Simple question: Do you believe that the public option is meant to crowd out private health insurance and eventually become a Federal single-payer healthcare program? (Or at least single-payer for all but the wealthy?) I'm not asking whether you think this is a good idea or not, just whether or not that is the intended result.
I think it's meant to be a low-end alternative option. I can't imagine the public option will have a variety of different options and types of insurance, so I can't imagine it would replace private insurance. But what it could do is serve as a the USPS of health care - basic, minimal insurance that is cheaper than higher quality alternatives. For it to crowd out private insurance assumes that the gov't is able to manage insurance better than the private market. I think they can manage insurance better than the private market does *now* for most people, but not better than the private market can. So it would serve to set a minimum standard, but the private market should be able to improve and provide higher quality care for a higher cost.
Can you clarify one thing? I feel like there's a difference between adding the public option on its merits with the hope (assuming it works) that it will eventually lead to single-payer, versus choosing the public option with the express intent of leading to single-payer with little regard to its merits. If you believe the latter, it is obviously a yes vote in your poll. Do you consider the former a yes or no?
If an industry in the private market is ever replaced by a public option (without extra government interference) then it was obviously not a good fit for the private sector in the first place.
That's logical. If it were very basic, I wouldn't have as much problem with it, but I don't think anyone would go for that, at least not long term. I'd think that as soon as that were passed, politicians would fight to increase benefits in the name of helping the poor/young/old/disabled. I disagree completely. Government insurance in other arenas has crowded out most private insurance with lower coverage and higher total costs, but lower premiums. Texas Windstorm is a perfect example. It has much cheaper premiums than most private windstorm insurance, and somewhat lower coverage, but it's re-insured basically by the Texas taxpayer (and emergency funding from the Federal government), and has a funding crisis every hurricane season.
The way I asked the question, I don't think the former would count. It might have been better to ask about effects rather than intentions, but that ship has sailed. Answer it as if those who are demanding that it be a part of healthcare reform intend it to crowd out all or most private insurance.
Thanks. I believe those in favor of the public option are in favor of it with the knowledge and in most cases hope that it could lead to single-payer in the future. But I think they specifically think it will work better than what we have now (likely for the same reasons they think single-payer would be better) and they think it is worth doing on its own merits. So I voted no.
I don't think we will ever reach a point where the US solely relies on a single payer system, but health care will be dominated by the public option. If you look at Germany, where having private or public health insurance is mandatory, around 88% go with the public option. For private insurance to be viable, they will have to take a lot less profits and incentives will have to be given to employers to retain private insurance.
This is a very poor argument. I know you've heard that the private sector will not be able to compete, and i also know most proponents do not fully understand this concept. So let me give you a different example; Do you know why the USPS has no competition? Because they run a 2.3B deficit. For FedEx or UPS or another company to go into the mail delivery business, they would have to charge much more than the USPS, and that wouldn't include profit. Why would anyone pay a whole lot more for the same service? Fortunately, the quality of our postal services has little to do with the quality of our life. With health care, the same applies, except the FULL cost of health care is subsidized by everyone who pays taxes. --------------- Obama has clearly stated he wants a single payer system. Right now, the dems just want to get something in. Once there, it will erode into a single payer system.
Except whatever happens with the public option and health care reform, it won't operate at a deficit. 2/3 will be paid for by cutting waste in the system. There are various other proposals on how to pay for the other third, but it will happen. You are right, if the system could run at a deficit forever then it wouldn't be fair competition, but that's not what's being proposed with this bill. The conservatives didn't complain when Bush put his prescription drug plan into effect without paying for it, yet now when the govt. is actually going to pay for what it proposes they are coming out of wood works. It's very odd.
This is all factually incorrect. The USPS, by law, has to be revenue neutral. It borrows money at times, as it did this past year - but private companies do the same, and it has to repay that money with interest. Over the previous several years, it turned a small profit. Overall, it stays right around break-even. The only taxpayer money they receive is a subsidy to provide free mail to blind people and to cover mailings for oversea voting. Outside of that, it doesn't have any major structural advantage over other companies.
