Could GOP Governors Be The Key To A Future Single Payer System?

[TrollBuster9090]

5. Yes, that's basically what I was saying here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=881967

Let's say 15 or 20 Republican Governors make a show of not setting up an exchange. The Federal Government can simply set up one exchange to service all 20 of those States, and due to economy of scale (it would, no doubt, include Texas and Florida, with large populations) it would probably offer the most plans at the lowest prices.

One very simple way for the Feds to do this would be to simply open up the Federal Employees health plan exchange to EVERYBODY. Just expand an exchange that already exists, which the people who use it are very happy with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Employees_Health_Benefits_Program

Then, when people see how well it works, other states will ASK to use that exchange, one by one, until there is just a single national exchange!

That's phase I. Phase II is then to simply put a PUBLIC OPTION on that exchange. It wouldn't necessarily be MEDICARE, because this would allow Republicans to scare everybody ala "keep your government hands off my Medicare!" So, an alternative might be to combine ALL of the OTHER government plans (veterans, SCHIP, Medicaid etc.) into a single pool, and sell it on the market. The government run HC plan would probably be like Medicare in that it would have a 1 or 2% operating cost, just like medicare.

In the end, the private HMOs couldn't compete with a non-profit government run plan, and the plans that would remain would be the Government one and maybe some private, non-profit co-ops.

If it were me, I wouldn't move to drive out the co-ops. It might be good to keep just one or two of them around to keep pressure on the government plan to stay as efficient as possible.