Q: What is the difference between a "public option" and a single-payer plan?
A: Single-payer is a complete government-run health insurance system under which everyone is covered, e.g., Canada’s system. The "public option" is a single federal insurance plan that would compete with private insurance companies.
Issues: health insurance
New Ad, Old Claims
Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is out with a new ad, airing on CNN and Fox News, that repeats a few of the group’s claims about a federal health insurance plan: that it could prevent people from keeping their doctor or their health insurance.
The narrator of the ad says that 14 senators’ votes "on the government-run public option plan could decide" whether you keep your doctor or your insurance plan. The "could" makes the claim squishy, but the implication is that the inclusion of a so-called public option in the health care bill will put the public’s ability to keep their current doctors in jeopardy.
Health Care and the Economy
Would the House-passed health care bill make a tough economy worse and wipe out more jobs, as claimed in a TV ad from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? Or would it help small business and encourage economic growth, as claimed in an ad sponsored by a big labor union …
Imprisoned for Not Having Health Care?
Q: Could somebody be imprisoned for not purchasing health insurance under the House health care bill?
A: Both House and Senate bills would levy a tax on persons who refuse to obtain coverage. Willfully evading that tax could result in jail time under the bill passed by the House – but not the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee.
Clunker Claims and Cadillac Plans
The AFL-CIO is running a print ad this week arguing that "the House bill gets it right" on health care. The Senate bill? Not so much, says the labor federation.
Its beef is with the tax in the Senate Finance Committee bill on high-cost (a.k.a. "Cadillac") health care plans. Unions have come out against the tax, saying many of their middle-class members would be affected. The proposal calls for a 40 percent tax on the value of insurance benefits that exceed $21,000 a year for a family or $8,000 for an individual.
The “Government-Run” Mantra
The claim that the House bill would amount to "government-run health care" suffered a blow last week, when the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the so-called "public plan" in the revised bill wouldn’t offer much in the way of competition to private insurers. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from repeating the claim.
For several months, we’ve been debunking assertions that Democratic health care bills call for a Canadian or British-type system in which everyone is insured,
Heather Graham Teaches Us About Polls
The liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org Political Action has released another health care ad featuring a Hollywood celebrity. Last time it was Will Ferrell talking of pygmy horses and executive compensation. This time it’s actress Heather Graham dressing up as a track and field runner (labeled "public option") and challenging health insurance executives to a race.
As part of its argument, the ad says that "over 70 percent of Americans want the public option." We’ve previously caught both liberal and conservative groups misleading the public with polling numbers during this ongoing health care debate,
Cadillac Plans and the Middle Class
The liberal group Health Care for America Now is airing an ad that argues against a tax on high-cost employer-provided health care plans, a revenue-raising aspect of the Senate Finance Committee bill. "Some senators say they want to tax so-called ‘Cadillac’ health care plans, but those proposals will also tax the benefits of millions of middle class workers," the narrator says as an on-screen graphic pops up, claiming "40% tax on health care benefits of middle-class workers."
Striking Out on Antitrust
The liberal advocacy group Americans United for Change features the national pastime in a new ad that attacks the insurance industry and calls for competition in the field.
The ad says that "baseball and insurance are the only industries exempt from antitrust law." But that claim is about as accurate as Randy Johnson’s fastball to John Kruk in the 1993 All-Star game. Antitrust exemptions have been granted to quite a few different industries and groups through legislation and judicial review.
Another Salvo from the Insurance Industry
Just a few days after the release of an insurance industry-backed study that found premiums would go up under the Senate health care bill, another industry-backed report has been published. Both reach the same conclusion about premiums. Both fail to take into consideration certain cost-saving measures in the Finance Committee bill. And both acknowledge that.
In an earlier Wire post, we explained some of the limitations of the first report, drawn up by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the trade group American’s Health Insurance Plans and then flagged as a less-than-adequate evaluation of the bill by PwC itself.