Is Ben Nelson just misinformed about the disastrous Senate "health care" bill? Or is he guilty of deliberate misrepresentation?Either way, he's proving himself a very poor Senator for Nebraska.
Check out the Heritage Foundation's report about Senator Nelson's double-talk about the public option.
In the wake of widespread public backlash over his eleventh-hour deal to get increased federal taxpayer Medicaid funding for his vote, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has been hitting the media circuit, assuring reporters that he won’t vote for any merged health care bill that funds abortions with taxpayer dollars or has a government-run health insurance plan.
“There is zero chance (of a public option),” he said to The Chadron Record. “I’ve made it so clear. It isn’t going to happen.” But Sen. Nelson has already allowed a “public option” to flourish by voting for the Senate version last month.
Medicare, for example, is the quintessential public plan. Instead of the Medicare bureaucracy contracting with private carriers to provide health coverage, as it does today, the latest Senate bill turns that responsibility over to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the agency that runs the federal civil service and the popular Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEBHP). Under the Senate bill, OPM would sponsor two “multi-state” health plans —one of which must be nonprofit — to compete against private plans in the country.
In other words, there could be health plan competition on a national level in every state, but only the federal government would field these national health plans. These government-sponsored health plans would have an exclusive franchise: No private health plans would be able to compete in the same way as the selected health plans sponsored by OPM. In effect, the Senate bill creates a set of “public options” that are thinly disguised as private health plans.
“If the Senate bill becomes law, OPM would not merely serve as an umpire overseeing the competition among private health plans within the FEBHP,” says Kay Cole James, a former OPM director who has warned about this latest congressional tactic to achieve a public plan. “The agency also would become the government’s health-plan sponsor.”
That means this federal agency could field its own team of players, while setting premiums and making other rules for its sponsored health plans, competing against the existing private plans in every state of the union. If OPM officials manipulate the rules, and secure special advantages for its health plans, it could just as easily undercut private health plans and drive many insurers out of the market, James said. “What we’ll see is a stacked insurance market that favors a government-operated ‘private plan.’”
“Sen. Nelson, I ran the OPM, and I can tell you that the Senate’s OPM sponsored plan is not an alternative to a government-run health plan — it is the ‘public option,’” James charges...
The rest of this enlightening report is here.
After reading this, I think you'll agree with me that Ben Nelson needs to get his facts straight.
In the past, Nebraskans have been inclined to give Senator Nelson the benefit of the doubt when it came to his motives but, after the nefarious "Cornhusker Cave-in" in which he bared his neck (and tossed away his pro-life principles) to Harry Reid, it seems like we just can't trust him anymore. So write Senator Nelson, call him, e-mail him and pass the word to others to do the same. Let him know you've become fed up with his lousy performance and, whether it stems from incompetence, naivete or something even uglier, he's got to turn things around ASAP.
That would start, of course, with a complete reversal of his position regarding the Senate "health care" bill.
The election of a Republican Senator in Massachusetts last night (primarily because of the "health care" fiasco created by Team Obama) proves that this mess must be cleaned up quickly. Nelson should see this as a splendid moment for a public mea culpa. Tell us you're sorry for what you did, Ben, and pledge anew your support for bipartisan, transparent, fiscally responsible and morally sound health care reform.
