Got Health Insurance? Fighting for a Public Option Might Just Get You a Raise!

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted June 29, 2009.

Those are the hard numbers. More difficult to quantify are the ancillary problems with our current system. Anecdotal evidence suggests that more and more people are staying in crappy relationships -- or getting married to people they don't really dig -- or clinging desperately to dead-end jobs that they hate in order to keep (or get) coverage 

If done right -- and the devil is certainly in the details -- a public insurance plan would go a long way toward solving these problems. Companies that don't provide insurance to their employees would be required to pay into the pool. Depending on how the final plan is structured, individuals will probably be required (or at least given incentives) to carry insurance, and those who aren't raking it in would be able to take advantage of subsidized premiums. 

It's a hybrid plan -- somewhere between the fractured for-profit insurance we have now and the kinds of health care systems the citizens of other advanced countries have. And while single-payer advocates (like myself) believe that creating a tax-financed universal insurance system that offers basic care to everyone is the cleanest, most straightforward way of financing health care (and has the greatest potential for savings), the thinking behind the hybrid plan is that it's vitally important to allow those who enjoy their current insurance to hold onto it.  

Those who do would benefit from bringing health spending in line with overall economic growth. Getting a hold of rising health care costs frees up money for other priorities -- we currently pay more to Big Health than we spend educating our children, building roads or eating.  

And contrary to the spin, getting the uninsured covered will cost less, over the long haul, than leaving them without care. Each and every one of us who has insurance is already spending almost a $1,000 per year to subsidize emergency care (and various unpaid hospital bills) for the uninsured, according to the National Coalition on Health Care.

And even discounting the moral questions of leaving people living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world to fend for themselves, the economics make no sense -- it's far cheaper to treat someone for a cold in a doctor's office than in the ER. It's far cheaper to prevent an illness than it is to treat it. 

A system with a public option would also break the automatic link between your job (or your spouse's job) and your insurance. If you want to tell your boss to take that job and shove it -- or dump that loser who's been making you crazy -- you can do so comfortable in the knowledge that decent, affordable insurance is available to you. 

So if you're insured, the question isn't whether you should fight to reform our creaky health care system on behalf of those who don't have insurance out of the goodness of your heart. If the plan is well designed, the simple fact is it'll leave you healthy, put some extra dollars in your pocket and free you from the indentured servitude of employer-based health care.

See more stories tagged with: health care reform, public option

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

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