'public option' funding requirements. I call bullshit.

[Warren Stupidity]

Given that 'private option' insurance is highly profitable, I don't quite understand questions about how we are going to pay for a 'public option'. A public insurance program would be non-profit and would require initial seed money to capitalize it. Other than a one time expense, a public option insurance program should be self funding. So what exactly is all this noise about paying for the public option?

I suspect it is bullshit. I suspect that the cost of subsidizing lower income uninsured people is being conflated with implementation of a public insurance program. If I am wrong about this please show me why.

[hobbit709]

1. Public option should be public coverage

Not "insurance". Get the insurance companies out of it.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. It would be under most proposals

the public option is a government run non-profit health insurance program. But that wasn't my point - I don't understand the noise about paying for it, it should be self funding.

[eomer]

6. You are conflating "insurance" with "private".

Any public option would be a form of insurance. People pay a regular periodic premium. They have to pay the same premium even when they are completely healthy. The risks of having health problems of all the people in the plan are aggregated together and the premium is set such that it spreads the cost of that risk over all the people in the plan. That is the definition of insurance.

You are also confused about how the public option works in the various proposals. The public option does not involve people buying insurance from private companies. It is an insurance plan that is owned and operated by the government.

[ejpoeta]

3. it's just a way to scare people and to make them fearful of a public option.

we have to 'pay' for it, even though we already are now... we are just paying twice as much for it. But people aren't hearing that. they are hearing 1 trillion dollars and other wording to make it sound overly expensive and out of reach. oh, and restrictive and boogy man is out to get you.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. exactly - and yet the meme that a public plan requires extraordinary funding

goes unchallenged. What a shock. Even here on DU people thoughtlessly propagate it.

[Wapsie B]

5. That's right. We take what we're paying now to private insurance

companies in premiums and we've more than got it paid for. It's as if some would believe that this cost would be in addition to their private insurance premiums. But that cost would go away. And that has the United Healthcares and Blue Cross/Blue Shields of this country up in arms. People are seeing through their con game.

[eomer]

7. Agreed. The other way they are misleading is to ignore the current cost of treating the uninsured.

We are currently paying for the care that uninsured people receive, however sporadic and ineffective that care may be. A proper accounting would use the net cost increase or decrease, which would be the cost of the new insurance coverage (private + public) for those people minus the current cost that we are paying one way or another.

But obviously the people controlling the media do not want an honest evaluation. They are in the propaganda business.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. good points

[Laelth]

8. How did we pay for the Iraq war? How did we pay for the massive Bush tax cuts?

This is what I want to know. Why is it that when Republicans want to do something stupid, there's no talk about how we're going to fund it, but when Democrats want to do something good for the American people, all of a sudden the beltway chatter focuses exclusively on how to pay for the program?

Why, I ask, can't the government just print money to make it happen? That's what we did for both the Iraq war and the Bush tax cuts.

:dem:

-Laelth

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Good questions, but again not relevant to the 'public option'.

The public option should be self funding. What we have to pay for is the un and under insured, and that is true for both public and private options and the cost of that should not be conflated with having a public not for profit insurance program.

[Laelth]

15. "The public option should be self-funding." Why?

Why? I challenge that premise.

:dem:

-Laelth

[Statistical]

9. Want $700 to $1000 a month plan? If not then you need funding.

Without funding the public option would be 100% paid by the insured.

Healthcare total cost employer + employee runs about $8000 to $12,000 per year.

So a public option that is "free" to the taxpayer but costs those who enroll $700 to $1000 a month in premiums isn't likely going to do anygood.

The goal is to subsidize the cost (just like your employer does by paying a part) on a slide scale based on income.
To do that will cost money hence the cost of the public option.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. That is true only if the public option is only available to uncovered

and again conflates the cost of insuring the uninsured with the 'cost' of a non-profit public insurance program.

[Statistical]

16. What????

Even if every single American was on the public option it would have a cost.

The total cost of healthcare is paid for by either one or more of the following:
a) the insured/covered
b) the govt
c) the employer

So we can EASILY have an unfunded public option. I am sure the repukes would love it.
Any way you slice it since employers subsidize coverage for employees by 40%-80% an unfunded public option would be more expensive.

What does that mean? Only people who have no choice would use it.
What does that mean? The sickest would use it raising the cost even more.

The pool needs to attract a cross section of insured (sick, poor, healthy, wealthy, lots of claims, few claims, etc).

The only way to do that is for it to have cost parity (or better) w/ employer funded plans.

Some sort of subsidy is required for the public option to have a level playing field and thus gain critical mass to be a healthy alternative.

The repukes would love absolutely love an unfunded public option as they watch it wither on the vine.

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. The subsidy is inherent in the plan, with or without a public option.

Media are attributing all the costs of the subsidy to the public option in an effort to discredit it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. I think you are absolutely right. n/t