Sparring Opinions: The Public Option

This week we are partnering with the Huffington Post and its Eyes and Ears team for a Health Care News Hunt.

We would like to welcome our new members from Huffington Post and thank them for joining forces with us to find quality news and opinion about health care reform and the new bill that’s now being debated in Congress. Each day this week, we're inviting you to compare stories in different categories: mainstream news on Monday, opinions on Tuesday, cable news on Wednesday, fact-checkers on Thursday, and comedy news on Friday.

Today, we're featuring Sparring Opinions. In recent weeks, debate over health care reform has hinged on whether Congress should include a controversial public insurance option in its final bill. For today's Sparring Opinions, we're comparing two op-eds and a blog post that offer different perspectives on this issue.

Andy Harris, a Republican state Senator from Maryland, rejects a public insurance option, arguing that insurance exchanges, along with other "common sense" reforms, are the most effective way to lower costs:

"Creating a health care "exchange" allows for affordable, accessible and portable insurance for millions of Americans. An "exchange" would let everyone choose their health care insurance from a broad range of options and allow their employer to help pay for it. Competition among insurers would bring down the cost of health care insurance, just as it brings down the cost of car or homeowners insurance."

In the New York Times, Cappy McGarr, founder of a failed insurance exchange firm in Texas, says he knows from experience that such alternatives to a public insurance program don't create enough competition to cut costs:

"If Congress now creates new exchanges, as seems increasingly likely, it must prevent this phenomenon by setting two national rules: Insurers have to accept everyone and have to charge everyone the same rates regardless of health status.

Such rules would force insurers to spread risk. But enforcement would also be difficult. ... It would be smarter for Congress to revisit the idea of creating a public plan that could provide an attractive choice for consumers and real competition for private insurers, to give them the incentive to offer good coverage at affordable prices."

Igor Volsky of Think Progress takes a different view entirely -- political maneuvering, he argues, is the only safe way for Congressional Democrats to secure a public insurance option in the final bill:

"Excluding the public option from the Senate bill could broaden the health care debate. Republicans will complain that they need assurances that a public option won’t be added in during conference. They’ll spend more energy questioning the constitutionality of the individual mandate, the wisdom of eliminating the overpayments to private insurers participating in Medicare Advantage, rationing abortions to women, and ensuring that legal immigrants don’t have access to care ... Democrats will preserve the integrity of the public option. It will remain intact, away from reformers who seek to transform it into a co-op or a “network” of state-based public plans.

Democrats could then add the public option to the final health care bill during conference, when they reconcile the House and Senate bills."

Which one of these do you find most insightful? Weigh in by adding your review to these three stories:

• Reform, not overreach - Baltimore Sun

• A Texas-sized health care failure - New York Times

• Why Reid shouldn't include the public option in the merged Senate bill - Think Progress

Thanks in advance for joining our Health Care News Hunt this week -- the more you review stories on health care reform, the more informed we all get about this important topic. If you need tips on how to review a story on our site, check our quick review guide. You're also welcome to post new stories on this topic. If you have any questions or comments, email us. Look forward to seeing your reviews and posts on our Health Care page.

 

-- Derek Hawkins