give subsidies to people over 65 to purchase private insurance, therefore knocking out the competition.
Medicare had a ready pool of subscribers which allowed them to negotiate prices with providers, the public option has no such ready pool as people can chose to purchase from a private insurance company.
Over 90% of seniors were enrolled in Medicare by the end of the FIRST year.
Obama says that just over 3%, according to the CBO estimate he quoted, would be enrolled in a public option by 2019.
The basic benefits were automatically available to everyone over 65 and financed by an increased payroll tax.
It did not have to be self-financed in contrast with the current public option bills.
How people can say the initial bills on Medicare and the public option are comparable is mind boggling.http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/16/tom-price/medicares-history-public-option"...He started with the administration's proposal to cover hospital services for the elderly, now known as Medicare Part A. He also included a proposal promoted by the committee's senior Republican member, John Byrnes of Wisconsin, who wanted coverage for physicians' services, now Medicare Part B. Finally, Mills included coverage for poor elderly Americans, which is today's Medicaid...
...Here's how an April 8, 1965, report in the New York Time s described the plan:
"As revised, the bill provides the basic hospitalization and nursing care benefits originally proposed by the administration while covering major doctor bills and many other medical expenses under a supplementary insurance program in which participation would be voluntary.
"The basic benefits, financed by increases in the Social Security payroll tax, would be automatically available to persons over 65. The additional coverage would be available to those over 65 who enrolled in the voluntary plan and paid premiums of $3 a month. Half of the voluntary plan's cost would be financed by federal subsidies of about $600 million a year from general tax revenues."
Johnson signed the Medicare law on July 30, 1965, and the program's aministrators began an intensive recruitment drive. At the end of the first year, participation was up to 93 percent of the elderly, according to The Politics of Medicare , a history by Theodore Marmor.As we reviewed the history of Medicare, we noticed that legislators and policymakers drafting the legislation seemed to assume that Medicare participation would be very high. We could find nothing implying that Medicare coverage would compete with private insurers in paying for coverage...
This is markedly different from today's debate and discussion about the public option. Obama has said the public option would be one among many insurance proposals from which people could choose, and that it would be a backstop to keep private insurers honest. He also said it should not be subsidized by other tax revenues but pay for itself with customer premiums..."
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