How Bad An Idea Is Baucus' And Conrad's Substitution Of Coops For A Public Option? And What You Can To About It TODAY!

Well, to start, it isn't really their idea; it's an idea being pushed by the Medical-Industrial Complex, and Baucus and Conrad have been paid a great deal of money to champion the concept, respectively $4,087,094 and $2,200,650. But in case that isn't enough information for you, a nonpartisan analysis by Lewis Krauskopf for Reuters yesterday should fill in plenty of blanks. He starts out by reminding his readers that the "large health insurance companies need not worry about the would-be competition as proposed" in Baucus' Insurance Industry-penned bill since the puny regional coops Baucus, Conrad and their generous donors want "would likely lack the leverage in negotiating rates to strongly compete against established players... [and] they seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country."

"If you want do something about the cost problem and you really want to change the competitive nature of the insurance market, you need a public plan," said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that advocates for better healthcare.

Co-ops that are run by their members have long been established in areas of agriculture, electricity and banking. Health co-ops emerged earlier this year as an alternative, and President Barack Obama has signaled an openness to co-ops if Congress cannot agree to back the government option.

..."The question ultimately is whether these co-ops are given strategic and competitive advantage by virtue of government power," [Dan Mendelson, ceo of Avalere Health, a research and strategic advisory firm] said. "I don't think that a local co-op that does not have special pricing power poses a terrible threat to an efficient, well-run health plan."

Baucus' $6 billion in start-up capital could let a plan offer coverage with rock-bottom premiums, posing a serious threat to insurers, said Leerink Swann analyst Jason Gurda.

"If that had gone toward a single plan, that's a decent amount of capital to get a good-sized, competitive company up and running," Gurda said. "But if it's going to be available as grants for a large number of companies around the country, how much is any one existing company going to get? Obviously going to be much, much less."

Gurda echoed several stock analysts in saying the co-ops appeared to pose "very little competitive threat" to publicly traded companies, which include WellPoint (WLP.N), Aetna (AET.N) and Cigna (CI.N).

Today progressive activists all over the country are taking to the streets to demonstrate on behalf of meaningful health care reform in a series of "Sick of It" rallies. The targets: big Insurance companies and the Medical-Industrial Complex who have together spent billions of dollars lobbying and bribing members of Congress to defeat real reform. Here in Los Angeles, people are meeting at 11 AM in front of Anthem Blue Cross, at 801 S. Figueroa Street. There is also a rally at 11:30 AM at Anthem Blue Cross in Pomona, which is at 3179 W. Temple Avenue. The other L.A.-area rally is in Woodland Hills, at a virtual ground zero for the country's biggest medical insurance companies. Within one block are the headquarter offices for BC/BS, Anthem, WellPoint, and Health Net. People will be gathering at 11AM at the intersection of Oxnard and Ownesmouth.

You can search for the rally nearest you at the MoveOn website. Closer to the center of the country there's a rally (11:30AM) in front of CIGNA at 7400 W 110th Street, Overland Park, Kansas. And in Little Rock, where Blanche Lincoln is doing so much to damage the chance for health care reform, a determined crew of activists will meet at noon at the State Capitol Complex, 1401 Capitol Street. They will be visiting United Health Care and Blue Cross Blue Shield.