Open Left

I'm trying to figure out...

...what the benefit of a "privatized" public option would be... how would that be any different than anything else.  

Many large companies don't pay insurance premiums for health care clams(i.e. self insured), but pay for the health care directly--they only have insurers run the administration of the plans for a fixed fee.  In most of those cases, the resulting coverage is much better than if the plan was purchased directly from the insurer 'cos the employers aren't nickle and diming their employees with denied benefits.  The insurers have no incentive to challenge claims 'cos it's not on their dime, and denying coverage and making life hell for the employees who could make them demand a different plan from their employer in the future.  So, I guess the one big benefit of such a "public option" would be that the government pays directly for all the costs with the insures only acting as an administrator.  

I do not know if that is how the federal government administers their plans, but if they are the direct payer, then, we kind of do have a public option with this setup.  Remember, that the administration of medicare is also farmed out to third parties in the private sector, so it might not be as bad as we assume...

I will get some more info...

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by: lord_mike @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 22:48:25 PM CDT