how do you define"public option"?

for me when I hear this term I think "medicare for everyone"

it has come to my attention the assumptions people make when this term is used are widely varied.

Don't forget that.

A penny saved is a penny earned.

That way, when it fails to come into existence, I can gleefully rip on Obama.

Good times, good times.

--- Read them all, because if you are assuming medicare for all you are missing the basic point of the public option. The only bill that provided for ANYTHING close to 'medicare for all' is 676.

The "public-option" defined by HR 3200 is a government owned and administered insurance plan. In order for this pan to be "robust" enough for me to accept it, it must be projected to cover 50+ million Americans within five years. Only a plan of this size will be large enough to influence the market, drive down costs, and "keep the insurance companies honest." Anything less is a joke, and all we'll be doing is giving a massive bail-out to the health insurance cabal.

:dem:

-Laelth

I define it as government backed.

I define it as universally available to all as a last chance for insurance or as option to private company insurance. If you have job related insurance, the company must offer to pay for the public option as opposed to the private insurance. If private insurance is better, it will be used.

I define it as having the right to negotiate with drug companies and doctors for prices, just as the private insurance companies do now.

I define it as available to all within one year, six months would be better.

If you don't have all of these, you have given the insurance companies the loop hole and opportunity to circumvent and destroy any chance we have for eventually going to full universal coverage.

I also define it as a vast compromise over single payer. A full public option is the largest concession we should offer the republicans. Take it or leave it. Leave it and we go for single payer.

that will be one of a number of insurance options (the rest private) offered on the "exchange" to people who are currently uninsured, self-employed, or to small businesses to cover their workers.

That's not how I define it; I think that's basically what it is.

It's not Medicare or Medicaid to the extent that it is not supported by tax dollars and will be self-sustaining, like any insurance company. People who want it and can't afford it will get subsidies, but they will get subsidies if they choose one of the private insurers as well. It won't be available, under current House and Senate plans, to everyone (large employers, for instance, can't dump their insurance and let employees join, as far as I've seen so far).

And those who can't afford it will pay what they can out of their paycheck. Even if that means it's free.

2%..5% ? who gets to decide how much an individual can afford?

and guidelines, and maybe that would be through some third-party assigned entities or whatever...but it's the govt's rules and procedures; (3) it's an option/plan for people, not companies or employers or groups (so that one lone unemployed person can get on the Internet and know that he can join at a reasonable cost and get basic healthcare).

Those are my guidelines. That's not the perfect P.O., or a complete one. But those are the key things that I think would qualify a plan as a Public Option.

And I would accept those minimum criteria....for a start.

compromise. They will call ANYTHING they come up with, in the end, the "public option"

I do think what I define it as can be leveraged in to what they are planning on implementing. It is a way to open the door to what really needs to be done, and that is complete annihilation of the for-profit insurers.

What I would like:
* A non-profit government run/government backed insurance plan anyone can opt-in to
* Once a member of this plan unemployment/lack of being able to pay in to it does not cancel ones coverage

What we may get:
* A non-profit government run/government backed insurance plan they let just a few people in to. Those employed by big companies for example can not opt-in to this plan as an option.
* Mandatory purchasing of insurance by everyone who can afford it but at the current time is choosing not to buy it. This is a giveaway to the for-profits to increase their revenue.

Something that is simply open enough that millions of Americans can line up and show Congress that they hate their insurance company.


Americans love their doctors, they even admire Pharma for atleast inventing medicine that works (even if they are robbing them blind) but everyone hates their insurance company.


People who say that they love their insurance company are simply people that haven't had to use it.


In any half way competitive situation people will flock to the public option, pressure will be emmense to exapnd it and within a decade we will have single payer - by legislation or defacto.

I do not care what they call it, just give me the OPTION of a universal health care program.

My definition is listed above and includes:
Open to all
Power to negotiate prices
Government run
Available soon.

What we keep hearing is how it will be defined in the legislation:

Government guaranteed profits for insurance
Government protected profits for pharma
Worse than what we have now

...and then will be expanded and improved upon over time, like most of the decent government social programs have evolved.

Medicare for everyone would have been so easy to define and defend.