Comments on: HR 3200’s “public option” will not resemble Medicare http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/09/13/sullivan-publicoptionin3200unlikemedicare/ PNHP's official blog Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:04:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: elamotte http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/09/13/sullivan-publicoptionin3200unlikemedicare/comment-page-1/#comment-5536 elamotte Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:42:44 +0000 http://pnhp.org/blog/?p=650#comment-5536 This is an eye-opening article, this blog has now explained why the "robust, Medicare-like public option" is neither robust, nor Medicare-like, nor public, nor even an option for most people. I like the section on Logistics of Creating the Public Option regarding what the option would be like even if it were public. I worry that a layperson's response to this article would be to press for the Public Option being actually Public, not run by insurance companies. What they would be missing is the difference between social insurance and experience-rated insurance. Medicare is social insurance and works. The rest of our country relies on experience-rated insurance, which is unreliable and violates the most basic principles of what insurance is supposed to be. We need to spread the word that the significant difference to pay attention to is not private/public, but social insurance vs. experience-rated insurance. We are either all in it together or we'll be siphoned off into risk pools of one. This is an eye-opening article, this blog has now explained why the “robust, Medicare-like public option” is neither robust, nor Medicare-like, nor public, nor even an option for most people.

I like the section on Logistics of Creating the Public Option regarding what the option would be like even if it were public. I worry that a layperson’s response to this article would be to press for the Public Option being actually Public, not run by insurance companies. What they would be missing is the difference between social insurance and experience-rated insurance. Medicare is social insurance and works. The rest of our country relies on experience-rated insurance, which is unreliable and violates the most basic principles of what insurance is supposed to be.

We need to spread the word that the significant difference to pay attention to is not private/public, but social insurance vs. experience-rated insurance. We are either all in it together or we’ll be siphoned off into risk pools of one.

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