The front page of yesterday’s New York Times confirmed it: Group Health Co-operative has become the poster child for those on the Senate Finance Committee (like Sen. Maria Cantwell) who are pushing the so-called “co-op compromise” for health care reform.
The Times, highlighting some of the 62-year-old Seattle health care provider’s innovations (electronic medical records and collaborative care among them) wrote:
On Capitol Hill, those innovations have made Group Health a prototype for a political compromise that could unclog health care negotiations in the Senate and lead to a bipartisan deal. After a month of brainstorming, including briefings from Group Health executives, the Senate Finance Committee seems poised to propose private-sector insurance cooperatives—instead of a new government health plan—as its primary mechanism for stoking competition and slowing the growth of medical costs.
So what’s this co-op compromise all about, exactly? And is Group Health really a good model for the nation?
Easy questions to ask, but the hard part in answering them is that once you start examining any of the various reform plans now emerging from a small handful of key committees in Congress (including, of course, Finance, with its emerging plan for co-ops), you end up in very wonky, knotty, and—most difficult of all—hypothetical territory.
I know because last week I tried to dive into the co-op compromise and ended up with a three-part (1, 2, 3) blog mostrosity that attempted to look at whether Group Health is indeed a good model for the rest of the nation. Obviously not the most thrilling tale on the blog last week, and not as well-told as the Times story, but I did arrive at many of the same conclusions that the Times delivered yesterday.
The shared conclusions, in no particular order: 1) Group Health is not, technically, a co-op. 2) Nevertheless it does have a member governance structure, which is nice. 3) However, the end result is that Group Health is still run a lot like your average insurance company and doesn’t save its clients all that much money. 4) Which is not to say Group Health doesn’t offer great care. 5) It does, and important innovations, too, innovations that the rest of the country can learn from. 6) But experts say it’s still not a workable model for ready-on-day-one health care reform. 7) Because, for starters, it took Group Health 62 years to get to the size where it could be this effective. 8) And even if you could snap your fingers and create a bunch of Group Healths all over the nation starting next year, they still wouldn’t have the economic leverage of a national, government-backed health insurance program (aka, the “public option”).
From the Times:
“The idea that these things will spontaneously erupt all over the country is just completely a dream,” said Timothy S. Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University.
Keep in mind, though, that the Finance Committee, while right at the center of all the planning for a new American health care system, is not the only big player within that center. Committees in the House have also been hard at work on health care reform, and they’re currently pushing plans that include a public option. Same for the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, whose plan Paul Krugman praised yesterday as both workable and historic. Krugman’s headline: “HELP is on the Way.”
Which, of course, is only true if the Finance Committee’s unrealistic co-op plan, and its ill-considered use of Group Health as a potential model for nation-wide reform, isn’t allowed to hijack the process.
Jody Hall—owner of Seattle’s Cupcake Royale, fiesty health care reform advocate, and a voice you’ll hear in an article about Cantwell’s Finance Committee followership in this week’s Stranger—wrote to me this morning saying:
Calls to Cantwell are especially critical now. It’s so close!
It’s true. This is the time when the system we’re all going to live with for many years to come gets made. It’s wonky and complicated, sure. But it’s your health and your money that’s on the line.
Eli, the NYT has obviously ripped you off!
You can’t stand for that, man!!
Have Dan pitch a pissy fit, stat!
Make sure Cantwell knows you prefer a
Government run Taxpayer subsidized
plan that will hasten our National Bankruptcy.
A single payer system isn’t going to be implemented instantaneously either you know. There’s no magic button to suddenly give people universal health care. Doing it piece mail seems MUCH more manageable than a super large, super organized super-insurance company.
So, this article, as well as your article seem to say that the Group Health model is not perfect, I’m sure we all agree with that, but further, you seem to be arguing that because it’s not perfect we should not consider it as a viable option, when it absolutely is. Maybe not in it’s current form, but with a little fudging here and there it seems like it could work. At the very least it could work 100% better than some ephemeral idea of “SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE” for which there is no working model on the scale that the United States would need.
Good luck trying to pass something we can’t explain!
