why don't the anti-aca folks just form and join the church of i-don't-believe-in-health-insurance?

[ProSense]

58. Yeah,

"Like it or not the mandate is the key to the ACA and the mandate combined with an utter lack of a public option is what the shouting is mostly about."

...if it only had a "public option," you could take advantage of all the great provisions in the bill via a government-run plan administered by a private insurer.

Gee, do you thing it would be easier to add a public option to the existing comprehensive bill than to add one to a non-existing one? I mean, people talk about the public option as if it's the coverage or the provisions. Yeah, it would be great to have the government administering the plan, but it's still the plan. The benefits of that are in the administering, which would lead to cost saving, but first comes the plan. A public option to administer the status quo doesn't do jack. There is a reason that members of Congress are now required to use the exchanges.

It's also easier to add a Medicare buy in to an existing plan. Note that the health care law also made improvements to and strengthened Medicare. There is a lot more room for improvement in all these plans to make them the ideal that everyone envisions.