Would you accept a health care reform that dropped the mandate in exchange for no public option?

[HamdenRice]

Poll question: Would you accept a health care reform that dropped the mandate in exchange for no public option?

I'm just curious, mainly about what has people more dissatisfied -- the requirement that we buy expensive private insurance, or the possibility that the Democrats will give up on or severely limit, the public option.

Full disclosure -- I want a public option. I have been screwed by private insurance so badly that I hope never to have to pay any of them a dime again. I'm also pretty much uninsurable in the individual market as a result of previously existing conditions. I'm just trying to get a sense of DU's preferences.

So if they dropped the mandate (which pisses people off) but had no mandate (which also pisses people off), would you accept that?

[kenfrequed]

1. This is a crappy poll

This is a logical false choice premise.

That somehow we would have to trade off a public option in order to get a mandate off the table? Who are we negotiating this with? The republicans want neither. The progressives don't want a stupid insurance mandate.

Unrecommended for being absurd.

[OHdem10]

2. Since they do not mandate Businesses to offer health insurance

it is only fair not to mandate the people to buy health insurance.

There is no equivalency between mandate and PO.

It would be immoral to force people to buy insurance when
there is not a PO to lower prices.

You would be forcing people to support and prop up Insurance
Industry at prices most could not afford.

[HamdenRice]

4. "It would be immoral to force people to buy insurance when there is not a PO"

That's exactly the point of the poll.

If there is no PO, there must not be an individual mandate.

[alc]

3. covering pre-existing conditions requires mandate

otherwise people won't need to buy insurance until they have a condition that needs it.

without a mandate you can't have much significant change (a public option that doesn't cover pre-existing conditions and/or costs way too much).

With the mandate and pre-existing coverage required you end up with single payer being the only logical option (every policy has to cover the same things for the same price or people will take the cheapest until they need more. multiple providers just adds costs to the system).

With the mandate and no pre-existing coverage required, anyone with a condition is at least as bad off as they are now. If a public option is the only one that covers pre-existing conditions, it would go broke very quick since they would get EVERYONE with a pre-existing condition. Other insurers would say "sorry get the public option" for a hangnail.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. Absurd nonsensical stuff

I mean, what does this line even mean? "So if they dropped the mandate (which pisses people off) but had no mandate (which also pisses people off), would you accept that?"
The language of the entire poll is as good as that one line. So congratulations!

[HamdenRice]

6. See posts 2 and 4 nt

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Still it does not explain the redundancy

of the term 'mandate' in the sentence I quoted.

[HamdenRice]

8. Putting aside the fact that I didn't express myself clearly, it's making more sense to me

I agree the poll was badly worded, but the position is actually making more sense to me as both a moral stance and as a practical bargaining position.

People are angry at having to buy private insurance from rapacious companies at high prices. They don't like the mandate to buy private insurance.

So the public option is what makes the mandate acceptable to a certain portion of the electorate.

I think it makes sense to tell the insurance companies and their toadies in Congress, "you will never get the mandate (and the tens of millions of new customers) unless you support the public option."

And btw, if you get just the private reforms, no mandate and no po, you're going to have a really bad bottom line, because you'll have to accept previously existing conditions, no recission, etc., without new customers.

OHdem10 pointed out upthread, which helped clarify what I was trying to say, it is immoral to force people to buy insurance unless there is a low cost public option.

That's somewhat different from the way the poll put it, but it seems to capture a large portion of the sentiment.

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. Would you accept getting kicked in the shins in exchange for having your foot stomped on? n/t