"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

Ha! I thought you were talking about the health plans managed by the
federal
Office of Personnel Management. g They run the FEHB program for federal
employees.

I was wondering what you thought I meant by OPM.


FWIW, Larry is full of crap. The public option has nothing to do with the
subsidy plans. It scares the hell out of private insurance companies
because, if it's run as well as Medicare, it will beat their prices by
15% -
25% or more.

Will it run as bad as Medicaid?

Each state runs its own Medicaid. State governments in general are
incompetent to do much more than name the official state bird. James Madison
had it right: the more local the government, the less competent it is likely
to be.



The trouble with it is that the private insurers will try to co-opt it,
through lobbying, so that it becomes the sinkhole for people with
pre-existing conditions. Then costs will go up, and the private insurers
can
go back to printing money.


Ed, I hope you realize there are a lot of people that really think the
public option is
going to be affordable as in 100 to 200 bucks a month. That isn't going
to happen.

I don't know who those people are, Wes. For some people with *very* low
incomes, it may well come out to a cost like that -- as will subsidized
private insurance.


I'd still like to see a rate schedule for the public option, the
particulars of what is
covered, co pays, and all that messy stuff that ruins the dream.

Wes

Have you looked for one? There have been some projections. I haven't paid
much attention to them myself. I'm more interested in putting an end to the
unpaid emergency room care; getting a grip on pharmaceutical costs (which
isn't really in the bill, but which it will enable); and putting the AMA on
the spot to start doing something about health care costs. Right now that's
in the hands of the private insurance companies, and they've failed at it,
utterly. That's not because they're stupid or evil. It's because they have
no incentive to do so. In fact, their incentive is quite the opposite.

Once the system is somewhat rationalized, with universal care and some tools
that let us grab medical care and insurance by the balls, it will be a
matter of how intelligently we use those powers. That's a big "if." But
right now, it's running out of control, with no incentives for anyone to
control costs. As David Brooks put it, it's a system of "perverse
incentives."

--
Ed Huntress