The 'Public Option' on Health Care Is a Poison Pill

[PatrickforO]

34. Indeed. And I'm willing to pay a lot more taxes in order to get rid of the giant

premiums I have to pay, and the financially crippling copays. Thus, I will have lower total costs for healthcare.

Do you know, this year is open enrollment time at my employer, and my premiums are up over 17%? And, if I end up in the hospital my yearly out of pocket max is 3 large. For each member of the family. And, they've put in a nice little loophole, too. Now, they say the 'max' out of pocket isn't necessarily the max - they can just say no, you have to pay more if they have even a little, tiny, weak justification for that.

Aren't you tired of hoping you don't get seriously sick and have to count on one of these companies to care for you? Because they don't care about you. They care about profits (or retained earnings, in the case of the not-for-profits).

What everyone needs to understand is that there is a direct conflict of interest for an insurance company to pay out on the treatments you need. They use complex actuarial tables to determine what your premiums ought to be, and that calculation is based on the statistical probability that you will ultimately pay in more than you cost. So, just with THAT, the insurance company has incentive to deny or skimp on treatment, and when we add in the concept of shareholder primacy, providing you the treatment you actually need is in direct conflict with profits.

This is why our system sucks so bad.

Now, look at what's happening. The corporate owned media are dutifully posing the question, 'won't M4A take away the private insurance plans of millions of Americans?'

And, during the debate, Warren got hammered when she answered the question of whether middle class taxes would go up with 'your costs will be less.' That is a true statement but I wish she would admit that taxes would go up, and then add 'and you won't have to pay premiums any more, or copays, or coinsurance. So your costs WILL actually go down.'

What is happening here is unconscionable, but then there are MILLIONS of dollars lined up against our politicians doing the right thing. For profit healthcare and big pharma are going to fight, and fight, and fight tooth and nail, 24/7/365 against even a public option, which as the Nation article points out, wouldn't necessarily work too well.

We're trying out a public option in Colorado, but I'm not sure how, or if, it will work. And, honestly, I'd rather have M4A because then not only would I and my family have enough, but everyone else would, too. And people who wanted could still purchase supplemental policies as they do in other, more civilized, countries than ours.