Home > Opinion > A Medicare-Style Public Option in Healthcare Would Kill Private Insurance

A Medicare-Style Public Option in Healthcare Would Kill Private Insurance

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I think that truly, what is needed is not a "public option" but a universal, single-payer system. What Gratzer is failing to recognize is that this entire issue is also a MORAL issue. It's preposterous to even begin to think of health care as anything other than a right of every American, as opposed to a privelege.
Even the "best insurance companies" are still making a profit off of others when those dollars could be spent on the patient and their physician. Many physicians, especially those who own their own practices, support single-payer because they will see the money immediately, and will not have to have hired help spending weeks and sometimes months tracking down payments from those who are unable to pay or from insurance companies who stop at nothing to make it difficult to cover those that they supposedly serve. That whole process is costly for the physician and the insurer.
With single-payer, the patient can choose to see whomever they would like to see, rather than being told to see only a list of certain doctors and hospitals that are included in their insurance company's network. Pre-existing conditions will no longer bar those who desperately need care for survival from accessing the help they need due to their economic status.
Isn't that what health care is for? To help maintain and promote the health of humanity?
What if we made all of our police forces or our fire departments private? How about our military? I may think that I only need the protection these services provide once in a while, if ever. I've never had a house fire. What would happen then? Why is our health treated so differently?
So of course any sort of "public option" will put many private insurers out of business. The reason that they are even in business is to capitalize on the fact that all people need access to health care, to live healthy, happy lives. Some people's entire livlihoods DEPEND on it. To make a profit off of opening or closing someone's door to this care is down right barbaric.

Kerry Hanley of NY 1:22PM August 11, 2009

The best run Health care in America are the Veterans Administration and Congress' own health care - both much better than anything most American have. Health Insurance companies are lobbying hard to prevent Americans from getting good health care, so we have to settle for the bad health care to the benefit of their profits.
Republicans want to deny Americans the choice of having good health care - why, because profits from the monopolies of health insurance companies can buy politicians. If removing the monopolies "Would Kill Private Insurance" then so be it, we need the competition to lower health care costs in America.
Having a monopoly on offering bad health care is very profitable for health insurance companies and is bad news for Americans who want good health care.
Here we have another paid-for opinion from a conservative group whose job is to manipulate public opinion in favor of their corporate supporters.
Bad health care seems to be very profitable for conservative lobby groups like the Manhattan Institute, but bad for America.

Paul of WA 9:14PM July 28, 2009

I think this speaks to Dr. Gratzer's supposed points and is clowned by Kucinich: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DII7v8yeRjs

Michael of TX 2:21AM July 24, 2009

In the 1970's, a couple told me they were in the USSR when the husband fell ill. Along came a medical care vehicle to the hotel. For about $5 the man was cured of a very bad cold almost like pneumonia, with antibiotics. There, people were not sent to offices where they passed around germs and viruses. The people (the government) paid for medical training and enjoyed it at low cost. When our nation was formed, the government (people) owned all the natural resources, But Congress let people who had capital buy forests, coal field, oil deposits, etc. They stopped beIng PUBLIC PROPERTY and BECAME PRIVATE PROPERTY. That was in the Robber Baron era. The buyers built and operated public utility companies that sell us electricity, natural gas, phone service, gasoline. etc. all the daily needs of businesses and individuals and government. We pay profit to people who own shares in those companies. I want Congress to use our taxes to buy out the owners and then operate the companies as non-profit, with government employees. We've been taught to fear "public ownership" except in the military where we've provided tax-paid "socialized medicine" for many years.

auradawnveirs of CA 7:38PM July 23, 2009

So the big problem is that 120 million Americans might face the horrifying burden of lower premiums?
That on top of the fact that they'd have guaranteed coverage regardless of preexisting conditions?
Oh, no!
You might want take another go at it if you're trying to scare us (and we know that you are).
Your long term outlook is particularly bizarre in light of known facts. We've fast forwarded ten years and the public option has "captured a huge market share". Then, the "plan's costs inevitably spike". Why? We aren't told. What we do know is that in countries that have a significant public plan of some sort (nearly every industrialized nation except the United States), health care costs are about half of what we spend, and the outcomes are, for the most part, better. So it's safe to assume that the "costs inevitably spike" is simply inserted to make the author's otherwise unsupportable position seem plausible.
All in all this is a halfway decent attempt to justify keeping our current reeking pile of a health care payment system. Unfortunately for the author, his position is almost laughable. His biggest problem with the public option is lower premiums. His long term fear is made up nonsense.
The sooner there is significant health care reform, the better, and tweaking at the edges, like the author proposes, isn't reform.

jimatmadison of WI 12:15AM July 21, 2009

In the UK, the NHS provides a basic service that covers the majority of people's needs that's free at the point of delivery. If you are seeking an unusual treatment, a more comfortable hospital experience or are a patient not prioritized by the NHS, then you have the option to go private. Private companies in the UK are very successful and happily co-exist with the public NHS service. The problem in America is that the Insurance companies are offering that basic level of treatment, and the way they survive when social medicine is introduced is to offer a premium service. In addition, this article is riddled with nonsense. If it's a government funded entity - why would it's goverment funded budget go on tax to the government? Everybody is controlled by the government no matter what and because it is government entity, it is subject to freedom of information requests and reviews to which a private company is exempt. You could say that this last point is much more difficult to comply with.

Townsend 8:20PM July 18, 2009

I had a bleeding ulcer at 2 years old. We went to a in plan hospital, they told my mother that she didn't know anything, even though I was puking up blood right in front of them. Luckily my mother was smarter than that doctor and she took me to a out of plan hospital. When we arrived I was rushed away to to the ICU. I had lost so much blood that I nearly had to have a transfusion....They told my mother that if she had waited one more hour I would have died. Because I was treated in an out of network hospital we were denied coverage. The bill was horrendous. It was in the hundreds of thousands when all was said and done. My mother said that she would do it all over again. But NO one should be denied coverage because they went to an out of network doctor and having to pay as much as she did, just to save my life. I am not the only one, there are thousands of others, and thousands more who have died because they could not get the help they needed. I firmly believe that health care should be government run and affordable, that way, people like me don't have to pay an outrageous amount of money, just to save my childs or even my future wifes life. But I would with out hesitation pay an arm and a leg to save them like my mother saved me.

Rev of CA 5:17PM July 18, 2009

Congratulations on a well thought out analysis of the issues presented as the Congress wrestles with achieving Obama's health plan.
The devil is in the details as they say, and you have put your finger on the problems posed in the effort to bring a federal plan to all.The president's speech yesterday, and that of Nancy Pelosi earlier are aimed at taking the attention from the Congressioal Budget Office that this is a faulty plan that would send the deficit even higher and not provide the needed revenue.
Perhaps they could try to justify it by increasing the added goverment employment to cover up the growing job losses across the county, but it clearly pose a huge threat to private businesses and is a thinly veiled attempt to socialize health care.

B J Sinnott of MA 12:18PM July 18, 2009

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John Warren of NJ 12:08PM July 18, 2009

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John Warren of NJ 12:07PM July 18, 2009