Enough already! – PNHP’s Official Blog

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Posted by Andrew Coates MD on Monday, Nov 9, 2009

“The House Public Plan: Yes, It’s Worth It” write Jacob S. Hacker and Diane Archer in The New Republic. Jacob Hacker is Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Diane Archer is director of the Health Care Project at the Institute for America’s Future and founder and past president of the Medicare Rights Center.

A Response
to “The House Public Plan: Yes, It’s Worth It”
By Sarah K. Weinberg, MD

Jacob Hacker and Diane Archer ask us to believe that:

…health reform is much more likely to succeed with a public health insurance option, even one with negotiated rates, than if private insurers are left to run the show.

So a public plan that will be available to less than half the population and will attract maybe 2% as enrollees is going to have any effect at all on big insurers? I don’t think so, and I’ll bet the big insurers and their investors don’t think so either. (United Health Group and Wellpoint stock prices are stable this morning.)

In a remarkable paragraph, Hacker and Archer claim that private insurance premiums will be lower because sicker people will selectively enroll in the public plan:

Enough already! – PNHP’s Official Blog