From Doug Henwood, left economist of the Left Business Observer newsletter and listserv who also gets quoted about economics in Alan Abelson’s column in Barron’s. He remains unimpressed with the public option and explains why.
And what about that public option? Well, as Brown’s Politico.com article reports, the insurance companies said they’d accept reforms requiring them to accept everyone, pre-existing conditions or no, only if the gov forced us all to become their customers. And the so-called public option, a government-run insurance company, would have to pay its way without any public subsidies, meaning that its premiums would probably be on a par with, or only slightly lower than, private insurers.
Meanwhile, we’re hearing from a lot of Democrats/ liberals/ progressives/ whatevers that we have to support health care reform, without much discussion of what’s actually in the proposal(s)