Given that I am still not convinced the "public care" option will even exist after the lobbying is complete - or, alternatively, it may exist, but in a highly neutered form - I think the question is premature or moot at this point.
You can argue that they are at a disadvantage since the USPS needs an act of Congress to do some things. They don't have full control over their own business.
That's certainly possible. My hope is that it stays basic and just covers necessary, primary medical needs, but you're right - it could easily expand. My hope is that it will be designed as the self-sustaining non-profit model, which would keep pressure on to limit to basic coverage. I can't say I know anything about Texas Windstorm, but is it taxpayer subsidized? Ie, is there any incentive/requirement for it to self-sustaining? I think that's the key and hope that if there is a public option, it is structured that way.
I'm not sure if its a completely intentional Trojan horse, but it will be one for socialized medicine. You can just feel the wave of control and encroachment. It's coming. It's like how the smoking bans wont stop getting more and more strict until all freedom and liberty is gone. You can see in the quote above, the hope and changers really wish it to come. Some will openly admit it. In time more and more will. It is all a part of their socialist, liberal, state enforced utopian dream.
It depends what you mean. Have a look at the second graph on this page. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/2/38980580.pdf There are no first world countries that have no private health insurance, and I believe all of them use some form of single payer system. These systems are designed to provide basic, medically required, healthcare. Anything beyond that comes out of the consumer’s pocket or is paid for by private insurance. Given that private insurance hasn’t been crowed out of any other country’s system I would say that the chance of this happening in the US is almost non-existent. However, you can also see on that graph how incredibly inefficient the US private system is. Those are per capita numbers for the population of the whole country. The US private system alone spends more money per capita than most counties spend overall, yet it doesn’t cover anywhere close to 100% of the population, and it doesn’t cover a large percentage of the people who need the most care and consume the most health care dollars, the elderly and others who the private system won’t insure. One of the key objectives of health care reform is to address the problems of the bloated bureaucracies and massive waste and inefficiencies in the US private system. In that sense yes, the whole point is to squeeze the private system and force it to become much, much, more efficient, and much less costly. If there doesn’t end up being a very large amount of fat trimmed from the bloated private beast then the reforms have failed. Think about the dollar figures involved. The US spends 5% of its GDP more than the next closest country! By my quick calculation that amounts to over $700 billion/year. It spends 7% of its GDP more than the OECD average, or about $1 trillion/year. It’s no wonder that the insurance companies are going to great lengths to try to keep the system essentially the way it is. That extra trillion dollars makes many of them very wealthy after all.
I wonder about those who hide behind "liberty and freedom" when it comes to economic/social policy and use it beyond all logic to refuse a rational or pragmatic view of the situation. So much of the argument against the public option has been about "socialism" and "potential gouvernment state 1984!" that it is beyond laughable. When one speaks of the economy, one must (ideally) be divorced from emotion. Refusal to consider realistic solutions based on age-old fears of ideology were the same impediments that stopped modern China from going anywhere until Deng Xiaoping rightfully stood up and said "bulls***, if it catches mice, it's a good cat." America is a mixed economy. There are elements of socialism that define the state. Losing the liberty to pursue potential solutions and applications on the "fear" of "losing liberty" is beyond ironic. But I suppose it is something that is to be expected; liberty does not come for those who are uninsured and have no choices and I am guessing that for a significant amount of these people, freedom does not matter for those who are on drugs, those who are seeking abortions, those who are practicing deviant sexual behavior and those who are not American citizens. That is not to say there are no legitimate sources of concern...but the current argument is being overwhelmed by rhetoric and inflamed emotion. In looking to policy on a country-wide scale we must think with our minds and not our hearts; there's been too much sensational crap out there clogging up this debate.
The public option will naturally have less overhead than private business because there will almost be no marketing or sales costs. Everyone will be aware of it and its benefits. It will eventually crowd out most health insurance providers leaving only supplemental insurance market left to the ones left standing. In the long run it will be just like the medicare system except for everyone which isn't a bad thing. Medicare covers most basic services and if you have the dough, you can pay more to get better service and benefits. Businesses who provide insurance will automatically choose the public option because it is the least expensive option and will offer supplemental insurance as an added benefit.
