A suggestion for a provision to enhance the "Public Option"

This is not an original idea, it comes from comments made by several DUers in other threads over the last several days.

I propose that the Public Option be expanded to include mal practice coverage for Doctors who chose to participate. They would receive complete coverage meaning that any and legal costs from the time of accusation up to and through any award that might be made by a Court, arbitrator, or negotiated settlement. Doctor gets sued, everything is covered, doesn't cost him a dime. In return that doctor agrees to treat any and all participants in the Public Option and agrees to accept as full payment such fee as the plan sets as its standard for that procedure - and just to sweeten it for the people we'll include services provided under Medicare in the items for which the doctor agrees to provide service but also the set fee as full payment.

So the Doctors get a free ride from mal practice liability, tort reform doesn't enter into the question because all suits would, in essence, be suits against the Government, and the Public Option gets members of the medical community as active participants in the plan concurrent with cost control?

Good idea, bad idea?

PS: The Doctors who participate would not be Government employees and they could continue to treat all the privatly insured they wanted to, just not in preference to those covered by the Public Option.

The "public option" is meant to be a shiny trinket to hide an incompetent health reform behind, rather than a sufficient portion of the bill itself (see "firewall").

Why would lawmakers want to enhance a smokescreen?

I don't think the current deliberations have anything to do with health care at all, its all about financing with the presumption that a single system of financing will in itself generate considerable savings. I'm skeptical. It is hard, however, to argue that a Government run system operated devoid of profit exorbitant pay for bloated management could do anything other than be less costly than one that included them.

(and yes, of course it will amount to savings on some scale)

That due to qualifications, only a bit more that 3% of the population is meant to be enrolled in the "public option" within a decade, which will amount to negligable savings and a negligable amount of "competition against the private insurers". The segment it covers will likely be unprofitable to cover privately, and hence, it is likely it wont "keep insurers honest" (they don't want em). This whole fucking sub-debate is a distraction. People aren't even talking about real issues anymore. Rather, just if some mythical "public option" will or will not be included, and how many fairy doctors each enrollee will get during a house call. Its a fucking sad bit consisting of smoke and mirrors, baiting and switching.

Don't worry about it. Im a bit done with it all. The echo chamber is astoundingly loud, and full of people lost within a junvenile framing (who honestly don't understand the real issues surrounding health care and the American political process at large). Until there is a giant movement for Americans to remove their heads from their collective asses, shitty healthcare and bankrupticies will indefinitely continue.

"In a Democracy, the people get the government they deserve" - Alexis de Tocqueville