From the start, the health-reform debate has been about money – who will get the best break and who may have to pay more. That is why the issue of the public option, a less expensive government-run insurance plan, has been so central to both the policy and political debates.
Indeed, if the Democrats abandon the public option for the sake of passing a bill like the one that came out of the Senate Finance Committee, they may be courting electoral disaster once voters grasp that they will have to wait years for the law to be implemented and then that it could lead to higher costs for much the same unpopular private insurance plans.
The public option offers the only means for a reform to be quickly implemented and to demonstrate a beneficial effect for the people by 2010 and 2012. It has the potential for reducing costs, especially for small businesses and individuals who are now being soaked by private insurers or denied coverage.
1 comment:
So the public option is good policy and good politics?
Frankly, much of the opposition to the public option strikes me as self-contradictory.
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