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Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold

Dandelion Salad

by Kip Sullivan
PNHP’s official Blog
July 20, 2009

The people who brought us the “public option” began their campaign promising one thing but now promote something entirely different. To make matters worse, they have not told the public they have backpedalled. The campaign for the “public option” resembles the classic bait-and-switch scam: tell your customers you’ve got one thing for sale when in fact you’re selling something very different.

When the “public option” campaign began, its leaders promoted a huge “Medicare-like” program that would enroll about 130 million people. Such a program would dwarf even Medicare, which, with its 45 million enrollees, is the nation’s largest health insurer, public or private. But today “public option” advocates sing the praises of tiny “public options” contained in congressional legislation sponsored by leading Democrats that bear no resemblance to the original model.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the “public options” described in the Democrats’ legislation might enroll 10 million people and will have virtually no effect on health care costs, which means the “public options” cannot, by themselves, have any effect on the number of uninsured. But the leaders of the “public option” movement haven’t told the public they have abandoned their original vision. It’s high time they did.

via Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold – PNHP’s official Blog

From the archives:

Tax the rich to pay for health care? + Weiner Blasts the Critics of Health Reform

Obama’s Press Conference: Health care key to economy

Kucinich on States and Single Payer Health Care

Health Care Is Not The Only Socialized Thing We Need To Stop – Here Are 20 More!!

Kucinich Secures Congressional Victory for States’ Single Payer Drive

6 thoughts on “Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold”

  1. Pingback: Kucinich and Weiner on Single Payer « Dandelion Salad

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  3. The Democrats are in-bed with the health insurance companies along with the Republicans. If your Congressperson/Senators (no matter which party, D, R or I) do not support Single Payer Health Care for all Americans, don’t re-elect them.

    Time for more Independents to be elected, imo.

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  5. Pingback: Kucinich keeps Single-Payer healthcare alive by Michael Carmichael « Dandelion Salad

  6. Pingback: Tax the rich to pay for health care? + Weiner Blasts the Critics of Health Reform « Dandelion Salad

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