In Praise of the (Dying) Public Option

By Christopher Moore

Public option? Heck, after this year, I don’t believe in a private option.
My personal experience with health care tells me that single-payer is the best way to go. Still. I know that is not going to happen, cause I still read about the news. And since the rest of the nation is not with me on this, I’m willing to pretend that the president’s plan represents significant progress, especially since it has all the right enemies lining up against it.
Indeed, when conservatives ask me whether I want the government running the health care system, I think back on my most recent experience with our fabled private insurance system and I have to say: bring it on.
How could I think otherwise? I spent a healthy chunk of 2009 on the phone with insurance companies, trying to figure out if I am still insured for health or for dental or whether my checks have been received or if the next time the doctor sends over her bill, it might actually be paid.
When running for president last year, then-Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had a couple of lines about how even insured people worry about whether they are actually covered. That’s so true (like a lot of things that Clinton said during that campaign). There’s absolutely a feeling of uncertainty even among those of us who have insurance.
It becomes a guessing game. For entertainment value, we call the 24-hour hotline and punch a few buttons on the phone to inquire if we are still really covered. Or we ask if a specific procedure is covered. There’s too much built-in drama about the insurance business—and it’s way too much of a business and not enough of a social contract.
For me, the drama has been Cobra-related. Since I managed to do something trendy—get laid off from a print media job—I have learned a lot about Cobra and the not-so-wonderful world of post-work insurance. I’ve also learned that there’s something worse than the insurance companies: the outsourced, big-name human resources departments that serve as a middleman between the insurers and the insured. It gets pretty complicated when one organization tells me I’m insured and another one tells me I’m not. One person says they’ve contacted the insurers, then the insurers report they do not have that data in the computer yet. The strain of it all has brought me to tears on two occasions, three if you count the time I started weeping in my dentist’s office on West End Avenue. I guess we should count that.
I’m hardly the only one who is stressed out. All this misinformation and madness happens with our existing, private system. And I’m supposed to be afraid of government bureaucrats? Well, I’m not.
So bring on government health care. Please. Pronto. Especially since my experience with the government itself, namely New York’s Department of Labor, has been so pleasant. I’m talking about unemployment insurance, not my favorite subject, but one that is handled sensibly online and impressively in person. I’ve been to three panel discussions sponsored by the unemployment division on Varick Street. Each time I’ve come away knowing things I did not know. Each time I’ve been impressed with the professionalism I’ve encountered. Each time I’ve been amazed at how the counselors and speakers there treat people like me, people who are going through some of the worst moments of their lives. Each time I’ve been reminded that government is not them, it’s us. We’re the government.
And I think it’s time we took care of ourselves, especially when it comes to health care.
Yes, I’ve heard the Republican rant about how health care reform is not as important as jobs, jobs, jobs. One of the main terrors of losing a job, though, is losing health care. The two issues are inextricably related. But they shouldn’t be. So let’s divide them and make certain that Americans have health care—whether they have a job or not.