A majority of Americans support a public option. An overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress support a public option. Doctors support a public option. Why then is the public option seen by some as the third rail of health insurance reform?
We know the disturbing facts by heart: Millions of Americans are one illness -- or one pink slip -- away from bankruptcy because of high health care costs and lack of access to affordable insurance. 30 million Americans are without health insurance. Nearly 400 Ohioans lose their insurance every day.
Middle class families pay $1,000 annually in hidden taxes to recoup the cost of care for our nation's uninsured.
When you look at the plan on its merits, the opposition makes little sense. It saves money. It will be available everywhere in the country -- providing reliable, affordable, quality health care to those in need. It injects competition into a marketplace that in most parts of the country is dominated by one or two companies.
What will happen if we hand over taxpayer-funded subsidies to the insurance industry and rely on them to cover all Americans? Insurers will demand higher and higher subsidies each year. Why wouldn't they? It's called profit maximization. After all, these are the same companies that pay their CEOs tens of millions of dollars each year while millions of Americans go without any health insurance.
A strong public option means competition for private insurance companies. It means coverage continuity in every part of the country. It means health insurance reform that ensures affordable access to coverage for every American.
I have held nearly 140 roundtables across Ohio in the last two years, and half a dozen health care town halls and events in the last two months. I have heard story after story of individuals and families who can't afford to buy insurance -- and can't afford not to. They watch their savings drain away as their health care costs soar.
The insurance industry has been in business for nearly a hundred years, and it has not managed to cover all Americans. Instead of wishing the insurance market would change, we need to change it. That's what the public option would do.
Progress rarely comes easily. It took a united Democratic party, committed to change, to establish Social Security and Medicare -- progressive milestones that pulled seniors out of poverty and increased Americans' life expectancy. Progressive milestones that were staunchly opposed by Congressional Republicans.
The public option is the moral compass of health reform. In the last 100 years, Democrats have yet to be on the wrong side of progressive reform.
Let's not start now.
Their currency manipulation and government subsidation has made us unable to compete with good paying jobs or jobs at all often, except for the fortunate.
A Real Plan Needs:
1. A public option, funded through pooled tax revenues available to all Americans
2. The ability for people to purchase additional coverage through private insurance plans
3. An opt out plan for people who wish to purchase their entire health insurance through private companies
Simple. Get it together Congress!
2/3 of the public wants a real public option that makes the anti-competitive health care industry more competitive & fair. And if Congress does not include a true public option, President Obama can veto the bill.
If the president were to veto a bill that contains no true public option, then 2/3 of our representatives would have to show they don't want a meaningful public option in order to override the veto and make any insufficient reform into law.
So the representatives who are standing in the way of change and what their voters want, will have to identify themselves when they override the veto--- to a public that is actually watching carefully for a change.
If Congress passes nothing, that's against their interests, too, because the public saw our current representatives manage to pass trillion dollar bailouts for Main Street Banks in no time, but the same Congress will have shown it refuses to muster up enough votes on behalf of the what Main Street citizens want.
The public attention on this gives President Obama enormous power if an insufficient bill comes up for a vote.
That said, between you and Kaptur, maybe I'll have to move to Ohio!
thank you for you comments and support of a robust public option.
Please include the following in your work
remove the anti-trust exemption for the insurance industry.
The insurance industry, under the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945, has a broad anti-trust exemption that has facilitated regional monopolies.
The Act allows states to regulate the insurance business instead of the federal government, but also allows that, as long as the state regulates the industry, federal anti-trust laws would not apply.
Please work to change that anti-trust exemption -- removing that exemption will help make that industry competitive --- and will also help all Americans achieve affordable health care.
A public option, on the other hand, is the least intrusive method of establishing real reform. It provides competitive pressure at the low end of the market; it provides those with no healthcare the minimum care necessary; and it provides consumers a *choice*, something they haven't had yet. And if necessary, it can even be built upon the existing Medicare model.
There are other provisions that enjoy broad support in Congress, but the public option is the most important to making any kind of real progress on access to healthcare and control of costs. Repeal of McCarran, on the other hand, must involve the creation of new federal bureaucracies to replace the current state commissions, and would be a major reorganization of the entire insurance industry.
Opponents of reform already accuse Democrats of wanting to "rule by fiat". Let's not give them more ammunition.
IMO we may only get one "bite at the apple" and I believe the anti-trust reform is important,
Also the methodology for documenting the lack of competition and pursuit of it by the DOJ exists.
Using the Herfindahl/Hirschman Index, a metric for market concentration, a 2007 study by the AMA found almost every health insurance market in the United States is highly concentrated.
Thus, still recommend reforming the exemption from Federal Anti-Trust legislation contained in the Clayton and Sherman Acts.
We are paying way too much for health insurance, and the Republicans want to keep it that way.
It will only get worse if the insurance industry is left to it's ways.
This fits hand-in-glove with their stated belief in the "wisdom of the market". Individual Republicans have other interests, and there are a few who hold more populist ideas, but for the most part, all of the rest is window dressing. Republicans want whatever their contributors want.