Category: Health care
Posted by Libby Spencer on Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 9:24 AMThe truth about the public health insurance option
The complaint that the public health insurance option would drive private insurers out of business doesn't make any sense to me. If the private insurance is so much better, as the industry enablers claim it is, then no one will buy into the other. That's the very definition of free market. This is the best explanation about the public option I've seen so far.
The takeaway point is the public health insurance option is just another choice. If you think that your private insurance is better, you can pay for that instead. But millions of Americans want and need this option. It's time for our politicians to stop placating their deep pocket industry contributors and start acting in the best interests of the voters.
Comments
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It is not competition
It is not competition when the government backed plan doesn't have to generate revenue to pay employees and all their other bills while the private plans do. The private plans can't just cut a check from the US treasury to cover costs.
Besides, I have yet to see anyone prove that the government is allowed to provide healthcare.
health insurance
Libby, why don't you put you efforts into the goverment fixing medicare and medicade. then they can use that model to bring us all health care. right now it's broke and they have no ideas how to fix it. how can we trust them to run health care. to your point of pushing out the private health care providers, why would an employer pay 80% of the cost of health insurance for the employees if the gov't will provide it for free...(forget that they will tax the hell out of every american who pays taxes) of course if you don't pay taxes it's one hell of a deal!
Public Health Insurance is First Step towards Socialized Medicine
It doesn't surprise me that Libby does not "get it" when it comes to the government offering a "Public Health Insurance" option...
This is simply the first step towards socialized medicine. Consider the following:
1. Public Health Insurance will be funded with everyone's taxes (including tax revenues from private insurance companies)
2. The federal goverment will have three unfair cometitive advantages:
a. They can directly regulate private insurance companies
b. They can legislate additional taxes against private insurance companies, whom they can demonize as "greedy"
C. They can pay less to phyisicians for the same procedures than private insurers
"That's because a plan patterned after Medicare could pay doctors and hospitals 20% to 30% less than its private competitors." - USA Today article (see URL below)
This plan is akin to giving the UAW ownership stakes in GM and Chrysler, then forcing Ford to negotiate with the UAW for labor contracts. Oh wait! Obama's already done that...
Several authoritative organizations oppose this plan, including the US Chamber of Commerce and the American Medical Association:
"We're not sure that the government is very good at running a health plan." - Nancy Nielsen, AMA President
For more facts this post ignores:
"Discord grows over Public Health Plan"
"...the American Medical Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others that have expressed misgivings about greater government involvement."
"cost the government more than $1 trillion over 10 years to reduce the number of people without health insurance by one-third" - Congressional Budget office
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-06-15-publicplan_N.htm
"Senate health overhaul costs top $1.6T"
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090616/D98S05IO1.html
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