Debating the Health Care Public Option Video

From the NJ Power & Politics broadcast, with host Jim McQueeny, on September 11, 2009, NJ Citizen Action's Health Care Campaign Coordinator Eve Weissman and the NJ Chamber of Commerce's Jeff Scheininger in a debate on the role of a public option in health care reform.

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megarational: Even now there is nothing stopping an employer from dropping the employee insurance plan in favor of a cheaper plan with fewer benefits and higher deductibles. That's already happening and the trend will continue as HC insurance becomes more expensive. So what if the employer chooses a public option plan? That doesn't mean that the public option would entail fewer benefits or higher deductibles. No one cares what plan the employer uses as long as it provides adequate coverage.

megarational: Look, the public option would run on premiums, not taxpayer dollars. It would not drive private insurance co's out of business because it has not done so in any other country that has some form of public option. But, for the sake of argument, let's say that it would. So what? If it can offer good coverage at less expense isn't that what we want?

megarational: One comment on this video is that we should "ignore the extremes". A public option is not one of the extremes. The extremes are universal health care financing versus leaving the market totally to private insurance co's. The moderate compromise is private insurance and a federally administered insurance plan option.

megarational: Insurance co's are exempted from anti-trust laws. Even if they could compete across state liens it would still be in their best interests as an industry to keep premiums high. And because they are exempt from anti-trust laws they can do so legally. (In other industries it would be called price fixing and be illegal.) Insurance co's would compete, as they always have, by becoming the best at denying payment of your claims.

Author: NJCitizenAction; Uploaded: Oct 26, 2009; Duration: 7:51; Views: 93

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