The Problem With The Public Option Is That It Lowers The Cost Of Health Insurance

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The Problem With The Public Option Is That It Lowers The Cost Of Health Insurance
by: Chris Bowers
Tue Jun 30, 2009 at 11:29


The main goal of health care reform is to lower the cost of health insurance. Apropos, Olympia Snowe thinks that the problem with a public health insurance option is that a public option would... wait for it... lower the cost of health insurance:



Well, duh. That is the whole point. You can't lower the price of health insurance unless you start offering lower-priced health insurance. It's a tautology.

So, naturally, during the fight to lower the price of health insurance, so-called moderate Senators think that the problem with the public option is that it would... lower the price of health insurance. While it may be news to so-called moderate Senators, protecting the crappy products of large corporations is not their job description.

It is pretty amazing that many moderates and industry figures are actually arguing that the problem with including a public option in health care reform legislation is that a public option would lower the cost of health insurance. Clearly, they have a different view of the purpose of health care reform than most Americans.

needed to bring the prices down must come from the government.

That's the whole point.

That is quite possibly one of the most ridiculous things I have ever had the misfortune of hearing. A public option will lower the cost of health insurance and that's a problem? I don't understand the logic behind that. Please explain that one to me.

They are operating from the assumption that a public option will spend vast quantities of tax money that will give the public program an advantage that the poor, hard working businesspeople can't overcome even with their vast pool of innovative genius...

Pure hogwash, of course, but when did that ever stop them?

explain to them that when poor people get sick they go to a county ER, and, since there's about 41million people without insurance, we are already paying for their health care at about twice or more of what it would cost if they went to a regular doctor and got medical attention before their problems got so big they needed extensive medical care. Republicans just don't get this. They really think that if poor people don't get medical care they will just die - problem solved. One of my friends has a sister with cancer and no insurance. She's getting help from the government, but they don't like to talk about that and they think it's ok because they've paid taxes and it's happening to THEM. They're softening up, so I'm going to keep working on them. I admit the health care plan is complicated and I do believe our government (both sides) will come up with a plan that is doomed from the start.

The "help the poor" framing plays into a rock solid set of beliefs legitimizing greed that the right has been cultivating for 30 years. You may have more success by, if you haven't already, reading these two articles. The contents are real eye-openers for most people and the information plays well in the value system of the right. It is also very very valid evidence that is difficult to reject on the "common sense" level.

THE COST CONUNDRUM
What a Texas town can teach us about health care.
by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=1


Taiwan: Surprising Lessons From a Small Island
By John Reichard, CQ HealthBeat Editor
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hbnews-000002889735&parm1=5&cpage=1

on. Thanks for your help. I'm working with very stubborn people.

certain jobs just for the sake of having any health insurance at all. If there were a true public option and someone were able to have health insurance without having a crappy job it would make leaving that job much easier. Why work a third-shift job on a sanitation crew in a meat-packing plant?

You could make a small fortune with a line of greeting cards for people to send to politicians!

The rest of America may wake up & get smart about this yet.

If Insurance companies make less money, CEOs might have to take a paycut, give up that 4th vacation home, that 3rd Lexus, and their kids might have to go to a cheaper boarding school. AND, they might not have extra money to buy politicians :rofl:

one of the smart republicons?

THey really do have a different set of wiring.