Dr Dean’s Diagnosis

by digby

This is an excellent piece from Sam Stein about the Conrad plan which highlight’s Howard Dean’s no-nonsense comments about the co-op band-aid and the politics surrounding it:

Sen. Kent Conrad’s proposal for a cooperative approach to health insurance coverage has created a unique challenge for progressive health care advocates who don’t object to the idea but find it inadequate. Hoping not to seem uncompromising on what is health care reform’s bipartisan flavor for the day, several high-profile figures began a push-back on Monday, insisting that while Conrad’s idea was well intentioned, it simply would not suffice.

“This is a big mistake,” former Gov. Howard Dean told the Huffington Post. “These co-ops will be very weak. Many won’t have the half-million members that most experts think is necessary to influence the market… Insurance companies will be licking their lips.”

“I am very fond of Senator Conrad and think he is a good guy and friend,” Dean added. “But I think the basic problem, as the Senate often does, is that they are worried about the internal Senate politics rather than the type of solution the American people want.”

And that’s because Conrad, for reasons that nobody understands, continues to operate on the assumption that he needs 60 votes when he doesn’t.

Dean, like virtually every expert on the subject, has nothing against co-ops. They are a fine progressive idea and everyone thinks they would be a terrific addition to real reform. But they are inadequate to do the heavy lifting that’s required to fix this system once and for all. The reason for the national public plan option is to try to rein in costs and get some discipline in the marketplace by creating some competition with teeth for the greedy, irresponsible insurance companies who have had years to fix this problem on their own and didn’t bother.

Let’s not kid ourselves about what is happening here.

Jane at FDL has some new information about who’s balking on the public plan in the Senate HELP Committee. Naturally, it’s two “centrist” Dems.

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