If for-profit health care fails to compete and give folks what they want, people will move away from it, and it will die out.

in the real world the insurance companies compete by denying care, by patient population selection (to exclude the sick, and therefor expensive customers) and similar.

without a regulation scheme to prevent this type of market competition, i can not see how your public option scheme will actually work. on the other hand, i can see how individual mandates to purchase insurance will funnel hundreds of billions of dollars more to private insurance companies.

The public option, with an exchange and mandates, will not alter the insurance companies’ fiduciary responsibility to attempt to withhold benefits. Jacob Hacker recently acknowledged that the Healthcare for America plan (much less whatever actually gets legislated) will not prevent medical bankruptcies and impoverishment. Only a profit-purged system, off the table on a national basis for now, can achieve that.

I think this is the point, really. If for-profit health care fails to compete and give folks what they want, people will move away from it, and it will die out. I wouldn’t be unhappy with that result. If for-profit health care does get its act together, that works too. Either way, the result is people have health care that actually works for them.

As for who’s in and who’s out, the House bill (right now draft, soon to be bill) is more in line with our principles than HELP, and that’s where our support is swinging.

And as for disclosure, as I said, I’m working with site admins to get a good bio page up, but for now, I’ll be adding the disclosure line. I agree that it’s important.

Employers are all over the place in regards to a public option. Many desperately want it because they are literally going broke. Others are ambivalent but are interested the possible transfer of responsibility (and cost)for coverage from them to society as a whole, and others are violently opposed for the usual nefarious reasons (keep low wages, health care and economic extortion of the uninsurables, large employers keeping smaller ones noncomptetive). I have even heard of pressure from the scummy Chamber of Commerce trying to keep all employers in line to protect those who profit or have an economic advantage with the current system. The public option will benefit employers, employees and society as a whole. A public option will drive out non competitive insurers which is probably all of them.

Whether they get this care through pubic or private plans doesn’t really matter, they’ll get the benefits of better care either way.

…that’s spectacularly naive. The public option, with an exchange and mandates, will not alter the insurance companies’ fiduciary responsibility to attempt to withhold benefits. Jacob Hacker recently acknowledged that the Healthcare for America plan (much less whatever actually gets legislated) will not prevent medical bankruptcies and impoverishment. Only a profit-purged system, off the table on a national basis for now, can achieve that.

As for this…

And if they tire of getting screwed by the private industry, they’ll be able to choose not to be anymore.

…under the Senate HELP draft, and probably under whatever legislation finally passes, eligibility for the public plan will be severely restricted. Moreover, your own organization, HCAN, failed to include “available to all who want it” in your own criteria for a robust public option. That’s one of the distinctions between your robustness criteria and those published by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

All of which brings me to your last point regarding disclosure. This is, of course, the call of the people who own and run the FDL franchise, but in my view, a note in your bio is not nearly sufficient. I’m very concerned that you should feel entitled to drift seamlessly between your own personal posts and those that you were paid to write and disseminate by an advocacy group without a clear disclaimer on each post in the latter category.

The public option is a government insurance plan (or plans) which offer coverage the same way a private insurance plan is supposed to. It is administered by an entity set up to do only that and in a non-political way. It will take in premiums and pay out of that. It is not-for-profit and won’t haggle with it’s customers over what is or is not covered in the way private firms do. It won’t consider pre-existing conditions and it won’t rescind policies when you get sick.

The concept is important to have debated and decided on. The details are important too.

Vague or ‘black box’? No.

And put me on the list as someone who “has” insurance that, because of co-pays and deductibles, is costing me PLENTY out of pocket for routine stuff that used to be paid 100%.

I’m always bemused to hear Obama & Friends assuring us we can keep our insurance if we “want” to. WANT to!? Give me a good comprehensive public plan, even if it costs me more, and I’ll drop my predatory, blood-sucking insurance company like a hot brick (BTW, it’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which used to have a sterling reputation; but then again, it also used to be nonprofit).

Incidentally, if you missed Moyers this week, with the former CIGNA communications guy, RUN do not walk to Moyers’ website, and watch it. After seeing that program, it’s crystal clear to me that REAL health care thru for-profit insurance companies is totally impossible.

the spineless demos and the self righteous and big business repubs are not about to pass a universal health care plan

capitalism in america has created a greedy and lack of compassion country

and we call ourselves a christian country: go figure

christianity died on the cross

america is about materialism and wealth generation that is the role of capitalism to create a society of materialists

only when over 50% of the people in america have problems with their health insurance will we see a change

big money in health care, drugs, and insurance and too many lobbyists for wash to ignore

with communism man exploits man with capitalism it is the other way around