| User Blox 4 |
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Barack Obama  |
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Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.
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Mon Jun 08, 2009 at 15:12:42 PM MST
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| I shoulda known that when I wrote the other day about the different kinds of public option plans that were being batted around Congress that Ezra Klein had already written a post on the same topic, only better.
Read the whole thing. It describes well the meaning of the public option in this battle for health care reform.
The full text of Klein's description of the three types of public option plans as he sees them are below the fold... |
| Jay Stevens :: Ezra defines the types of public options... |
• The "Trigger" Plan: Olympia Snowe is pushing this compromise, as are some conservative Democrats. The basic idea is that the public plan would act as an invisible threat: It would be "triggered" into existence if the private insurance market was unable to offer, say, enough options in a particular region, or enough cost control. In addition, the public plan would only come into existence in this or that region, or this or that state. It would be effectively useless as an insurer. It could potentially have some competitive effect in that private insurers would still work to avoid its existence. Some have argued, however, that the conditions being mentioned in the "trigger" proposals have already been met.
• The Weak Public Plan: This is what people are talking about when they refer to a "level-playing field." This incarnation of the public plan -- first proposed by Len Nichols at the New America Foundation and later echoed by Peter Harbage and Karen Davenport at the Center for American Progress -- would have no special advantages over private insurers. It couldn't use the low rates that Medicare sets or access taxpayer subsidies. It couldn't force its way into networks. It would simply be another insurer, albeit with different incentives than traditional insurers.
• The Strong Public Plan: This would be like Medicare for the rest of us. It could throw the federal government's weight around. It could negotiate deep discounts with providers. It could muscle its way into networks. Outside groups like the Commonwealth Fund estimate that it would save the average consumer 20 percent to 30 percent. That would give it a massive competitive advantage over private insurers, and would probably result in tens of millions of Americans dropping their current coverage and entering the public plan to save money. A variant of this was in the draft of Ted Kennedy's bill that was leaked last week. |
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| Purely Hypothetical, of course, but - The best candidate for the Republicans for US Senate is: |
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