Well, this is good, no?



The Congressional Budget Office has completed their “public option” number crunching…

AP this afternoon via MSNBC, updated 12:15 p.m. PT, Sat., Oct . 31, 2009

WASHINGTON – What’s all the fuss about? After all the noise over Democrats’ push for a government insurance plan to compete with private carriers, coverage numbers are finally in: Two percent.

That’s the estimated share of Americans younger than 65 who’d sign up for the public option plan under the health care bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is steering toward House approval.

The underwhelming statistic is raising questions about whether the government plan will be the iron-fisted competitor that private insurers warn will shut them down or a niche operator that becomes a haven for patients with health insurance horror stories.

[snip]

Congressional Budget Office weighs in

The latest look at the public option comes from the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan economic analysts for lawmakers.

It found that the scaled back government plan in the House bill wouldn’t overtake private health insurance. To the contrary, it might help the insurers a little.

The budget office estimated that about 6 million people would sign up for the public option in 2019, when the House bill is fully phased in. That represents about 2 percent of a total of 282 million Americans under age 65. (Older people are covered through Medicare.)

The overwhelming majority of the population would remain in private health insurance plans sponsored by employers. Others, mainly low-income people, would be covered through an expanded Medicaid program.

[snip]

The concern was that the public option would destabilize the bulk of private insurance, but in fact what Congress has fashioned is very targeted,” said economist Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund. “It’s not going to be taking away the insurance industry’s core business.”

[snip]

The version that Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has offered would let states opt out, probably leaving a smaller plan than the House would want.

Insurers aren’t buying the budget office analysis. Asked if it might soften that opposition, industry spokesman Robert Zirkelbach of America’s Health Insurance Plans responded with a curt “No.”

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    • Edger on November 1, 2009 at 01:21
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    wants to let states opt out… :-/

  1. the peasants rejoiced…”

    :-/

    okay, edge, wheres the frikkin party?! Ill bring wine.

  2. I opted out of being a governor and that’s workin’ out GREAT!  Loads of money, time to go shopping, sleepin’ late every morning . . . this is the life.  

  3. Let me see if I can word this correctly.  One step at a time.

    You can’t see-  You can’t see the infinite details of the true evil of anything Congress passes until much later.  Such things have to be modeled by AI Sim City type programs for their max destruct of America properties first.  Hey, I mean is it not obvious they lie, everybody lies.  I am from Massachusetts, I have to buy junk insurance and if I happen to be over that ancient age of 55 they will just bill my estate when I die.

    Now if anyone currently in the 18-30 TV watching generation dares ever venture out in public without 17 bottles of Purell of full face HEPA certified masks, God forbid.  An entire generation of germophobe/hypocondriacs in about three months.  Gee, I’d save that is a fucking marketing miracle.

    Hence it doesn’t matter because I can still Google the drug of my choice to watch the lawyers chase after your business too.  Codex Alimentarius takes effect this December so Monsanto and the Meatrix does own the world.  Soylent green isn’t far behind.

    Oh and that bitch Pelosi should have lost to Cindy Sheehan save for dirty campaign tactics.  That and the “compassionate” left chucking Cindy aside.

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