When one hears about so-called compromise bills being disussed in the Senate without a public option, one can only wonder:
Don't they get it?
A real and robust public option IS the compromise.
It is the ONLY compromise.
It is the ONLY compromise, not just because 75% of the public demands as much - although no Senator would be wise to ignore that - but because the remaining alternatives are UNTENABLE.
The alternative on one side would be single payer, which would be ideal, except it would kill the private insurance industry and all its jobs overnight. Given the economic hole we are digging out of and the need for not only long term but short term job growth to reduce unemployment, this is untenable.
The alternative on the other side would be health care reform without a real public option, even worse than the system we have today, where tens of thousands of Americans with life-threatening illnesses and injuries would not only die every year because they still couldn't afford health insurance, but would also have to pay a penalty to the government for violating the universal mandate on top of it - a debt inevitably falling to the family of the deceased, adding insult to injury. This is also untenable.
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