Can anyone point to an actual definition of "public option"? Or better, a "robust public option"?

[Stinky The Clown]

I'm not asking for your view of it is. I am asking for a quote from some lawmaker who has the power to matter having given us the definition of one of these two terms.

[Cleita]

1. I think it's double talk to avoid talking about specifics, something that we aren't

getting through all the rhetoric. We all know a public option should be described as access to Medicare for all, a description they are avoiding like the plague.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. All Americans Assured.

[Laelth]

3. No.

In fact, several weeks ago I called the offices of Congresspersons Raul Grijalva and Lynn Woolsey, Chairpersons of the Progressive Caucus, asking that very question because the Progressive Caucus has consistently said it would not vote for "health insurance reform" without a "robust" public option. So, I called to find out exactly what that meant. Neither staffer with whom I spoke could answer that question.

Personally, I define "robust" as "big." I want a plan that is projected to cover at lest 50 million Americans within five years. I'd like rates tied to medicare, and I'd like the ability to negotiate prescription drug prices. Both of those would be good, but I don't consider them to be necessary for a "robust" plan. A "robust" plan, imho, has to be big enough to actually compete with private health insurers and, thereby, drive down the cost of health insurance across the board. A plan that covers too few people (like the one in play now in the bills passed out of four Congressional committees) can not accomplish this goal.

:dem:

-Laelth

[endless october]

4. it means people would have access to a medicare-style choice

instead of just overpriced, government subsidized private plans designed to make the holiday season happy for a couple hundred people on wall street.

without that, there's nothing to keep the private plans from being expensive and useless.

[Junkdrawer]

5. History: Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold...

The people who brought us the “public option” began their campaign promising one thing but now promote something entirely different. To make matters worse, they have not told the public they have backpedalled. The campaign for the “public option” resembles the classic bait-and-switch scam: tell your customers you’ve got one thing for sale when in fact you’re selling something very different.

When the “public option” campaign began, its leaders promoted a huge “Medicare-like” program that would enroll about 130 million people. Such a program would dwarf even Medicare, which, with its 45 million enrollees, is the nation’s largest health insurer, public or private. But today “public option” advocates sing the praises of tiny “public options” contained in congressional legislation sponsored by leading Democrats that bear no resemblance to the original model.

...

“Public option” refers to a proposal, as Timothy Noah put it, “dreamed up” by Jacob Hacker when Hacker was still a graduate student working on a degree in political science. In two papers, one published in 2001 and the second in 2007, Hacker, now a professor of political science at Berkeley, proposed that Congress create an enormous “Medicare-like” program that would sell health insurance to the non-elderly in competition with the 1,000 to 1,500 health insurance companies that sell insurance today.

Hacker claimed the program, which he called “Medicare Plus” in 2001 and “Health Care for America Plan” in 2007, would enjoy the advantages that make Medicare so efficient – large size, low provider payment rates and low overhead. (Medicare is the nation’s largest health insurance program, public or private. It pays doctors and hospitals about 20 percent less than the insurance industry does, and its administrative costs account for only 2 percent of its expenditures compared with 20 percent for the insurance industry.)

...

http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/20/bait-and-switch-how-the-%E2%80%9Cpublic-option%E2%80%9D-was-sold/

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. Nope, nada, nay, nyet.

[polichick]

7. I think people just use that word "robust" because it makes them think of...

...bosoms. :)

[madrchsod]

8. i `m thinking....

to this

[niyad]

9. smoke and mirrors to keep the proles quiet