- When you need life-saving care, private insurance companies only profit by denying you and letting you die. If you have payed your premiums on time all your life, you're as likely to be dropped by your private insurance company when you need life-saving care as you are to get treated. A public option gives you a lifeline.
- Private insurance companies are spending over $1M a day to kill the public option by inventing phony citizen groups, and trying to scare the elderly about euthanasia and pro-lifers with abortion; they know the only way to kill reform is to get people of good conscience fighting, while they laugh all the way to the bank. They don't think very highly of our intelligence.
- We pay more than any other country to be 24th in life expectancy: while the average Canadian family spends less than $2000 a year on health care with no waiting periods, the average American family spends $29,000 a year, waiting for private insurance companies to approve every procedure.
- 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every day; 46M are uninsured.
- 18,000 Americans DIE each year due to lack of health care: THAT'S 50 A DAY.
- Two-thirds of American personal bankruptcies are related to health care costs.
- Businesses - particularly small businesses - cannot afford to provide health insurance for their employees under the current employer based private insurance system, and will be forced to either drop their coverage or go out of business unless a public option is passed.
- One-sixth of all our government spending is on health care, twice as much as any other country spends out of its budget. Our nation pays $2.5 trillion for care costing $912 billion .
- Every independent estimate says the public option will save us money, from saving 150 billion dollars (CBO) to saving 265 billion dollars (Commonwealth). The Congressional Budget Office estimates the current bill in the House would leave a 6 billion dollar surplus.
- So - if you'd rather spend more taxpayer money, bankrupt businesses, AND pay $29,000 a year for your family's private insurance coverage in exchange for a policy that can be dumped the second you actually need it, then the current system is great for you. If you'd rather spend less, wait less, have less of a chance of dying, and want to remove the corporate bureaucrat from between you and your doctor, then a public option is the way to go. Right now, even if you're lucky enough not to be dropped by your provider when you need urgent medical care, your private insurance company can overrule your doctor's advice for life-saving treatment and only offer to cover something cheaper; a public option would remove that middleman and leave these decisions where they belong, between the patient and doctor.
Any elected Democrat making the case for health care should know these arguments in and out. They're quick, they're effective, and when communicated in sequence, they're bulletproof. Most importantly, they kill every Republican talking point while staying consistently on the offensive.
A super simplified overview would be:
- Don't believe for a second that you're immune
- They must think we're fucking idiots
- You're getting ripped off
- The walls are closing in
- The threat is a mortal one
- People are going broke
- Businesses are going broke
- Our government is going broke
- A public option saves everyone money
- Private insurance is what's killing the patient-doctor relationship
Steps one through three in sequence are what especially open the door for undecided citizens on the issue to listen to the remainder of the argument without glazing over at all the figures. Voters first listen if they think something effects THEM, they resent being tricked, and they hate being robbed - in that order; it's the same strategy Republicans have been using successfully (in their case, with boldface lies) for years: it begins with fear to grab the viewer, then taking umbrage to identify with the viewer, and finally telling the viewer who is taking them to the cleaners now that the trust has been earned. Perhaps it's time someone applied that strategy honestly for a change, as the genuine sense of fear, umbrage, and thievery surrounding our murder by spreadsheet health care system is thoroughly legitimate and justified, and has to be brought to the attention of the electorate for the desperately needed public option to become the law of the land.
Sources for the less commonly known statistics (h/t to NBBooks and Edgar):
(1) Americans are just as likely to be dropped as they are to receive care from private insurance when life-saving treatment is actually needed.
(3) The statistic of an average Canadian family paying less than $2000 a year is based on an average Canadian paying $40 a month, multiplied by twelve months ($480 per year), multiplied by a family of four ($1920 per family per year).