Please forgive a dumb question . . .

[Richard D]

. . . but I've been out of the country for a while. I've seen a lot of discussion about the "public option" but I'm not really sure what it is. Can someone either point me to an explanation or give a short explanation?
Thanks.

[mdmc]

1. its like your current insurance, but run by the govt instead of a

for profit corporation

[MercutioATC]

2. It seems to mean different things to different people.

My own take is a government-administered health insurance plan that utilizes private insurance companies...like FEHBP ( http://www.opm.gov/INSURE/HEALTH/ ) as opposed to "single-payer" that would be more like Medicare...


...but other people have different definitions.

[texastoast]

3. The option part means other choices are available

You can get into the public pool which provides coverage at less overhead cost than insurance corporations.

Single-payer can reduce administrative costs by about 30% from what I've read. That would save everybody some bucks. Much of the medical community is behind single-payer because it can render more services with less overhead charged into fees resulting from jumping through many different corporate insurance hoops and billing nightmares.

[timeforpeace]

4. Three responses, three different answers, which is a big part of the problem selling it.