Free Choice

Posted on 10/29/2009 at 2:06 pm by Bob Cesca

Jon Walker reports that access to the public option and the exchange will be universal within five years.

In theory, by 2015 all employers, and therefore all Americans not on Medicare or Medicaid, could start using the new health insurance exchange for health care. This would give nearly everyone the ability to choose the public option if they wanted.

Of course it’s not available to everyone right away, but it’s much more rapid than the phase-in on the Senate side. Though it’s unclear whether employees would be able to split from their employer-based plan in order to choose the public option. But that’s what it looks like.

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  • Eric

    “They…let us know that January 1, individual premiums will be going up another 20% (they just got an increase in June-July averaging that) and small group coverage will be increasing….are you sitting down?…..60 to 70 fucking percent!”

    That was from a commenter in the “Rat Bastards” post downthread, referring to BCBS in California.I’ve got this feeling that when HCR legislation passes, the for-profit companies are going to go apeshit, doing more and more of this, gouging all they possibly can while they can.We need the exchange to be available before 2013. And it needs to be available to all, from the get-go.

  • chauncey

    I agree, Eric. Three years is too long to allow the insurance mafia to pull out all the stops to game the system. Anyone believe they won’t be going balls-to-the-wall raising rates and denying coverage so they can maximize profits before this kicks in while doing everything they can to get the HCR legislation repealed in the meantime?We think it’s bad now, just wait until the clock starts to tick…they can and will do a helluva lot more damage. I can see it now – “Sorry, Ms. Brown, we had to discontinue covering your chemo treatments since they are sucking my 25 million dollar bonus dry, but don’t worry, HCR kicks in in a couple of years, then you can buy into the public option.”

  • http://broadwaycarl.blogspot.com Broadway Carl

    I’ve got this feeling that when HCR legislation passes, the for-profit companies are going to go apeshit, doing more and more of this, gouging all they possibly can while they can.

    I heard Senator Tom Harkin on Ed Schutlz’s radio show today who said there is legislation to prevent gouging by the insurance companies immediately so that the can’t rob us blind before that 2013 date.Paraphrasing, any premium hike by insurance companies has to be accompanied by proof that 85% of the money they are receiving will be spent directly on health care. The details are still being banged out, but that’s an amendment that’s being put forth.

  • http://broadwaycarl.blogspot.com Broadway Carl

    Adding… there are plenty of other amendments and regulations to go into action immediately as well.

  • Eric

    That’s good to know – thanks, Carl.

  • chauncey

    awww…Carl, does that mean I have to stop being all paranoid and cynical and jaded and shit?Have to admit after watching all this sausage-making(which incidentally is slowly turning me into a vegan), I’m still inclined to believe that every little proposed amendment and regulation is going to be met with hissy fits and vapours worthy of the most obnoxious, spoiled 16 year old southern drama queen – aka TEH AHIP, proxied of course by their shills in the Blue Dog Kennel.

  • ceu

    Medicare was signed into law in 1965…anyone know when it took effect? I don’t think it was 3 or 4 years later, since Harry Truman was given a Medicare card at the signing ceremony – and that was a program that didn’t have the infrastructure in place to administer it.