Comment & Debate
Ezra Klein. “Health Care Reform for Beginners: The Many Flavors of the Public Plan” Washington Post. June 8, 2009: “[Insurance industry] employs platoons of adjusters whose sole job is to get out of paying for needed health care services that members thought were covered.”
John Holahan and Linda Blumberg. “Is the Public Plan Option a Necessary Part of Health Reform?” Urban Institute: “private insurers have denied claims and delayed payments to individuals with high health care needs as a way to control costs. To achieve high rates of voluntary participation in insurance coverage and to create a sense that a mandate to obtain coverage is fair, all individuals, regardless of health status, should have an insurance option with which they feel comfortable. The public plan would play that role for a significant segment of the population. While reformed insurance markets will limit the current ability of private insurers to avoid the sick, in practice, oversight will not be perfect and thus regulations will not be perfectly enforced.”