Olympia Snowe joined Andrea yesterday and was actually better than I thought she would be over her support of a good public option.
When Andrea brought up Conrad's proposal of non profit co-opts that appeases the right wingers who are dead set against the public option, she downplayed it's significance and said that we already use that system today and it wouldn't solve anything.
Snowe: ..a fall back plan in the event that the private plans do not work to provide affordable, quality health insurance to Americans is the way to go and I know some on my side view that as a government option as well, but I do think we have an obligation to make sure that every American has access to affordable plans with quality standards as well, not just on choices, but affordability and quality as well.
Mitchell: What do you think about D-Kent Conrad, the budget committee's proposal for cooperatives, non government cooperatives that would provide insurance?
Snowe: ...states today can create co-ops as a matter of fact, but we want to make sure that not just incorporating the status quo. In other words, if these co-ops were to be formed, Americans still could not have access to affordable, quality plans then you really do have to have a contingency plan, with a fall back plan of some kind to make sure that you do have the conditions to ensure that Americans do have access to an affordable plan.
Today for example in the state of Maine, you don't have the purchasing power necessary to leverage competitive prices so it really has kept so many people and so many small businesses out of the market, we want to make sure that's not what we repeat as we try to reform and provide universal access and coverage to all Americans.
Snowe sounds better on health care than many of the Democrats that are out there trying to knock out a public option like Kent Conrad is doing. And she actually uses the word universal and "quality" when speaking of the public option. I know she's been shaky before. And it's alarming that Conrad would throw liberal supporters under the bus just to appease republican obstructionists and destroy a public plan that would be good for America, but bad for the corporate Dems and Republicans that have been paid off by the Health Care Industrial Complex.
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