1115.org

Health care: Most wouldn’t have public option – SF Chronicle (10/29/09):

…lost amid the ideological battle for or against a public option is a key overlooked fact: The vast majority of Americans would have no access to a public option even under its most expansive versions.

House and Senate bills limit the option to the smallest businesses and to individuals who cannot get insurance, or whose health care costs exceed 12.5 percent of their income. Even seven years into an overhaul, an estimated 90 percent of Americans, including nearly everyone who has employer-based coverage now, would be shut out of a public option.
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But most people who are unhappy with the insurance they have now would be locked out of these exchanges, leaving many Americans who are watching the debate in for a big surprise.

The health care debate has been on the front page of every newspaper for six months. It has consumed nearly all of the oxygen in DC, and has been acrimonious to say the least. A large minority of the country feels as if this bill has been forced down their throats, and since no one has taken the time to really make a coherent, holistic case for why it is important, who can blame them? The majority thinks that after all of the nonsense, they will see lower health care costs and more health care choice. What’s going to happen when opponents of the public option find out that unemployed poor people are receiving healthcare subsidized by their very own premiums? What’s going to happen when supporters of the public option learn that their premiums aren’t going to go down, and that the only way they can really qualify for the public option is to quit their jobs?

The weak-ass public option that’s on the table now is only going to get further diluted, not strengthened, a fact that will do nothing to sway naysayers, and will only serve to further irritate public option fans. How can anyone with two working brain cells think that anything positive is going to come out of this?