re: #35 Floral Giraffe

And, if we go to “Medicare for all” there will be a LOT of suprised people.
The people who were afraid of Medicare because they didn’t know what it was, having always had private insurance. And, the people who are afraid of Medicare, because it is the only insurance they have ever had.

We won’t be going to medicare for all, though. Private insurance will still exist. After a certain point the private plans will have to compete against the public option in the Health Insurance Exchange. (for individuals purchasing coverage, that is).

They’re starting to use the term ‘medicare for all’ because it’s a way of characterising the public option in a way that they hope will sound less frightening to people, since the term ‘public option’ has been vilified and (the thinking is) since people are already familiar with Medicare, they’ll be more at ease with the idea of a public option if it’s presented as extending medicare.

the flipside, of course, is that those who don’t like medicare or are worried about its problems will say, why extend something that’s already broken?