Free Republic

You may remember the battle over the public option, an idea that was designed to gradually turn Obamacare into single-payer over time. The idea was that Obamacare exchanges would offer some sort of non-profit plan to compete with all the for-profit insurance plans. Over time it was assumed more people would select the public option until it had eventually captured the whole market. The initial plans for a public option fell by the wayside but three states have instituted some version of a public option. Politico reported Tuesday that, so far, it hasn’t worked as planned.In Colorado, which is enrolling...

Government politicians have been attempting to revitalize a decades-old issue—which they affectionately call public option healthcare—that would create a government-run medical insurance program intended to compete with private insurers. The glaring irony in this disingenuous branding is that the public option is neither public nor optional. Instead, the public option would inject just enough government into the system to prevent private healthcare providers from delivering quality and affordable services, while raising healthcare costs for everyone. The public option ignores a simple reality that is as strong as gravity: In order to lower prices, the supply of services must become greater...

Joe Biden has promised that no families with incomes under $400,000 will see tax increases if he is elected president. But that’s a promise he won’t be able to keep if he gets his way and Congress creates a government-run health insurance plan—a public option. Mr. Biden and other supporters of the public option argue it would be a relatively modest change to the nation’s health-care system because, unlike single-payer proposals, it would add nothing to federal deficits. But once enrollees and health-care providers start applying political pressure to keep premiums low, taxpayers would be on the hook. Medicare’s legislative...

Whether we can use the results as legitimate or not, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries showed one thing — progressive policies articulated by former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg are currently resonating with Democratic voters. But while he has surged in popularity over longtime Democrat party players, how would his policies play out nationally? Buttigieg has roughly outlined numerous platform policies, but the roughest right now is his health care plan: “Medicare for All Who Want It.” This idea is to offer a public option that will compete in the health care insurance market against employee sponsored...

Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Mike Bloomberg claim they’re proposing a moderate, less disruptive approach to health-care reform when they advocate a public option—a government policy offered as an alternative to private health insurance—in lieu of Medicare for All. Don’t believe it. My research finds that such proposals would increase the federal deficit dramatically and destabilize the market for private health insurance, threatening health-care quality and choice. While estimates by the Congressional Budget Office and other analysts have concluded that a public option-style proposal would reduce federal deficits, those effects are predicated on two flawed assumptions: first, that the government...

... A public option would be less disruptive than a plan that instantly eliminated private insurance. But a public option that is inexpensive and attractive could shake up the private market and also wind up erasing some current insurance arrangements. Conversely, a public option that is expensive and unattractive might not do much good at all. “The political appeal of the public option is it preserves the choice of private insurance,” said Larry Levitt, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “But the better it works, then the less likely it is to actually preserve a private insurance market.”...

Washington is set to become the first state to enter the private health insurance market with a universally available public option. A set of tiered public plans will cover standard services and are expected to be up to 10% cheaper than comparable private insurance, thanks in part to savings from a cap on rates paid to providers. But unlike existing government-managed plans, Washington’s public plans are set to be available to all residents regardless of income by 2021. The Legislature approved the plan last month, and Gov. Jay Inslee is scheduled to sign it into law Monday. The move thrusts...

[I begin] with the story of a series of Socialist scholars conferences that Barack Obama attended when he lived in New York City between the years 1983 and 1985. And when I finally reconstructed what had gone on at these Socialist conferences that Barack Obama attended, I truly was amazed because what I saw was a kind of map of Barack Obama’s entire subsequent political career. It was at this Socialist conferences in New York in the mid-’80s that Barack Obama encountered the groups, the strategies, and the mentors who would guide him throughout his entire political career. [T]hese Socialist...

President Barack Obama is “quite proud” that his signature health care law has expanded coverage to 20 million more Americans. But he admits the law could be strengthened, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday. “The president does have some ideas for things that we could do to further strengthen Obamacare. The first is to find a way to ensure that every state across the country is expanding Medicaid, consistent with what was envisioned in the law.” Earnest said “too many Republican governors” have blocked Medicaid expansion “just because of political differences” with Obama. But some of those governors...

