Notwithstanding the negative din that the health care lobbyists and their captive lawmakers have sought to create in the mass media against health care reform, here's a fascinating poll result published today that indicates that a significant majority of Democrats and Independents want that option. One out of every three Republicans also support the public option.



http://www.reuters.com/article/gc07/idUSTRE5B20OL20091203

At this point in time, it's unclear whether the final law (presuming one is passed after a conference on the separate House and Senate bills) will include a public option; but, hopefully, a final bill won't die only because of that issue (i.e., passage of some health care reform is simply too important).

The best argument/analogy used in support of the issue is the fact that we have both public and private universities in the US and neither the public or private versions have sufferred because of that "competition." Actually, I don't agree with that proposition as I believe that, but for the existence of the public universities and the political pressure that often attempts to lessen tuition increases at those institutions, the private universities would cost far more today than they actually do.

I go with history (the best judge of what somebody or some company is going to do is what they've done in the past). The insurance companies will continue to rip off the American public unless they know they might lose business to a less costly competitor (the public option). Even with a public option, the insurance companies will still try to rip off its customers as their primary goal will remain to see how much money they can make; however, maybe the public option might lower the growth of the grab for money.

I don't think there's any hope of bringing health care costs down without a public program that's non-profit. The insurance companies are in business to make profits, which means higher and higher charges unless they have to compete with a public non-profit plan. If the government just forces people to but insurance without any public plan, they'll just be adding 30-40 million more people on which the insurance companies will make bigger profits.

IMHO, the whole American concept of making a profit on delivering health care is capitalism that belongs in another century. What good is having "the best medical care system in the world," if only the rich can afford it ? The greatest good for the greatest number is the only way for a civilized and humane medical care system to function.

I suspect that too many of the pro-health care majority are Afro-American; and they just don't count.

I suspect you don't know what you're talking about and I'm also doubtful that black Americans appreciated your comment (whether intended sarcastically or not).

A substantial majority of the US citizens support health care reform and, as Obama recently said, there's generally 90% agreement on what the new health care reforms ought to look like. There's political infighting on whether a public option ought to be included and whether a buy-in option to medicare at age 55 might be a satisfactory alternative to a public option or, perhaps, just another feature that might help older citizens. Some oppose any form of public option and there actually are some good reasons for that position (every government option we've tried in the health care area - medicare being an example - is going broke very quickly).

My attitude is to get everybody (or as close to everybody) covered as fast as we can and then work to reform whatever gets that done so it's cost efficient (presuming that's even possible). But the coverage is more important than the cost at the moment, at least to me.