Reply #7: not good enough, according to some research . . .

[OneBlueSky]

see this thread started by DUer PHIMG last Friday . . .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5526078

the important part . . .

"Unfortunately, these massive potential savings on bureaucracy can only be achieved through a single payer reform. A health reform plan that includes a public plan option might realize some savings on insurance overhead. However, as long as multiple private plans coexist with the public plan, hospitals and doctors would have to maintain their costly billing and internal cost tracking apparatus. Indeed, my colleagues and I estimate that even if half of all privately insured Americans switched to a public plan with overhead at Medicare’s level, the administrative savings would amount to only 9% of the savings under single payer."

(snip)

"In sum, a single payer reform would make universal, comprehensive coverage affordable by diverting hundreds of billions of dollars from bureaucracy to patient care. Lesser reforms — even those that include a public plan option — cannot realize such savings. While reforms that maintain a major role for private insurers may be politically attractive, they are economically and medically nonsensical."

- more (including links) . . .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5526078