Opponents of Public Option Flunk Math

Just like they flunk science, and history, and health, and civics, and public speaking, and playground etiquette ....

Scarecrow at Firedoglake explains:

CBO estimated that a Public Option available only to the uninsured, self-insured and small businesses (less than 20 employees) would have saved the federal budget $110 billion over ten years, if the PO paid health care providers at Medicare rates plus 5 percent. The savings would be only $25 billion if the PO were required to negotiate rates with providers. If Congress chooses negotiated rates, it raises budget costs by $85 billion for the limited access exchanges.

These saving would have arisen because with lower prices for public option insurance, and pressure on private insurers to lower their premiums or lose market share, there would have been less need for federal subsidies to achieve the same level of “affordability.” So the switch from Medicare+5% rates to negotiated rates means that premiums for everyone in the exchanges, both public and private plans, will be higher, whether you get a subsidy or not, and on top of that we’ll need $85 billion more in subsidies.

SNIP

In other words, if the fiscal-deficit scolds were genuinely serious about reducing the cost of the reform bill, they would expand eligibility to public health care to a lot more people and forget about shielding private insurers from competition.

But then they’d be accused of creating a powerful argument for Medicare for all, and we can’t have that. Because as Joe Lieberman reminds us, those government entitlement programs just increase the deficits — uh, except when they lower them.

Read the whole thing.

And always remember that when Blue Dogs like Benny Boy Chandler talk about "fiscal responsibility," they're really talking about enriching their corporate donors at the expense of working families.