You're just pulling that political answer out of thin air. ACA metal tier plans already do that.
The public option would definitely be contracted out to private company to administer, and it would play by basically all the same rules as the metal tier plans through the ACA.
Attacking the ACA doesn't build the case for Congress to suddenly be effective.
It's not a conspiracy theory that progressives are attacking the ACA and don't want to fix it.
1: Even if that's true, and I don't think it is, not really, unless we provide considerable expanded subsidy to private insurers, I rather doubt that the ACA market place system with all its fragmentation would provide care in a more cost effective manner than a consolidated public insurance option.
2: Again, even if its administration was contracted out to a private insurer, that doesn't address the totality of my points concerning relative ease of adjustments to the PO program, formation of a greater standard by which the private sector will be judged, consolidation of tax payer dollars away from what is almost certain to be a comparatively inefficient subsidy/tax payer dollar give away to multiple private insurers versus more efficient consolidation in a public option that has superior powers of negotiation for cost control as per the CBO, and can serve as a robust, graduated path to singlepayer, etc....
3: No, but primarying and defeating industry shills like Joe Lieberman and getting them out of government certainly does. Political pressure, effective bully pulpit, and party whips all help.
4: No. It's more that fixed or not, progressives don't think ACA goes far enough, and they're right; to state what should be obvious isn't to attack ACA, nor is critiquing ACA's failings earnestly. Not only will it probably not achieve universal coverage, fixes or not, but it will do relatively little to get our health costs and spend anywhere close to being on par with the rest of the developed world.
Which pretty much shows just how weak the support is...
...otherwise the other high risk patients are already covered under either Medicaid or private insurance. The group that is not currently covered by insurance.. is NOT the high risk group. They are not elderly or disabled. And in general are healthy enough to work enough that they don't meet Medicaid requirements.. but don't make enough to afford healthcare. So the reality is that to cover those that don't have insurance... we DON"T need to increase subsidy of high risk patients. Because the group without insurance is not these folks.
Clipped for brevity.
A: No, it shows you that there is an overall and substantial lean towards the PO that is subject to influence and advocacy. Again, even when you slam the PO with absolutely no positive arguments in its favour, it still has 40% support, which is substantial. By contrast, a neutral presentation has super majoritarian support.
B: That a specific implementation of the PO at a certain point of time did not permit employers to buy into the PO does not forbid another version of the PO from allowing them to do so, especially when even more moderate Democrats these days look to the PO as a bridge to singlepayer, nor does it forbid the subsequent expansion of that same specific PO proposal to accept employer buy ins.
C: I already did several times, but sure, here it is again:
CBO Predicts Medicare Public Buy-In Would Lead to Higher Insured Rates and Lower Costs | Consumer Watchdog |
Budget Options, Volume 1: Health Care | Congressional Budget Office
D: I said help, not completely mitigate. In otherwords, while I'm sure that the overall risk pool for the PO would be worse than that of private insurers, as the PO provides guaranteed and affordable healthcare to those with pre-existing and serious conditions, a good chunk of that elevated risk should be offset by the PO's attractiveness to more healthy citizens.
E: Again, there are far too many cracks in the current system, and not all of them are filled by Medicare or Medicaid. If you have pre-existing and serious conditions, and don't qualify for either of these, unless you have more money than god, you're basically ****ed in terms of getting private insurance. Moreover, even among people who are relatively healthy, quality, individually purchased insurance can be prohibitive, especially among poorer Americans, or even those in the lower middle class.
