New CBO Report: Public Option Will NOT Drive Private Insurers Out Of Business
Oh well, there goes another talking point.
The report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the public option proposed by Democrats would not drive private insurers out of business and most people would still choose to get their medical coverage through employers.
The CBO Report also calls into question the Lewin Group’s analysis:
The CBO report estimated only about 10 million to 11 million people would sign up for the public option by 2019, far fewer than the 103 million cited in another analysis by the Lewin Group. The Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a wholly-owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.
The CBO report also estimated the Democratic proposal would boost enrollment in employer-based plans by about 12 million people because of the mandate for individuals to be insured.
Republicans often cite Lewin Group analysis to make their point that millions of people would lose their current health coverage if the proposed overhaul became law. But the CBO disputed the group’s conclusions.
“We anticipate that our estimate of the number of enrollees in the public plan would be substantially smaller than the Lewin Group’s, even if we assumed that all employers would have that option,” CBO said.
11 million vs 103 million? Pretty big difference.
Here’s the thing that drives me crazy about private health insurers: They have made no attempt to make their industry competitive. They have done nothing to show that they acknowledge there’s a problem, and they sure as hell have shown no interest in fixing any part of health care. Their arrogance is quite breathtaking. Imagine if Maytag, Kenmore, etc. ran their companies like this. They’d be out of business. And the only reason private health insurers aren’t out of business is because they’re really a monopoly.
Tags: Health Care
Stop citing facts, pandora. It’s getting in the way of truthiness.
The CBO has a history of underestimating these things. I would agree with their analysis that people would choose their employer. The problem will be that the employer will find it cheaper not to give them that choice. It will be somewhere in between the two numbers. Massachusetts gives us a clue what the future holds in such a world. That is what I base my somewhere in between upon.
UI – So CBO “estimates” are now considered facts and cited as gospel around here?
C’mon, we all know Pandora plays loose with facts. God forbid someone posts FBI crime data, she might blow up and go on a tirade.
I see lyin’ Mike is in full mode today.
So the Lewin group estimates are a-o.k. but the CBO estimates aren’t? Republicans sure did love them some CBO when they came back with high numbers on one plan. The CBO is quite conservative in its estimates – that means the number would probably be even smaller.
Oh yeah, I forgot that Republicans have changed the meaning of the word non-partisan.
And your comment adds to the discussion how, mike?
If the future was left up to conservatives we’d still be typing on typewriters and traveling by horse and buggy. We’d be… Amish!
What angers me about the private insurance industry is the money they waste on administration and paperwork requirements. They won’t have their trade group design some standard claims and e-forms to speed up and simplify the process. The typical doctor’s office has to have equivalent of one person just to work on the insurance claims. Hospitals are even in a worse situation.
Then the insurance companies hire people who aren’t doctors to tell doctors why the prescription the doctor prescribed is not right for the patient the bureaucrat never met and does not have a complete history for.
The problem is all of these practices are encouraged by our government so the government acting the same way as it does with medicaid won’t solve the problem.
We need an entirely different mindset. My post on the Singapore model is a start. Kavips also had a good post on daily kos in April.
We can do this better than we are, but like the stimulus package the Congress is not pursuing the best way. We have to move beyond partisan finger pointing and look for solutions that work. Then be partisan about those.
Oh I agree David, there are ways to increase efficiency in the medical field, but involving the Federal government is NOT the way to do it, especially not with a public option. If there’s one entity that is the king of bloated bureacracy, inefficiency and administrative waste it’s the Federal government. They are the last people I’d entrust to reduce waste, cut costs, and make the system more efficient.
Pandora – The same way your comments, or DV & Jason’s add to the discussion. Besides, what I said is correct. Don’t worry, we all love you, even if you don’t like to back up what you say.
2nd post: “The problem will be that the employer will find it cheaper not to give them that choice.”
It is already cheaper for employers to not provide healthcare, and yet they (many) do. Why? They need to in order to attract the best employees.
The Republican scare tactics against health insurance reform includes these gems of ’employers will stop offering healthcare’ (if they want their employees to quit) and ‘when employers drop health coverage, their employees will be worse off’ (no, if the employer is large enough, they will need to pay in towards the healthcare of their employes, and most importantly, should they drop health coverage, the employer will have eliminated a big expense, which is not only big enough to cover the fee (of not offering it) but also to boost the pay of their employees who now have to get healthcare on their own.
The employer/employee/insurance/tax system is fairly close to a closed system. The scare tactics used by Tom Carper and the other Senate Republicans opposing health insurance reform conveniently disregard the ramifications of what they point to as problems.
To follow Republicans’ logic, the worst solution for anything is to involve the federal government. That is party platform, right?
I guess that, to be consistent to their principles, they will next propose disbanding the Defense Department, right? It must be ‘the king of bloated bureaucracy, inefficiency and administrative waste.’
I guess that indeed Republicans are the party that is soft on national defense!
Mikey,
Right. Bloated government. Got it. Another flaccid GOP talking point. What else is new?
You forgot to mention that it would be the end of capitalism if there was competition and Insurance company CEO’s don’t get to make $25 million a year.
The battle over insurance reform boils down to the public option. With it, competition will enter the medical industry. People will have another choice in getting coverage not based solely on profits. Most estimates reflect a simple truth: people will join, including those who already have coverage elsewhere. It will be more affordable for many in the middle class who simply cannot afford it. It will force the health industry to put prices in line and offer coverages and thus payouts for healthcare they currently refuse. That is why they are opposed. It will cut their profit margins and make them more accountable. The private sector hates such silliness.
BTW: Is the CBO non-partisan like CRI?
