Did health insurance industry report backfire?
Support for a “strong public option” appears to be growing in the House of Representatives.
One of the reasons is that a health insurance industry report predicting higher premiums if Congress fails to enact a healthcare overhaul without a strong mandate for individuals to purchase coverage appears to have backfired.
Democratic aides say support for a strong public health plan to compete with insurers is gaining strength in the House which is weighing three versions of the public option.
The White House and congressional leaders blasted the report, written for America’s Health Insurance Plans, calling it misleading and flawed.
The report’s author, PricewaterhouseCoopers, acknowledged that it only took into account certain aspects of the bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee and omitted analyses of provisions, including government subsidies, that would lower premium costs.
Democratic leaders in the Senate are working to blend the Finance Committee bill, which has no public option, with a measure with a public option passed by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
They appear more determined than ever to stop insurers from raising premiums.
Mandating that private citizens puchase insurance or they will be fined/taxed/penalized only guarantees those profits in perpetuity. Let’s see what 67 year old diabetic Mitch McConnell’s or 40 year old chain smoker John Boehner’s premiums would be. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 per month