The ‘Public Option’: Government-Run Health Care on the Installment Plan
11th February 2020
Rather than outlawing virtually all private coverage and replacing it with a single government plan, as Medicare for All does, public option proposals would create a government health plan to compete directly against private health plans. Yet, the economic and political dynamics of a public option would still lead to a single government-controlled health care system. One needs only to repeat the words of then-Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who, during the debate on Obamacare, said “I think that if we get a good public option, it could lead to single payer and that is the best way to reach single payer.”
We looked at six leading public option legislative proposals. The bills differ in design, but all these proposals would tilt the playing field in favor of the public option, drive out existing private health coverage options and ultimately leave the government plan as the dominant, or only, health plan in the insurance markets.