Insurance Companies Admit: Public Would Like Public Option

(Analysis.) Since the Democratic leadership has ignored the “Medicare for All” bill and has instead opted to keep for-profit companies in the basic medical insurance business, though in competition with a non-profit public option, those companies have focused on scuttling that public option.3031 The companies complain that, as a recent ad put it, “tens of millions will lose their current insurance, and wind up on the government health plan.”32 But were that to happen, it would be by choice. A company would choose to pay into the “insurance exchange” pool, rather than go through another cycle of shopping for a group plan.33 A worker would then choose the government plan over all of the private plans on the insurance exchange menu. So when the insurance companies make that complaint, they also make an admission: that many millions would like the public option better than any of theirs.