Reply #50: The public option under Kennedy's plan would be non-profit.

[bornskeptic]

It would be an option for anyone who did not want to give money to for profit companies. The Dutch companies are all for profit, and the Dutch system is working great. Of course there is no guarantee that our system would work as well as the one in the Netherlands, but the only alternative to an insurance based system is a government run healthcare system. I don't see much support in this country for nationalizing all the hospitals and drafting all the doctors and nurses into government service. So we are going to end up with an insurance based system no matter what we do, and there are no successful insurance based system in the world where insurance is not mandatory.