Griper Blade: Medicare Part E

If you asked me what the definition of a "public option" in health insurance would be, I'd have to stick with the obvious; it'd be "public" as in "government-run or -sponsored" and an "option" as in "you can choose it if you want to." Anything else is not a public option. The news is that the House, under Speaker Pelosi, is working on a "robust" public option that will actually come in cheaper than any Senate bill -- specifically the Senate Finance Committee bill which, let's face it, is eminently improvable.

But with the definition of "public option" so clear and simple, what's with the qualifier "robust?" It seems to me that it either is or it isn't. A "weak" public option is simply not a public option at all. Calling anything that falls outside that definition a "public option" would seem to be a plain lie. Co-ops, which thankfully seem pretty dead as an idea, would be an option you could choose, but they wouldn't be public. Likewise, the "option" part of the definition is out if there aren't insurance exchanges where you can choose a public plan. If, as some are saying, a "public option" should only be available to people who aren't covered by private insurance, then we're not really talking about an "option" here, are we? That'd be what you call your "false advertising."

So, in this case, "robust" and "actual" seem to be synonyms. In a world without weasel words, a positive qualifier wouldn't be necessary. But we don't live in that world. We live in an opposite reality. Honesty isn't valued here, while obfuscation is. In this world that we live in, language matters... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]