President Obama joined the chorus of Democrats calling for the creation of a government run health insurance program as Obamacare is facing growing problems. In an article published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the president called for Congress to revisit the "public option" for Obamacare in areas where few insurers offer coverage. "Some parts of the country have struggled with limited insurance market competition for many years, which is one reason that, in the original debate over health reform, Congress considered and I supported including a Medicare-like public plan," Obama wrote in the piece. A public...

Back when Obamacare was just a threat in the form of legislation, it contained a provision called “the public option.” The idea was that anyone seeking health care insurance would be able to opt for a government run, single-payer system similar to what prevails in Canada and Great Britain. The public option never made it into the final product because it was a change too far. Most people believed, correctly, that the option was a ploy to cause private insurance to wither and die. Now Hillary Clinton has revived the public option as part of her reform of the health...

As Hillary tries to secure the nomination she has been forced to run left to counter the far-left proposals of Bernie Sanders. Sanders plan for health care is to move the U.S. to a full-fledged single-payer system like the one in Canada. Hillary isn’t willing to go that far but, as Politico notes, she is willing to propose Democrats revive the next best thing: Clinton’s campaign has updated its website to note her continued support for the government-run health plan that was dropped from Obamacare during the law’s drafting. The idea was popular among progressives who prefer a single-payer...

Hi people. Its been a while since I posted, but I feel the man who REALLY deserves the credit for making Obama and the other Democrats look like fools is not getting the credit he deserves - and that is Joe Lieberman. As some of you may remember, Senator Lieberman would not support the "Public Option", which was a fairly-cleverly designed plan to have a government-run policy show up when you went to the Obamacare website. The public option, of course, would be priced at the level the government chooses, and would not have to be accountable to anyone as...

On Tuesday, 44 House Democrats joined Rep Jan Schakowsky in her bid to submit H.R. 261, legislation supporting a “public option.” When ObamaCare was passed in 2010, the “public option” was removed, but like the seven-headed Hydra, another head has grown in its place. Schakowsky claimed, "Obamacare is already helping millions of Americans get the health care they need, but it can be made even better. The Public Option Deficit Reduction Act will give health care consumers more choice and lower their premiums."

In 2009, when Obama was pushing universal healthcare, he quickly realized that his dreams of a single-payer, government-run socialized system would never pass Congress. His other option was a “public option,” which most knew to be a Trojan Horse for single-payer, slowly eviscerating the private insurance industry. The “compromise” (if we can say Obama compromised with himself) was ObamaCare. The ObamaCare debate has been overshadowed by whether the Individual Mandate is constitutional (it is not, despite what Roberts and the gaggle of liberal justices state.) What has been lost in the conversation is the States’ Health Care Exchanges. We have...

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

Speaking to the National Governors Association at the White House today, President Barack Obama endorsed legislation by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Scott Brown (R-MA) that would allow states to request waivers from some Obamacare mandates in 2014 instead of the existing 2017 date. President Obama claimed: “It will give you flexibility more quickly while still guaranteeing the American people reform.” Has President Obama even read the legislation? Because that is just plan false. Heritage Foundation Center for Policy Innovation Director Stuart Butler explained in the New England Journal of Medicine: One [problem] is that it still locks the states...

During the health care reform debate, the American people soundly rejected the Democrats’ desire for a government-run “public option” health plan and forced them to exclude it from ObamaCare. However, be sure to beware, as it still didn’t deter these leftists from including a sly alternative in the law that could rapidly transform into an effective public option. The law requires the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM), the agency that runs the federal civil service, to sponsor at least two national health insurance plans to be offered on the new exchanges that start in 2014. Within the exchanges, the...

The U.S. House recently voted to repeal the president's health care plan. Much of the opposition over the plan has focused on a perceived government takeover of health insurance. Roughly one-fourth of California's residents, though, already have public health insurance, primarily the poor (MediCal) and the elderly (Medicare) - a figure that is growing . . .

Bill Maher was befuddled by last week’s election as he discussed the results with his Real Time panel, which included Time magazine editor-at-large Fareed Zakaria. Maher could not understand why voters would cast their ballots for Republicans. The leftist ideologue stubbornly refused to accept the simplest explanation, that voters parted with President Obama and his Democratic party on ideology. In fact, the simplest explanation was so unpalatable to Maher, he conjured up a nonsensical alternative.[The blue dogs] lost on Tuesday. Those [Democrats] who said, “You know what? I’m not with Obama. I disavow him, even though he’s my president in...