Opposition to Co-Op Healthcare Plan Building: GAO Study Shows It Does Not Work

Remember, those who favor the Co-Op plan refuse to provide us details on its plans to determine whether it will work. Blue Dog Senator Conrad again refused to provide the details. I will vote against Senator Wyden (D-OR) in the primaries as a protest vote and vote for him in November 2010. Those who do not want any reform will be calling their senators in massive numbers. Are we going to let them represent the voters? http://votesmart.org

Jim Kawakami, August 17, 2009, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Huffington Post Sam Stein August 17, 2009... The U.S. General Accounting Office produced a report on cooperatives in March 2000 that was mostly sour on the idea. Using five different co-ops as examples, the study concluded that on the key function -- lowering the cost of insurance -- these non-profit insurance pools came up well short. "The cooperatives' potential to reduce overall premiums is limited because (1) they lack sufficient leverage as a result of their limited market share; (2) the cooperatives have not been able to produce administrative cost savings for insurers; or (3) their state laws and regulations already restrict to differing degrees the amount insurers can vary the premiums charged different groups purchasing the same health plan." ...

Former DNC Chair Howard Dean, in an interview with the Huffington Post last week, called the public option a key element in the health care overhaul. Anything less would not be reform at all, he said. He also suggested that there would be electoral consequences for any Democrat who thought otherwise. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/17/compromise-co-op-proposal_n_261044.html