Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: Unless the "public option" is free or inexpensive it's snake oil.. and dangerous snake oil at that. [View all]thesquanderer
(11,982 posts)He did to some extent, when he said it would not exceed 8.5% of your income, that the deductible would be $1,000, that those who cannot afford it will get it free and that those on medicaid will be rolled over into it. That information tells most people roughly what it will cost them. It's impossible to give a hard figure, because just was with the ACA today, there are many different amounts you could pay, based on what plan you choose and based on your income.
And I'd say it is assumed that anyway coming into the conversation has a certain basic knowledge of the issue, i.e. that the point of a public option is to lower costs by offering a plan that does not have profit for an insurance company built into it. So that's the other piece of info... if you're on the ACA today, the public option should be lower than what you're now paying, because that's it's raison d'etre. The one missing piece is how much cheaper. I'd assume worst case, 5% cheaper, which is the lowest estimate I've read. The best estimate I read was that it could be in the range of 20% cheaper. I wouldn't count on that. But I don't think anyone has the hard numbers yet.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden