Chicken is a game played by small boys. Two boys ride their bicycles towards each other. The first one to swerve loses. If neither swerves an accident occurs. We now have this game being played in Congress. We call it Health Care Reform. The question before us is whether it would be worse for Democrats to fail on health care reform or support health care reform that busts the budget of both individuals and the government? To have health care reform without the public option busts the budget. But if the votes are not there for the public option the alternative to no public option is no health care reform.
Affordable health care reform requires a public option. There can be no compromise on this. No public option means no affordable health care reform. With no public option the cost of health care will continue to increase far faster than the rate of inflation. We simply can't control health care costs without controlling health insurance company profits. Health care reform without a public option is simply a transfer of wealth from individuals and the government to profit making health insurance companies. It is simply another transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.
Unfortunately the reality is a public option means government sponsored health insurance. This runs into opposition from that portion of the American population that simply hates government on general principles. I suspect that is between ten and fifteen percent of the population. Their representatives will lose their votes if they support a public option. So at best you will only have representatives for between eighty-five and ninety percent of the population behind any government sponsored health insurance option. Then we must subtract from the potential support for a public option those representatives who have been bought by the health insurance industry. Given the amount of money the health insurance industry has to spend there are a considerable number of such representatives. Add these two groups together and they may very well come to more than half the representatives in Congress. Therein lies the problem with the public option.
So to say one will not support health care reform without a public option means taking the risk there will not be health care reform. There is just no getting around that fact. This is why President Obama does not give a public option his full support. Not passing some kind of health care reform would be a disaster for both the President and his party. But in the long run passing a health care reform bill that increases costs for both individuals and governments at all levels would be an even worse disaster for both the President and his party. And to get the cost saving public option he must risk not getting a bill at all.