It's true, a Public Option for Healthcare Insurance already exists.
We only need to convince Congress to change the eligibility criteria.
Medicare and Medicaid are Public Option, they are funded and managed at the Federal and State levels. They cost about 3-4% to operate, leaving almost 95% of the funds in the system to pay for actual healthcare.
But right now, only the elderly, poor and indigent are allowed to access these Public Option Insurance programs.
Don't you think it's about time for Congress to wake up and smell the coffee?
I (as some of you may know) work in healthcare.
I run the front desk (which means I wear about six hats during the day) of a small, private medical practice.
We are an adults only primary care practice.
We see mostly those on Medicare and Medicaid insurance, the elderly and also poor, younger people.
What we don't see a lot of are young, working adults (aged 25 to 55).
This is the group of people who cannot afford private healthcare insurance premiums. I know, I am one of them. I am nearly 50. I have type II diabetes (oral medication, no insulin), and have had four serious surgeries, with general anesthetic since the age of 26 (two C-section deliveries, a burst gallbladder requiring a cholecystectomy and an ectopic pregnancy resulting in a burst fallopian tube).
If a private insurance company would accept me, the monthly premium would be most of my monthly take home pay (about $1650 a month).
Our working adults in this country, the very people who work 40 hour weeks (and some who work lots of regular overtime), are those who are quite often without any healthcare insurance at all. Think those 45 million Americans without healthcare insurance are all unemployed slackers?
Think again.
If this nation is to continue to function, we must find a way to insure the health of our working adults. To do otherwise is to court disaster. How many of you know a working adult who is also, in addition to a full-time job, caring for an aging parent, or has moved them into their own home?
Perhaps, they also have one or more of their grown children (with grandchild in tow) back in the home nest?
Working class adults are burning the candle at both ends, while walking a tightrope of financial crisis compounded by family crisis, and all the while terrified of a personal healthcare crisis - because what the hell will happen if they end up the hospital because they didn't get any healthcare insurance from work and can't afford any private plan (if one will take them with existing conditions like Hypertensive Heart Disease or Diabetes). What will happen then? Most of these people already know what will happen - bankruptcy and foreclosure and loss of all their hard-worked for assets.
For these reasons, I beg of you, call your frackin' Senators and Representative and demand they open Medicare and Medicaid to all Americans.
Times are too hard, life is too short, and the American Dream is beyond the reach of too damn many Americans these days.
The least the our duly elected Congress can do for us to provide us with a Healthcare Insurance option that will ensure the hourly wage slaves in this country can stop deciding between the mortgage payment and the Emergency Room bill.
The least the our duly elected Congress can do for us to provide us with a Healthcare Insurance option that will ensure that we can sleep at night without fear of losing the home we've been paying on for decades, because of an uninsured hospitalization and/or surgery.
The least the our duly elected Congress can do for us to provide us with a Healthcare Insurance option that will ensure our working class stays healthy enough to keep working long enough to pay off the frackin' Great Wall St. Bailout of 2008 & 2009.
So, this Memorial Day Holiday weekend, you think about it.
On Tuesday, May 26th - you call your Senators and Representatives and tell them to do what they can, what they should, what you need them to do:
Change the eligibility requirements for Medicare and Medicaid. Allow any American the option of choosing Medicare or Medicaid for their healthcare insurance option. Use a reasonable scale to configure premiums and require all employers to contribute something.
If that means private insurance companies need to offer some other products to the public to skim their profits off of - so be it.
My generation can no longer afford to keep the insurance industry in gold plated flatware and valet parking. Times are hard boys, time to suck it up and find a new line of work. THIS ONE IS CLOSED TO YOU AFTER TODAY.