A Public Option

A single payer system won’t make it through the Senate, because of the cost. Furthermore, it could put thousands of people that work for insurance companies out of a job immediately. Consequently, our leadership in Washington is saying, that any health care reform must include a public health insurance option.

Opponents of reform are trotting out weak half-measures and calling them public plans, with the goal of leaving us with a public health insurance option in name only. The latest is a proposal for “co-ops”, i.e. small, regional insurers that would be too weak to bring costs down or compete with existing private insurance.

We have to send a clear message by demanding a strong public health insurance option, one that is available to everyone, national in scope, with real bargaining clout, and ready to go on day one. Let’s write letters to the editor of newspapers, about how important it is to include a strong public health insurance option. If you’ve never written a letter to the editor before, now is the time to send your first. The letters page is one of the most widely read in local newspapers. Members of Congress and their staffs read it to understand how their constituents are feeling. And the media read it as feedback on their coverage.

Here are a few key points as to what a strong public health insurance option should look like:

* A strong public health insurance option should be available to anyone who chooses to participate. If you like your current plan, you can keep it; if you want to participate in the public health insurance plan, you can choose to do so.

* In order to truly control costs and compete with private health insurance plans, a strong public health insurance option must be available nationwide.

* Every day we wait on real reform, health care costs continue to rise. A strong public health insurance option as soon as possible is key to building a competitive program that will help control costs.

* To ensure it’s held to the highest standards of accountability, a public health insurance option must be accountable and transparent to Congress and to voters.

A powerful public health insurance option is the lynchpin of real reform that will help bring costs down and provide coverage for all Americans. If thousands of us write to our local papers, we can make sure our representatives in Washington understand how crucial it is to voters like us.