ICYMI: ‘Public Option-Style Proposals Aren’t Really Options for Americans’

WASHINGTON – In a new op-ed for RealClearHealth, Lauren Crawford Shaver, executive director of the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, highlights a recent study from KNG Consulting, LLC, which provides the latest reminder that proposals like Medicare for America, Medicare buy-in and the public option “would reduce Americans’ health care choices by forcing more and more families into the same one-size-fits-all government-controlled health insurance system.”  She writes:

The study … finds that one such proposal, called “Medicare for America,” could force one-third of American workers off of their current employer provided health care coverage, also known as employer sponsored insurance (ESI), by 2032.  The study warns that by 2023, “nearly one of every four workers who were previously offered ESI would lose access to ESI via their employer, with offer rates falling from 88 to 68 percent … This increases to about one of every three workers losing access to ESI through their employer by 2032.”

The assumption that introducing a government run system as an option, does not create more options.  In fact, this research tells us that for those Americans who are happy with their current health coverage would not be able to keep it under this or similarly proposed systems.  But, it’s not just the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future making this claim, several presidential candidates have stated that similar new government-controlled health insurance systems “will be a very natural glide path to the single payer environment.”  And with roughly 90 percent of Americans covered and millions more eligible for coverage under the existing law of the land, experts have explained that new systems like these would “mainly erode, or ‘crowd out,’ private insurance, rather than provide coverage to the uninsured.”

Not only would a new government-controlled system reduce Americans’ health care choices, it would also burden individuals and our economy with new unaffordable costs and risks.  Our new study finds that instead of addressing rising health care costs, it “would increase total health care spending, with the largest spending increases occurring among those who already had public coverage through Medicare or Medicaid.”  Experts have noted that such a plan “could prove costly” for American families.

… Like Medicare-for-All, public option-style proposals would lead patients to pay more and wait longer for worse care.  Instead of forcing all Americans into a one-size-fits-all system – whether overnight or over time – lawmakers should focus on improving what have by building on what’s working and fixing what isn’t.

• To read Lauren Crawford Shaver’s full op-ed, CLICK HERE.
• To read KNG Consulting, LLC’s findings, CLICK HERE.

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