Credit Where It's Due
The President did, quite specifically, say that the public option will be forced to make a go of it out of premiums, not the Federal Treasury. No ambiguity about it. It will be just like the USPS, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae… well, maybe those aren’t the best examples, but I get what he means.
He also said that the public option will realize its savings from being a not-for-profit entity (that should lower costs by about six percent) and by not paying the executives who run it — I don’t think that’s quite what he meant to say but, again, I get it. And, since the program will only be available to those who seek it, there will be no sales, marketing or advertising expenses.
No word on administrative costs or taxes, but it looks like the public option will enjoy about a 10% cost advantage over the for-profit insurers who will, no doubt, flock to the exchanges to scoop up the otherwise uninsurables for whom that will be the primary market. What could go wrong?
I have mixed feelings about his assurance that we will no longer be paying the health care costs of the 12 million or so illegal aliens living and working in this country. On the one hand, I don’t think that people who entered this country illegally should be given anything, let alone free health insurance, on the other hand, come on, we don’t want them coughing and bleeding all over everything while they’re here. Anyway, I just don’t believe him when he says that they will not be covered in some way (<cough>taxes<cough>). I’m not calling him a liar, you understand, just sayin’.
September 11th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Well, illegal immigrants will always be covered in emergency rooms, which is what Wilson was yelling about, I think. I don’t really see how that’s preventable (or that we’d even really want to). I think any laws that may have been on the books to try and prevent exactly that were repealed when citizens had trouble getting care in emergency situations. After all, what child carries around proof of citizenship?