us health care briefing 111009
On the homepage
Vikings
Out There
Artetera
Table Talk
Health care issues: The public insurance plan
Print this story
E-mail this story
Save to del.icio.us
Share on Facebook
Share on Digg
Minnesota business by the numbers
See Minnesota's top earning companies, CEOs and non-profits
More from Business
A look at key issues in the health care debate:
THE ISSUE: Should Americans have the option of getting health insurance from a government plan that competes with private companies?
THE POLITICS: Many Democrats want to do away with private insurance and replace it with something resembling Medicare coverage for all, but that's not politically feasible. Offering the choice of a government insurance plan was a compromise within the Democratic Party. Liberals' preferred approach was to make the plan as cheap as possible for consumers and the government by tying payments to doctors, hospitals and other providers to the rates Medicare pays. But moderates feared that would result in ruinously low rates for providers, particularly in rural districts. They prevailed in the House, where the public insurance plan in the bill passed Saturday allows the Health and Human Services secretary to negotiate payment rates with providers, like private insurers do. In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., settled on a government insurance plan that states can opt out of. It's not clear the proposal commands enough votes to survive, and it could be replaced by a standby system pushed by moderates that would not go into effect until it was clear individual states were experiencing a lack of competition among private companies. Despite the compromises, insurers, employer groups and Republicans remained opposed, fearing that while a government plan might start out modestly, Congress could change the rules later, opening it up to all people and setting take-it-or-leave payments for hospitals and medical providers, instead of negotiating, as the House bill calls for. Unions strongly support the public option, and so does a majority of the public in opinion polls.
WHAT IT MEANS: Democrats hoped a public plan could expand coverage at a lower cost to taxpayers, but the Congressional Budget Office estimated that about 6 million people would sign up for the public option in 2019, when the House bill is fully phased in. That represents about 2 percent of a total of 282 million Americans under age 65. (Older people are covered through Medicare.) The overwhelming majority of the population would remain in private health insurance plans sponsored by employers. Others, mainly low-income people, would be covered through an expanded Medicaid program.
_Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Recent Business stories
Box office take for theater chains to get lift from strong 'New Moon' vampire movie sequel - November 10, 2009
Box office take for theater chains to get lift from strong 'New Moon' vampire movie sequel - A surprisingly strong weekend opening for the second movie in the Twilight vampire series, "New Moon," led analysts to raise their box office forecasts and support a more upbeat outlook for theater chains. More
Blog: Patent Pending
Lights out at U energy conference. Irony police notified.
Just as Lawrence Kazmerski, a top official at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was about to give the keynote address at the University of Minnesota's annual E3 conference at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, the lights went out, bathing the audience in darkness and a deep sense of irony.
Comment on this story | Read all 1 comments | Hide reader comments