The public option. Surely you’ve heard of this concept before. After all, it’s being blasted all over the mainstream media. But do you know what it is? What exactly is everyone screaming about?
Well, simply put, the public option is a government run healthcare option. O. P. T. I. O. N. There is no requirement that you choose to use government healthcare, at least, not with the current proposal. However, there is a clause in the current healthcare proposal that requires healthcare of some kind.
The public option was voted down yesterday, though. This is a massive disappointment to me, even though I have no interest in participating in it. This may sound a little odd, so let me explain why I’m disappointed and what I think will end up happening if we don’t get a public option.
First off, having a public option would force healthcare providers to start competing for business. If there’s a free alternative, then the for-pay options need to have better benefits. For that reason in particular, I believe the public option should be a bare-bones option, allowing only minimal coverage. Given that, most people would probably prefer to have something better, but it still provides something for those that cannot afford anything else.
But if there is no public option, there is really no incentive for insurance companies to lower costs. Sure, the government can regulate the industry, but there is always a way around regulations. For instance, the government can prevent insurance companies from turning away people with pre-existing conditions, but you can be sure there will be a loophole somewhere that will allow the insurance company to make that person pay dearly for service. There will be virtually no way to stop them from raking in profits on the backs of those of us with coverage.
And this brings up another issue. If the mandatory coverage portion of the proposal is passed, then we have millions of people who need to get coverage, or will end up being fined. This is great news for insurance companies as they’ll have all sorts of new customers. But how do those people pay for coverage? Well, the current proposal mentioned subsidies for health coverage. In other words, the government will help those people pay for coverage. You know, kinda like Welfare. Welfare is great, right? Works perfectly, never abused. And it doesn’t cost the taxpayer anything, right? Yeah, if only..
The public option is extremely important. How important? Well, you can always judge the importance of something by how hard people fight for and against it. If the public option wasn’t a big deal, would the insurance companies be fighting it so hard? Why would republicans be decrying it as socialism? Why would people call it government-run healthcare and immediately mark it as bad when Medicare has been running well for years?
So, I’m a bit disappointed that the public option has been shot down, thus far. I suppose it’s possible it will make it back into the bill, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Corporate America has been influencing policy for years and I don’t expect that to change. After all, greed runs everything, doesn’t it?