What if our health care financing system had been designed like a wheel?

Private insurance makes profits by minimizing what it pays for care and by refusing to insure sick people, thereby killing at least 18,000 people a year. Adding a public option to the existing system will provide care for more people, but not save very much money. Only single payer health care financing can pay for care for everybody, no exceptions, without bankrupting us.

It's hard enough to get people to go for a public option!! There is no way you are going to get a single payer. While I would prefer a single payer, I believe that a TRUE public option would eventually end up as a single payer because people would flock to it. You would have most people on the public plan. That's what opponents are afraid of. Then, as people see the benefits of it vs their plan (if they are lucky to have one)they'll end up switching. Just the hassles alone!! At the very least it would force some equilibrium in the costs. The private insurers know they can't with their current system compete with a public plan. And they will evolve. Or they will perish. What's so bad about that. Weed out the worst ones and then let the real test begin. Personally, I think the private insurers would eventually morph into companies that offer supplemental insurance. This can only happen with a TRUE public option though. And I fear what our esteemed representatives will come up with, as they don't seem to have OUR interests in mind here.

That is, unless the movement away from private insurance happens quickly.

who can't afford the insurance they have.... like all the deductibles that make it impossible to even reach the limit before the insurance company kicks in.... how many people fit into this category. they didn't say 100 million for no reason (well maybe they did). but I would wager that at least that amount would go to a public plan if they could. I don't know how many people there are in this country, but that sounds like a lot to me. And I will bet that the number flocking to a public plan would just increase over time. I think the biggest resistance would be from people who fear the unknown, and are afraid the public plan would be worse than what they've got now. Seeing people get the same or better care with a public plan would probably convince them. Hell, how many would switch just because they are sick of the hassles they go through currently.