ICYMI: The Public Option Could Threaten Americans’ Existing Health Coverage

WASHINGTON – In a new op-ed for the Boston Herald, Janet Trautwein, CEO of the National Association of Health Underwriters, explains that the “public option could destroy the private insurance market — and in the process, deprive the majority of Americans of the employer-sponsored coverage they’re comfortable with and like.” She writes:
 
Taxpayers Could Be Forced To Pay For The Public Option’s Unaffordable Costs:

• The “public option could simply offload its administrative costs onto federal taxpayers. Private insurers don’t have that luxury.”

Most Americans Are Satisfied With Their Existing Coverage:

• “People like private insurance. According to polling data from March, two-thirds of Americans with employer-sponsored coverage are satisfied with their current plan. A similar share believes their employer-sponsored plan is high-quality.”

The Public Option Could Threaten Americans’ Existing Coverage:

• “Private insurers would eventually have no one left to cover and would leave the market. By 2033, according to one study, there’d be no private plans available on the exchanges in 14 states.”

• The public option “would also prompt some employers, particularly smaller employers, to drop the plans they sponsor for their employees … Workers may be worse off, as they’ll have to use post-tax wages to pay for a public plan, rather than the pre-tax compensation they currently use for employer-sponsored coverage. An analysis of one public option plan introduced in the House in 2019 found nearly one in four workers would lose their health coverage through work by 2023. By 2032, that figure would rise to one in three.”

To learn more about the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, CLICK HERE.