Schumer Offers Middle Ground on Health Care - NYTimes.com

Schumer Offers Middle Ground on Health Care - NYTimes.com:

"Scorched by Republican opposition to the idea of a new public program like Medicare, Senate Democrats are looking for a middle ground that would address the concerns of political moderates. One way they propose to do that is by requiring the public plan to resemble private insurance as much as possible.

“The public plan,” Mr. Schumer said Monday, “must be subject to the same regulations and requirements as all other plans” in the insurance market. Democrats in Congress hope to shift the debate from the question of whether to create a public health insurance plan to the question of how it would work. In so doing, they look for the support of influential moderates. But in the last few days, three moderate senators — Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska; Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine; and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who switched parties to become a Democrat — have expressed reservations about a public plan.

Insurers also remain skeptical. Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said, “We are very, very grateful that members of ongress have been thoughtfully looking at our concerns.” But she said she still saw no need for a public plan “if you have much more aggressive regulation of insurance,” which the industry has agreed to support.

Linda Douglass, a White House spokeswoman, said that Mr. Obama was for a public plan but that he realized it could be defined in different ways. Mr. Schumer said his goal was “a level playing field for competition” between public and private insurers.

But Ms. Ignagni said, “It’s almost impossible to accomplish that objective.”"

...with high corporate salaries, really nice corner offices, expensive buildings, luxury sports boxes and all those other bare necessitites of modern corporate life!

Firedoglake also has a good post on this as a capitulation.

And Rachel Maddow reported tonight about White House talked about offering some concessions in the HC reform debate and that, in return, the Republicans offered (wait for it!) nothing!

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