Who is President anyway? 

After a spate of "town hall" brat attacks and a bullshit blog entry by Sarah Palin, the Democrats have abandoned hospice counseling, and now seem prepared to dump the "public option," handing the whole thing over to private insurers. 

In place of a government provider which would compete with private plans the administration is signaling its support for something called "insurance cooperatives", which (presumably) would allow small businesses to band together to provide their employees with a variety of health insurance options, though not necessarily at lower premiums. 

Which solves the problem of small businesses, which, as far as I know, were not any more endangered by the national plan than by Massachusetts' own recent reform, whereby employers who do not provide a "fair and reasonable contribution" to the premium of health insurance for employees are assessed an annual fair share contribution that cannot exceed $295 per employee per year.  Individuals, on the other hand, are currently assessed over $900 a year for going without health insurance. 



Despite the curdled screams of "socialized medicine!" from the right, Massachusetts never implemented a public option in its reform.  Instead, it mandated that private plans offer a minimum level of benefits, charge the same premiums for all applicants, and accept those with pre-existing conditions.  All of which seem reasonable aspects of any health insurance reform that aspires to cover everyone. 

The American College of Physicians has recently come out in favor of a public option in Massachusetts, concluding:

A public plan option that competeson a level playing field with private insurers could help facilitate deliverysystem change, reduce costs, and ensure stability in the market. Establishing fairregulations that apply the same standards to both public and private insuranceplans for minimum benefit packages, premium rating, and plan accessibilityshould help avoid unintended adverse consequences. However, separate, independententities should be established for objective governance of the healthcare connector and the public plan option. For a public plan and the healthinsurance connector to operate effectively and fairly, the health care deliverysystem must be reformed to strengthen primary care and a new providerpayment model should incentivize care coordination, reward positive healthoutcomes, and promote use of best practices and effective drugs and devices.Further, efforts to ensure affordability must also be established.

Of course most arguments against a "public option" that would fit on a placard or in a shout-down slogan are pure hooey.  We know that the insurance lobby is incredibly influential, and we can surmise that the demise of a public option in the national plan is very much to their liking.  It's less obvious what the benefit is to the mobs that descended on the recent town halls.

As governor of Alaska, Palin was for what she's calling "death panels" before she was against them.  But her opposition isn't about what's good for America, much less what's right.  It's about Sarah Palin, who very obviously has no scruples at all, whatsoever.  But is she really such a formidable threat?  She holds no office and is an acknowledged expert on nothing.  Why is she running the health insurance debate? 

Can it be that Obama has neither strength nor conviction to counter her?  If that's the case mere months into his administration, God helps us in 2012.