October31
The latest look at the public option comes from the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan economic analysts for lawmakers. It found that the scaled back government plan in the House bill wouldn’t overtake private health insurance. To the contrary, it might help the insurers a little.
A summary of the “Public Option” in the healthcare “reform” bill:
1. The Democratic health care bills would extend coverage to the uninsured by providing government help with premiums and prohibiting insurers from excluding people in poor health or charging them more. But to keep from piling more on the federal deficit, most of the uninsured will have to wait until 2013 for help. Even then, many will have to pay a significant share of their own health care costs.
2. The budget office estimated that about 6 million people would sign up for the public option in 2019, when the House bill is fully phased in. That represents about 2 percent of a total of 282 million Americans under age 65. (Older people are covered through Medicare.)
3. The overwhelming majority of the population would remain in private health insurance plans sponsored by employers. Others, mainly low-income people, would be covered through an expanded Medicaid program. [What this means in plain english is that our friends in Congress pushed all the costs of a "Public Option" down to the State level so that the States individually would have to provide for it**]
4. To be fair, most people would not have access to the new public plan. Under the House bill, it would be offered through new insurance exchanges open only to those who buy coverage on their own or work for small companies. Yet even within that pool of 30 million people, only 1-in-5 would take the public option.
Who’s likely to sign up?
The budget office said “a less healthy pool of enrollees” would probably be attracted to the public option, drawn by the prospect of looser rules on access to specialists and medical services.
As a result, premiums in the public plan would be higher than the average for private plans
. That could nudge healthy middle-class workers and their families to sign up for private plans.
It’s unclear whether there are enough votes in the Senate for a public plan.
**The version that Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has offered would let states opt out, probably leaving a smaller plan than the House would want
My Comment: WOW! All that work for a sham!
Our government continues to fail to represent us. When they are afraid for their jobs, they simply MISLEAD us. AWESOME!
Source: House bill: http://tinyurl.com/lftnuj
