9/11/09
HR 3200 101
I just sent the following chart out to press. It's what health care reform really looks like under H.R. 3200. Can you find the public health insurance option? Take a look at where it is and then note how ridiculous the notion is that it would somehow drive private insurance companies out of business. Click here to see the full press release and download the chart. You're welcome to post it and/or pass it around.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
So if I understand you correctly, you are implying that because the public option is a small box on your your chart it will have a negligible effect on private options?
Not exactly. What I'm saying is that the public health insurance option has been blown way out of proportion for a couple of reasons:
1. Private insurers know it's the only element that will truly force them to shift the way they do business. They have gotten exceptionally good at breaking the rules and paying fines because that's more cost effective than doing right by the patients they cover. Forcing everyone to buy insurance from private companies without a public option in the mix would be a HUGE gift to the health insurance industry.
2. Private insurance companies have more than 170 million customers, decades of experience, name brand recognition, and millions to spend on marketing, advertising, and lobbying. The thought that a newly created public option would make a dent on their business (if they clean up their act) - let alone run them out of business - is laughable.
Yes, the public option - if national and available on day one - will force insurance companies to bring down their over-inflated prices and give people the services they pay for. That would be a significant effect.
But any claim the public option (which the opposition also says would suck simply because it would be government-run) would decimate the private insurance industry is downright absurd.
Sorry. Not enough AM coffee.
The other reason why it's being blown out of proportion and attacked is because it's an easy target. A government-run option is effortlessly morphed into government-run health care.
The whole reason the option is just an option is because people are afraid of change. It's very much the devil they know versus the devil they don't.
And since health care companies and the opposing political party have a lot to lose if health care reform is a true success, they are going for the jugular. That means lying, scaring, misinforming, distorting, etc.
It's much simpler to run a full frontal assault on the public option than affordability or comprehensive benefits or insurance regulation.
That's the other reason why it's the number one target.
Post a Comment