“At the very least it could work 100% better than some ephemeral idea of “SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE” for which there is no working model on the scale that the United States would need.”
Fail. There’s no model for the coop thing whereas the single payer models include medicare the us army plus france sweden canada uk etc. etc. etc. there’s’ probably 300 million people under single payer systems right now.
and bigger only makes it better, duh.
“This is the time when the system we’re all going to live with for many years to come gets made.”
And you’ve already decided what the only acceptable outcome will be, to such a degree that you’re basically campaigning for the Obama administration to help browbeat members of Congress.
So why should I even bother reading your reporting?
My letter to her—-
Dear Senator Cantwell,
I am emailing regarding the healthcare bill up for vote. While I understand you are an advocate for a Co-Op compromise, I want you to understand that we should not COMPROMISE HEALTHCARE. Having co-ops is a horrible, inefficient idea.
First of all, there are absolutely no cost savings in having co-ops. The purpose of National Healthcare is that we have a collective bargaining power for the cost of procedures, cost of drugs, cost of building hospitals, etc. It is what I like to call the “Wal-Mart” advantage. Why can Wal-Mart have good and services priced so low? Because they have major buying power and they get massive discounts. As does India and Brazil when they bargain for the cost of drugs. Co-ops do not have this advantage, and therefore will be more costly (especially if we make them cover everyone, which we need to). How can they compete against established HMO’s? They can’t, plain and simple. People will not use them, and if our tax dollars go to it, then it is EVEN MORE WASTEFUL and EXPENSIVE.
Second, we would have to make them from scratch. Having a national healthcare plan, or the “public option” is much easier to do. It makes it simple and streamlined. 1 plan that can cover anyone in the USA, with the exact same benefits. That is streamlined, not adding 1000’s of co-ops. Also, why not use some of the tech advantages you talk about in the co-ops for the government plan? That is the best of both worlds! Electronic files, better connected doctors. We can do that with a national plan and we can do it even better when there is just 1 plan.
The biggest problem with healthcare is the cost of administration. Doctors have to spend a lot of time contacting insurance companies and getting money from them. Adding 1000’s of Co-ops to this system makes it even worse. How is this better? And how is it a compromise?
And my last argument is this: Republicans, no matter what the “compromise” is will never want this. They have fought tooth and nail against healthcare at every step and they will continue to do so. By even suggesting this ridiculous co-op option, you make it so that healthcare will fail and the GOP can say “hahaha we told you so!”. Do not give them that chance. Make a public option. Make it available and cheap for everyone. Make it have better coverage than any existing healthcare plan, and allow companies to purchase it. This is how you can win. We need buying power, we need the Wal-Mart method for healthcare in order to succeed. Please stop pandering to Republicans. They are not going to come around. And now that the Democrats have a true majority, just make it happen. Show the country the Dems have a backbone and can get things done. Cause right now it looks like all you do is in-fight and stall the president. And you will lose re-election if you keep it up.
@PC There is a model for the “coop thing” and it’s Group Health. That’s the model. How can you claim otherwise?
Yes, there are many small single payer systems right now. There are none that are big enough to serve as a viable model for the US. Really, bigger is better in this case? I’ll admit that I have no idea how a single payer system is supposed to work, but that seeeeeeems weird.
Believe me, I know very little about this beyond what Eli has been saying, but these are some questions that need to be answered before I see ANY reason to support a single payer system over a faux co-op system
Two-thirds of American citizens want a single payer national health care plan.
Ignore their attempts to dissuade you – YOU are the majority, they are NOT.
If anybody out there tries to call the public option “single payer health care,” call them out on their lies. All they’re trying to do is confuse people and scare people. What Obama and the likes of Chuck Schumer in the Senate are trying to do is establish a competitive alternative to the health insurance companies, not to drive them out of business.
While I do like Group Health, I spend a shit load of money each month to cover my wife and two kids. If this is the model, don’t count on it being less expensive.
I can’t afford Group Health. How is this a model for universal care?
Could we get this taken care of already? I just lost my health care and I’m pretty worried about it.