Anderson Cooper The Journalist

Michael Moore

The future of the public option was front and center on Tuesday evening’s AC360, with discussion by David Gergen and Candy Crowley prefaced by the comments of liberal filmmaker Michael Moore.  The up shoot:  the current healthcare reform debate is stifled  by a paralysis among American conservatives, both in Congress and at the grass roots level, to enact meaningful legislation.

The crux of the argument is simple.  There are Americans lacking health care coverage who need some sort of reform to the industry (reform that Democrats have sought for 70 years) so that illness is not a prescription for death among them and will allow them to get the health care attention they need and deserve as humans.  Republicans and Democrats who draw their support from insurance companies are against the public option for one simple reason:  it would force insurance companies to actually have to compete in seeking to offer a more attractive option than the public one.

As Republican David Gergen admitted on Tuesday’s AC360, the present plan, minus the public option, changes a few insurance mandates but does not reform health care.  It does not lower costs nor does it actually change the way doctors practice their profession.  In short, it rearranges the deck chairs while the ship continues to sink, all because politicians are afraid to take the action that is necessary.

Rather than decrease competition, as opponents allege, the public option would actually increase competition as it would add one  more choice to those of consumers seeking health care protection.  But in doing so, it would force the insurance companies to actually compete and , most likely, see a decline in their profit margins.  Having to compete is actually the insurance companies biggest fear, as it is for the politicians who rely on insurance companies for the largest portion of their campaign contributions.  It is a very unseemly coincidence that in this whole debate, a lawmakers’ stance seems in direct correlations to their reliance on the insurance industry for support, regardless of their individual party affiliation.

Moore, who is basically a rabble rouser who preaches to the liberal choir, made a sincere but toothless threat in vowing to campaign against Democrats who do not support the public option.  Basically, there is nowhere for Democrats to go, and Moore’s threat, based on historical precedence,  would only replace one feckless Congress person with another.

The shame of the matter is the millions of Americans who are still without coverage and probably will not find relief when a compromise bill is passed through Congress, which is looking more at its reelection chances than it is at serving its citizens. – George Curcio