Reports are flying around Capitol Hill on how the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) will score the House healthcare reform bill offered last week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but one report has already emerged and it is being claimed as a victory for both sides. The CBO has released a report that only 2% of Americans will likely sign up for the “public option” by 2019 when it is fully up and running. This amounts to a mere 6 million Americans. Those who support the bill call this a sign that it will not bleed private insurance companies dry. Those opposed to the bill see it as a clear sign that the measure is a waste of time and taxpayer money.
The goal of the “public option” – at least initially – was to provide health insurance for the 45 million uninsured in this country. That was the objective of a move that most believe will raise the health insurance costs of more than 100 million Americans. So, how is it that the bill will fall so painfully short?
It is a result of compromise and negotiation behind closed doors. This bill had to emerge as a fiscally reasonable measure or it wouldn’t have been worth the paper that it is yet to be written on. The truth of the matter is that they know that this proposal will only reach 6 million Americans and they are fine with that. It will give them the justification that they need 6 months, a year, or two years from now to expand it into what they originally envisioned. This is simply how government entitlement programs come about and how they expand upon themselves over generations. When they appear inadequate they are expanded. They cannot be scaled back or done away with altogether because once they are ingrained in the American system they are too ‘important’ to take away. That is why they are called entitlements rather than temporary quick-fixes. 2% of Americans will be insured by the healthcare bill that emerges in 2009, but millions more will fall under this plan by 2019 when it is completely up and running.
The budget office estimated that about 6 million people would sign up for the public option in 2019, when the House bill is fully phased in. That’s about 2 percent of a total of 282 million Americans under age 65; older people are covered through Medicare.
The vast majority of the population would remain in private health insurance plans sponsored by employers. Others, mainly low-income people, would be covered through an expanded Medicaid program.
To be fair, most people would not have access to the new public plan. Under the House bill, it would be offered through new insurance exchanges open only to those who buy coverage on their own or work for small companies. Yet even within that pool of 30 million people, only 1 in 5 would take the public option.
Who’s likely to sign up?
The budget office said “a less healthy pool of enrollees” would probably be attracted to the public option, drawn by the prospect of looser rules on access to specialists and medical services.
As a result, premiums in the public plan would be higher than the average for private plans. That could nudge healthy middle class workers and their families to sign up for private plans.
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar,
The Associated Press
There will be a surge once this bill passes. People will flee to it once it is the cheaper option.
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