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To: GraceZ who wrote (219304)	9/9/2009 7:19:40 AM
From: James Hutton	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

I haven't heard a lot of people clamoring to get rid of Medicare cause it's coverage is bad; I've only heard people complain because of the cost to younger people (certainly a valid concern). Which is my first question (and one of the republican complaints) - would a public option necessarily provide bad coverage? (a different question than the cost to society at large). As to your second point, is it a bad thing that there isn't "primary" non-Medicare coverage for people past age 65 if people don't complain about the government coverage? Why does it matter if there is little private sector coverage? What does it say about the private sector if it can't provide coverage that equals Medicare at less than Medicare's cost? That is isn't as efficient as the government? Isn't that what Wendell Potter basically said in his Bill Moyers interview - that Medicare overhead is actually far less than private insurance overhead? Again, I haven't really followed the debate closely cuz who knows what the final product will be. I'm just confused when it comes to arguments against a public "option." If the republicans are trying to keep out a public plan because of the cost to society, that's one thing. I don't understand the other part of the argument that it will push out the private sector - unless the fact of the matter is that the private sector can't compete because of its own inefficiency.