A new bill is arising from the House of Representatives to require additional tax payments from insurance companies who offer “Cadillac” insurance plans. The additional tax is supposedly going to help defray the cost of any new public health options being offered.
Since February 2009, there has been a whole hullabaloo regarding the establishment of a public health option with the purpose of “competing with existing private plans”.
However, we already have a public health option which has been in place for over three decades…It’s called Medicaid. The problem is that with the economy in shambles, more people are finding themselves just missing the financial cut off to qualify for Medicaid and not having enough to afford private insurance.
Instead of having propositions to change health insurance as we currently know it for the masses, perhaps we should be directing our attention to merely changing the level of the bar to let a more realistic number of people qualify for this public program.