The Best Way to Save Obamacare
As someone involved in the debate over the Affordable Care Act from the start, I don’t find these unhappy events all that surprising. From the outset, I’ve argued that without a public option — a Medicare-like plan that would be available to all Americans buying health insurance — insurance competition would dwindle and premiums would skyrocket. Now that they have, it’s time to do now what we should have done then: take the simplest route to a more stable and affordable health care system.
.. We’re already heading toward single payer in sections of the nation — only it’s a private plan doing the paying. Next year, five states will have only one insurer in their exchanges, the online marketplaces set up to allow uninsured Americans to buy subsidized coverage. Nine more states will have just two insurers.
.. The diminishing number of choices doesn’t just hurt consumers; it also makes it harder for regulators to use antitrust tools to push back against this consolidation. Who wants to be the official accused of causing an insurer to leave the exchanges? It’s a perverse equation: As the number of insurers goes down, the leverage they have over regulators goes up.
.. In polls conducted in 2009 and 2010, substantial majorities of Americans said they would feel better about being required to have coverage if they had the choice of a public plan.
.. In polls conducted in 2009 and 2010, substantial majorities of Americans said they would feel better about being required to have coverage if they had the choice of a public plan.