How will the public option put insurance companies out of business?
The NHS and private insurance exist side by side in Britain. Same scenario in Australia and New Zealand.
France has both private and public health care, so does Ireland.
We have public schools and private schools. Private schools still thrive despite the public alternative.
We have police protection and private security firms.
I am confused. If government never gets anything right, and private is always better, then won’t everyone stay with the private system and the public option will just go away?
Good points!
It won’t put insurance companies out of business. that’s just a scare tactic from people who already have health insurance and want to keep it that way. they don’t care about anyone else.
We have COBRA (which is GROUP) insurance, for 25% of our monthly retirement income. When it runs out we will be uninsurable because of preexisting conditions. We are the people ignored by the people who say the only uninsured people are young people who don’t want to pay for insurance. I wish everyone who talked against universal health care would have their group coverage dropped, then try to get insurance on their own. Then they’d realized how tough it can be, through no fault of your own (unless they think prostate cancer is caused by PERSONAL ACTIONS).
We also have UPS, FedEx (which is actually private, even though its name is “federal”), and the public option called the U.S. postal service (the Post Office). The private insurance companies will not go out of business. However, they will lose some business, and some of them will have to improve their prices or services, especially the ones that are currently so bad that no one would use them if they had any other option.
Great point! Makes you wonder what these people are so afraid of. Capitalism is all about competition–and the private insurance companies could sure use some competition. We’d all benefit.
The way I see it is that Insurance Companies that charge too much want to keep on fleecing the people. That is where the opposition is coming for the public option and the public is buying that. It called eliminate the competition by telling lies. If the Insurance Companies don’t have to compete with a public option, you will continue to pay high prices. The ones that can sell insurance the cheapest should be the winners, not the ones that sell it the highest.
It won’t.
That’s just propaganda that politicians are using to pursue their personal agendas. They just hope the public is stupid enough to listen to the sound bite only and not actually think about it.
The PROBLEM is, it was written into the bill, that private insurance couldn’t add any new people to their current plans.
That means, once your kids turn 19, or you change your job, you HAVE to take the public option. Private isn’t an OPTION.
It won’t put large insurers out of business unless it is subsidized to a point where premiums are ridiculously low. It will squeeze profit margins though and that could cause smaller companies to lose money or not make enough profit to bother staying in business. Also the proposal that a portion of the public plan be funded by an additional tax on private insurers squeezes their margins even more which could result in higher premiums which results in more people dropping their private insurance to take the public option.
It may have the intended effect of making private insurance premiums lower, but those insurers will respond with lower payments to providers, more out of pocket expense for patients and reduced benefits.
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There are a couple of issues here some of which have already been stated.
1) You are taxing private plans to pay for it, so the public option will either drive the private rates higher or drive people from the private to the public.
2) A similar system was implemented (under the same premise as the public option, increase competition to reduce premiums) for statutory disability here in NY called the state insurance fund and it has destroyed the DBL market here in NY. The fact is these plans, since they are subsidized by the government, are significantly lower than private options and undercut them to such a degree that virtually every carrier of state dbl has left the market. Not only did it not increase competition but now every NY resident is paying more than they were before as they are not only paying the contributions for there own DBL but they are now also subsidizing virtually all NYS DBL through increased payroll taxes. People aren’t necessarily against a public option but who pays for it.
3) Why are all people who have insurance and don’t want to pay more for the uninsured all villains or health insurance spies/plants/cronies. Last I checked, most people who have insurance through their employment are struggling to make ends meet just as much as those who don’t have insurance. And, like those without insurance, can’t afford to have added taxes and expenses and still pay their rent and bills. I am among this group and I do not oppose insuring the uninsured but who is going to pay for it at a time when we are in a recession and have the largest unemployment rate since the depression. Congress’ only answer so far has been to increase taxes and “cut waste” which every politician for the last 100 years has promissed.
Somebody has to explain to me how if there is $500 billion in medicare “waste” to be cut to pay for this plan than how come no other administration has cut it or further more why they would need legislation to cut it. If you have really identified $500 billion in waste then just cut it, you don’t need a bill for that.
The fact is it is not just the insurance companies propoganda that is questioning the public option. I am your average american, earning average income, and I have legitimate concerns and questions that need to be answered before I am willing to support a trillion dollar piece of legislation. And since we are dealing with legislation that affects the largest piece of our annual spending, these questions need to be answered before it is passed. Not as the current legislation suggests, we pass the bill then deal with the issues as they arrise. That is the worst way to make decisions, and like most americans I have no intention of sitting back while the government takes more and more of my paycheck without providing any clear course of direction or any answers to the issues that are really driving the costs, such as lack of doctors, overuse of testing as a result of excessive malpractice suits, fraud, excessive ER usage, carrier profit margins, etc… Lack of market competition is not the major cause of the insurance rates being so high.
Public and private school options work side by side because there are religious implications as well as educational. People would send their kids to private school regardless of price.
Police and private security works simply because there are not enough police to cover every situation and a public citizen, although they can request police presence, can not demand it and therefore a supplementary security is needed.
And while the other countries do have a public option, there are plenty of issues and complaints against them as well so people need to actually research these things before they comment on them. Here is a link to a site that lists article after article of in the UK media about the disaster after disaster with the UK public option.
It won’t put them out of business if people are happy with what they provide for the cost.
But how many people are happy with the high cost of most insurance and also the fact they don’t pay if they think you have a preexisting condition?
If you are paying up the ying yang every month and then need to file a claim and they refuse to cover it because they said it was preexisting, you are out a lot of money and basically have been scammed by them.
In the public plan, you will not be denied for any preexisting condition and if you lose your job, you will still be covered as it will not be connected with your employment.
Some people are happy with their present insurance and no one is asking them to give it. They are in the minority though. They no doubt have high paying jobs and get premium coverage through their employer.
Most people are pretty fed up with private insurance companies as they demaned high premiums and many times refuse to pay claims and people stay sick and die because of it.