What is fun is that Massachusetts found that few employers dropped their offered health benefits because there were other options via the State. There isn’t much reason to think that would change under this system, either. For small businesses where the increasing costs of covering their employees forces dire sets of choices, having other options to cover people is probably very welcome.
And count me in as wanting to know if these foes of government who is incompetent to do anything and do it more expensively than anyone else will call for a massive downsizing of the DOD.
Cass – I would love to see massive downsizing of the DOD, not to mention the ATF and DEA.
Interesting that this report comes out after Obama Regime officials called in the head of the CBO to strong-arm him over the estimates on ObamaCare.
You want a list of where we should start downsizing?
How about Bush’s “Dept. of Homeland Security” which should never have been created in the 1st place?
Selective facts are fun to use. Do you give as much credit to the CBO when their report talks about how the public option health care plan will increase the deficit over the first decade? And then how they estimate it would continue to increase our deficit over the second decade after passing the bill.
Look, you win some and you loose some. Tit for tat. If this report can shoot a hole through a Republican talking point than a Democrat talking point has also been blown away by the CBO.
we all know mike w. plays loose with the facts.
that was easy.
Truth is that the GOP has been jumping on preliminary CBO studies without knowing what other data and findings are coming down the road. The reason being is that the health care reforms, which are in 5 different Senate committees, are sent to the CBO piece by piece, committee by committee. Look at it this way – A student (public option) has 5 classes in one semester. This student gets a bad grade on one or two tests in a certain class, but aces all other tests, in all classes. According to the GOP, this student is a failure, while the school considers the student an honor student.
Speaking of senate committees, even though the Finance committee said it will drop the public option from its proposal, it really doesn’t matter since the four other Senate committees are working on proposals with a strong public option. So even if another committee drops it, the Senate will have 3 out of 5 committees offering the option. Now take that into reconciliation along with the House’s strong public option proposal and you’ll have decent odds that the final bill will have the public option. It’s not my option; it’s just the probability of it occurring.
So keep on parsing and cherry-picking though incomplete findings and data fellas! You can get even more practice in excuse-making down the road.
also – health care is incompatible with “free market” forces. that is a major reason why costs have increased.
Take the iPhone as an example. It cost $300 and you really want it, but it’s too expensive. So you do without until it hits the price you want to pay. Well 6 months down the road, competitors, Blackberry and such, are offering the same technology for $200 and this gains market share. In response, Apple drops the iPhone to $225, which is in your range so you buy it. See? The comparable competition drives down price while keeping quality. It works.
Now substitute the iPhone with a product called chemotherapy. It’s too expensive, but you cannot wait until the prices drop through market forces, for you’ll be dead. So you have to pay the price set by providers, and competitors can collude to keep prices high since there is no incentive to do otherwise.
“So keep on parsing and cherry-picking though incomplete findings and data fellas! ”
If the CBO’s findings are “incomplete” then your comments (and this entire post) are also “cherry picking.”
No, I agree that a proper assessment only can be made once a single bill is agreed upon after the final House and Senate proposals are reconciled. But if you read my comment on the incompatibility of health care and the “free market”, as it pertains to lowering costs and driving-out inefficiencies, it’s reasonable to suppose that costs will be lower with a public option, for it will create real competition that has never existed.
I think the purpose of the post was to refute a GOP talking point, which it did.
The Feds will offer big subsidies funded by taxpayers. Individuals will not have an option Businesses will go for the cheaper option. Plus. More expensive plans will lose taxprotection. Obama care is FUBAR
Businesses will go for the cheaper option.
Socialist bastards!!
And Mr. Shallow Bench still hasn’t a clue of what he is talking about. I will ask you the same thing I asked of RWR (who is still ignoring the question) — there is a bill in existence and you will need to provide us with the exact text that supports today’s disinformation.
Otherwise we still know you are an idiot and a liar.
“The Feds will offer big subsidies funded by taxpayers. Individuals will not have an option Businesses will go for the cheaper option. Plus. More expensive plans will lose taxprotection. Obama care is FUBAR”
Whaaa? I’m sorry, what are you trying to say? This trail of causation makes zero sense.
VC,
You made the mistake of trying to read what Protack writes. It never makes any sense and any attempt to understand it makes you insane.
Businesses, remember, it’s your patriotic duty to pay for expensive insurance that raises your rates every year. The Republicans told us so.
Agree with the selective memory on what we believe from the CBO.
How does the CBO have a clue what the market will do? What are the CBO’s latest stock market picks? Oh, I forgot, all of the companies that the gov’t owns.
From Repub Dave: “What angers me about the private insurance industry is the money they waste on administration and paperwork requirements. They won’t have their trade group design some standard claims and e-forms to speed up and simplify the process. …Then the insurance companies hire people who aren’t doctors to tell doctors why the prescription the doctor prescribed is not right for the patient the bureaucrat never met and does not have a complete history for. The problem is all of these practices are encouraged by our government so the government acting the same way as it does with medicaid won’t solve the problem. ”
Actually Medicaid is run by your state, not the feds. The federal program — Medicare — does everything you just asked for: it has standard claims and e-filing; it does not discuss patient care on a case by case basis but simply has rules for what it doesn’t pay for (i.e,Rx’s unless administered by a doc and under certain circumstances).
Medicaid has many of its problems because it’s run by the states, varies from state to state, and has a benefit package that can be changed somewhat by state legislatures, whose interests are in the costs of the package, not the health benefits; and eligibility is governed by the state.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s exactly how private insurance is run: varies from state to state, has a benefit package that can be changed at will by the insurer, whose interest is in the pricing of the package, not the health benefits; and eligibility is governed exclusively by the insurer. Oh, yeah, and no standardized forms, desk jockeys deciding on your medical care, etc.
I think Medicaid learned from the insurers, and not the other way around.