obvious fallacy.
@18:
You mean the 20th century in which the US was the *only* first-world country not to adopt some form of universal health care? The 20th century in which Americans paid more for health care than any other nation, yet were objectively less healthy?
Freddybear, your argument would be very compelling if every other industrialized country in the world had not already shown that centrally-controlled health care systems can work at least as well as private ones.
I don't know about your health care provider, but mine (Kaiser Permanente) still has most of their records in paper form. That means it can take weeks just to get a copy of my own medical records, and God help me if I have a medical emergency near a non-Kaiser hospital. By contrast I can go to any DMV office in my state to deal with vehicle and licensing issues, and most routine stuff can now be done online.
@Malgas: Yes, THAT 20th century! Great, wasn't it?
But the other industrialized countries have shown no such thing. US health statistics are not objectively worse than those from countries with "universal health care". Longevity and infant mortality statistics are not collected uniformly among all the countries which are compared.
Waiting times for major surgery and even for high-tech diagnostics are far longer in Europe and Canada than in the US, and outcomes for cancer and heart disease are much better in the US.
And yes, THAT 20th century, where the economies of Europe and the Soviet Union failed to keep up with the growth and economic freedom of the United States.
Freddybear:
I'm sorry, that's simply wrong. The cancer survival rate in the US is pretty low among industrialized nations, falling behind at least seven nations all of which have national health care, including the UK, Finland, Sweden and France.
And however you try to spin statistics by saying they "aren't collected uniformly among all the countries," US is permanently towards the bottom of industrialized nations in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality. It is far, far behind virtually all European countries with national health care.
FreddyBear,
Let's see some credible citations for your claims.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoHCmq2lhe4&feature=related
Sorry if this is a repeat. This blog article has many citations to refute "universal" health care claims:
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/10836-Top-Ten-Reasons-For-ObamaCare-Are-Based-On-False-Information.html
heh! "credible", heh!
FreddyBear,
'Credible citations' means government statistics, news articles (not opinion) from respected news organizations, articles in science journals, etc. It doesn't mean partisan blog ramblings.
The only part of that blog posting that was relevant to what several of us have said was the line:
"More accurately, a January 2009 analysis of the data gathered from the OECD points at life expectancy as the single best measure of outcomes. Excluding deaths by injury, to focus on health related outcome, “the US does the best of all the OECD countries” having the longest life expectancy."
Unfortunately the link is 404, so it makes it hard to back up what they are saying. Especially since it goes against every single other study performed that show that the US does not have the best life expectancy. c.f. my links earlier.
(Why would it exclude deaths by injury anyway? I though a good health care system included emergency care treatment. And does the US really have that many deaths from injury that if you exclude all of those it jumps from 45th to 1st??)
Don't listen to Freddybear. Aside from being a troll, he's a multibillionare insurance executive. Of course he's going to be against public health care.
#30: Would that it were so. Unfortunately, I am but a mere computer geek who has done contracts for insurance companies. I have set foot in the executive suite, but alas, only to install networking gear for those enthroned therein.
#28: I am sorry that my sources do not meet your standards. Perhaps you could identify one of those "respectable" news organizations?
"You can sign your name as a member of the 76%, and names will be continually rotated into the actual ad aired on TV. Pretty innovative. Check it out."
So, er, it sometimes takes a minute for Web 2.0 things to click for me.
The people who sign this aren't actually making a formal petition, just something that plays a petition on TV, and the number 76% has nothing to do with the number of people who sign this thing, it's just the result of a poll taken before the campaign went up?
Could you just run me over, then have the parade?
Perhaps you could identify one of those "respectable" news organizations?
BBC, New York Times, Al-Jazeera, every government in the developed world publishes health care statistics as does the UN, even Wikipedia as an aggregator with citations. Facts, data, statistics - not opinion. As is so often said here, the plural of anecdote is not data.
For those who wrote that you had to pay, that was due to some lack of clarity on the thank you page. This is certainly free. Those who sign then have the option of helping to put it on the air...totally optional.
www.WeWantThePublicOption.com
Can someone please explain to me: Why are you so opposed to paying for your own health care? Is there a real reason, or is it just plain greed?
And don't say you can't afford your health care, because *I* can't afford your health care either.
maybe they blew their budget on their own military coverage.
wrecked_em,
Funny you should mention that because I'm hella sick of paying for your roads and bridges.
Here's the weird thing about health care. We tend to pay for it using "insurance," but what kind of insurance is used to pay for every little expense associated with it? You don't use your car insurance to pay for an oil change. You don't use your homeowner's insurance to pay for a leaky faucet. But, we use health insurance to pay for every single doctor's visit, every little procedure. Why do we do this? This drives medical costs through the roof and makes health "insurance" companies very rich.
Why not set up your own health savings account, pay into it, and when you go to the doctor, pay him cash on the spot. If you have to go to the hospital for something serious, that's when the insurance should kick in. If most people start doing this, you'll see prices come down.
The government acknowledges the threat to our health and safety from asymmetrical attacks such as the anthrax mail assault. They never caught those terrorists and any day another attack will occur that requires a medical based defense. The last thing we want is someone spreading a disease around and then dying because they can not afford to go to a doctor. The film,12 Monkeys, suggests how easy it is to spread a disease. People opposed to a unified medical defense are just helping people who want to attack America. You probably won't print this but it felt good writing it!
Before you sign your name to this advertisement, you should be sure you know what you are signing for. Once you see the complete definition, you may decide it's not for you. This is especially true for Seniors, where it is proposed that $400 billion would be cut from Medicare, which would emasculate it and force rationing. If you are age 70+, you might be denied treatment based on your short life expectancy. Think about it carefully!!!
Exslushpumper: the $400 billion that will be cut from Medicare is the Advantage program which is a subsidy to the providers that is now in place..not the Basic Medicare Coverage.