President Barack Obama basically gave away the farm today when he indicated that he was open to giving up the public option for healthcare insurance, saying that he would not “draw a line in the sand” over the issue. Rahm Emanuel was quoted as saying:

The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest. The goal is non-negotiable; the path is negotiable.

Them’s some ominous words.

With both Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) in the Senate and Max Baucus (D-Montana) opposed to a public option, it looks like our leaders have sold us down the river yet again as I have predicted before. It is my opinion that without a public option things will only deteriorate as the healthcare industrial complex cannot cut costs on its own.

The Obama administration state that they want nonprofit cooperatives to compete with private insurance plans. They say that if they don’t find evidence of competition, that the public option will “kick in” at a later date.

There has been a lot of negotiating going on. For instance, the hospital lobby just agreed to taking 155 billion in cuts over the next decade, mostly in reduced Medicare and Medicaid payments. This is in addition to cuts agreed to by pharma. They have been admonished not to bitch about the process if they want to keep their spot at the negotiating table with Baucus. Meanwhile we stories like this one about expensive treatments for prostate cancer that are being performed with the cost of over $100,000 when they have never been shown to be better than the “wait and see” approach (i.e. doing nothing). Only in America guys.

It looks our industry friends will agree to just about anything with the Obama administration to avoid going on a diet. Problem is they are for-profit and motivated by making money.

Richard Umbdenstock (AHA), Karen Ignagni (AHIP), Nancy Nielsen (AMA), Billy Tauzin (PhRMA), and David Nexon (AMTA)

Yep. Our friends from the American Hospitals Association (AHA), American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), American Medical Association (AMA), and American Medical Techonology Association (AMTA) can all be counted on for one thing. Following their instincts. Which are greed.

I wonder if David is going to get some of the yummies or if they are going to let him get up to the table.

Meanwhile, 69% of Americans support a public option insurance plan, as do 59% of doctors. Only a third are opposed to it. And only 19% of doctors are members of the AMA, which officially opposes it. So those right wingers like Dr Bill Frist in the Senate do not represent our views.