The On The Public Option

Health insurance in the United States is a highly politicized issue. In recent years, many strides have been made to extend health insurance coverage to all Americans with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). While the program has been vigorously debated in the public realm, arguments are often centered around political ideology rather than economic theory. This paper seeks to challenge the entire structure of the current health insurance model, since its inception in the 1950s. Through the overuse of a third-party payer model, a magnitude of problems have emerged that severely diminish the efficiency of health care allocation in the United States. This paper proposes a model that seeks to correct issues of cost, access, and market efficiency by adapting the Medicare Part D payment scheme for an all encompassing insurance model.

Health insurance companies are now allowed to conduct interstate commerce where before it used to be limited to the state you were in. Now someone in California can choose to buy Blue Cross/ Blue Shield of RI whereas before a Californian could only get health insurance offered in California.

Public option is a government run plan that promotes competition in the health insurance market to lower prices. Even Obama agrees that Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country where competition is limited. Adding a public plan in such areas would strengthen the marketplace approach, giving consumers more affordable options while also creating

In 2006, the state of Massachusetts set out to close the gap in the number of uninsured citizens within its borders. The number of uninsured non-elderly adults in the state was nearly 17% (Chandra, 2011a). The same author said executives in the state realized the growing problem and were earnestly looking for ways to promote individual responsibility. One primary way of closing this gap has been through the development and implementation of what was called the Massachusetts Commonwealth Connector: a consumer-driven internet based healthcare market place. Although proposed in 2006, it wasn’t until 2008 that the system was rolled out at the state level (Chandra, 2011b).

Corruption is universal, so no one approach is correct; there needs to be a constant combination of both. I support a market based style which ensures access to private insurances with limited government involvement, and I will address how this system can improve access, cost, and quality.

This alone gave certain people the power to express what they wanted and have it changed or eliminated from the bill itself. The public option was what would have greatly reduced administrative cost and increase the competition in the private market (Conners: 2522). The public option should have never been eliminated when that would have been a good way to transition people over to having more government control of the health care system so that cost could be highly regulated which would help sustain health care for all.

The healthcare of the citizens by the government should not be left out. “So, we've seen that government can play a very effective role in creating a structure in which both private insurance and public insurance can be expanded to a larger population of people”(Lindsey Dunn 2013)

16–27. By regulating the State’s commerce, Congress is limiting what States really need to satisfy, their residents. Each state is different, and so are their residents. Simply enforcing a standard cookie-cutter health plan forces States to ignore their previous needs, and “budgetary challenges; Each state should be able to develop solutions that meet its specific needs” (Robert E. Moffit, Ph. D).

A debate discussed on a topic “RESOLVED: Medicare should be changed from a guaranteed health care benefit program into one that offers premium support for private insurance” was held on April 6, 2017, at Hunter Silberman campus room 303. Chaired and anchored by Professor Michele J. Siegel, the debate explores the pros and cons of “RESOLVED: Medicare should be changed from a guaranteed health care benefit program into one that offers premium support for private insurance.” There was two participating groups: one that spoke for the motion and another that talked against the motion. In the first place, Professor Siegel selected the participants and set the proposal for the debate. I was on the con's side of the debate, and before the debate,

Besides the general purpose of providing healthcare to all, the idea of government healthcare is that there is a single-payer as opposed to multiple insurance companies as well as government payers. All citizens are considered insured and only charged based on each individual’s “ability to pay” (MacDonald, 2013). This insurance would be paid for by the single-payer, the government, though the taxation of its citizens. Examples of this type of system can be seen in countries such as Canada and Sweden, as well as our own Department of Veterans Affairs ' VA health system. The idea of a nation-wide single-payer system has remained fairly popular in the United States due to the popularity and acceptance of the government’s Medicare program. In MacDonald’s article, “Healthcare reform: Socialized medicine?”, he quotes Deborah Chollet, a senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research in Washington, D.C.: "No matter where you move in the country, you keep your Medicare," she says. "It allows you to go to any doctor or hospital you choose, and it 's not wildly expensive given the relatively expensive population it serves." (2013) Opinions such as these are what is fueling the desire of U.S. citizens to evolve our multi-payer system into a universal single-payer system. This would eliminate competing private insurance plans and exclusion of patients from coverage due to their existing health status (Kemble, 2012). Overall, a single-payer system appears to be a more equal, streamline

The Multi-State Program was encompassed within the Affordable Care Act to grow the number of plan choices offered through the exchanges. The multistate issuers were mandated to operate at a minimum of 60% of states on January 1, 2014, increasing to all states and the District of Columbia over the next four years. Under the law, the MSPP is governed by the OPM, who have more than 50 years of experience in managing the Federal Employee Health Benefits FEHB program. The OPM’s leverage for negotiating such remarkable rates is due to its sizeable group of employees. OPM has been well known for its ability to negotiate fairly low rates with insurance carriers, keep administrative costs at a minimum, and offer expansive health plans and coverage options. OPM was required to contract with health insurance issuers to offer no less than two plans in at least 30 states (Goodell, S, 2014).

Public Insurance has always lacked support, and it has left millions without health insurance. The number of people without it has been increasing mostly through economic downturns. Under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, millions of people in the United States still lack health insurance coverage. “The ACA reforms Medicare, and is often nicknamed Obamacare.” (The Affordable Care Act). Some people are ineligible for financial assistance for private coverage, some still find coverage unaffordable even with the financial assistance. The questions that will be answered in this paper will be: What is happening to insurance coverage before the ACA, how did health coverage change under the ACA, and does the ACA work, is it enough, what else needs to be done?

As discussed in lecture (Paterniti, 2009) and in Oberlander’s analysis of the U.S. health care system, “any reform that threatens to alter the medical care arrangements of the insured is likely to provoke public opposition” (2003). Most likely, the insured are well off financially and/or politically powerful. These people, who are for the most part content with their current health insurance, would oppose

The health insurance exchange is not working. The premiums of the insurance plans offered on Covered California have increased by 25% leaving me with no affordable options. When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was first implemented, there were months of advertisements about the advantages of Covered California, California’s state run health insurance exchange. The health insurance exchange is a purchasing pool that was supposed to increase access to affordable health insurance and allow buyers like me to compare the benefits and prices of plans. However, many insurance companies are pulling out of the exchange because they are losing money, and in many states, purchasers can only choose from one or two insurance companies on the individual health insurance marketplace (“Number of Issuers Participating in the Individual Health Insurance Marketplaces”). The dwindling amount of insurers taking part in the exchange is causing a decrease in competition and contributing to rising premium costs. As a purchaser on the insurance exchange, I am no longer able to afford my insurance plan that I have bought on Covered California and I am demanding a change. I demand the addition of a public option.

Moreover, opponents of universal health care argue that people should have the privilege of selecting healthcare just like any other good or service in a free market. However, most of these views are baseless and absurd. If a universal health care system is implemented, similar to the one in United Kingdom or Canada, all insurance providers in nearly every state would be brought together into a single organization whose mandate would be to cater for medical care expenses and offer health coverage to every U.S citizen. Approximately 30% of the overall health care expenses would be saved from waste or made accessible for health services rather than being misused on managing insurance providers together with their executives and actuaries (Lev 1).