The Public Option & Health Care ReformDefinition !
By Sarah Rubenstein
April, 2010
So what is this “public” insurance plan that President Obama has been talking about, anyway ? When Obama was on the campaign trail, he pushed the idea of giving consumers the chance to choose among both private and publicly sponsored health-insurance options. The idea has caused some consternation among insurers, who worry such a public plan would have an unfair advantage with the heft of the government behind it. Another question is whether the new public plan would pay doctors at the same rates that Medicare does — rates many doctors feel are too low. In a media briefing hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation today, Nancy-Ann DeParle, who’s running the new White House Office of Health Reform, was asked for her own definition of the term. Her response:
A public plan is something that’s sponsored by the government, and therefore has very low or almost nonexistent administrative costs, compared to others. It doesn’t have the need to have brokers out selling; it wouldn’t have the need to have a lot of costs and profits, the way private plans would. So it has that advantage. It could operate by the same rules that all the other plans do; it could have payments rates that are very similar. Or it could have payment rates that are the same as Medicare — that’s one idea that’s been used. So there are various ways of looking at it. DeParle then said one model might be the plans that are offered to state employees. They’re government-sponsored and tend to be less expensive, but they’re often operated by private companies, she said. Another model is Medicare, she added.
When it comes to differences on how to construct such a plan or how much it would pay, “there are ways of bridging that gap,” DeParle said. Some folks on the left, including Howard Dean, are trying to make sure Obama doesn’t give up the idea altogether.
A public plan is something that’s sponsored by the government, and therefore has very low or almost nonexistent administrative costs, compared to others. It doesn’t have the need to have brokers out selling; it wouldn’t have the need to have a lot of costs and profits, the way private plans would. So it has that advantage. It could operate by the same rules that all the other plans do; it could have payments rates that are very similar. Or it could have payment rates that are the same as Medicare — that’s one idea that’s been used. So there are various ways of looking at it. DeParle then said one model might be the plans that are offered to state employees. They’re government-sponsored and tend to be less expensive, but they’re often operated by private companies, she said. Another model is Medicare, she added.
When it comes to differences on how to construct such a plan or how much it would pay, “there are ways of bridging that gap,” DeParle said. Some folks on the left, including Howard Dean, are trying to make sure Obama doesn’t give up the idea altogether.
Editorial : The Public Option, a Good Idea !
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