Originally Posted by Willravel

All you had to do was ask:
First off, small businesses and individuals are having serious trouble affording private medical insurance right now, so much so (as I stated above) that it's the #1 cause of bankruptcies in the US causing about 1.5-2 million a year. This puts a substantial strain on our economy that would be lifted under the reduced overall costs of a public option. For evidence of this, we can look to every other industrialized country in the world, all of whom have a public option. Per capita costs for health care in places like France, Canada, the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Japan are less than half the per capita costs of the US. In other words, they all pay substantially less in taxes than we pay in insurance.

Second, people living under public health care systems aren't turned down for profit, as the public option is not for profit. If you're ill in any way, you're treated. As much as the right is scared of the big bad R-word (rationing), the fact is that it's actually quite rare even in Canada. We have some friendly canucks right here on TFP that can personally attest to the effectiveness of their system vs. our for-profit system.

Third, this isn't socalized medicine. Just like in Canada, it's simply a doctor running a private practice that happens to be insured by the government instead of a private insurer. It's more similar to Medicare than NHS.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, you get to cover everyone. No more will people have to choose between paying $400 a month or running the risk of having to pay a $12,000 medical bill for an accident.

There's a lot more, but I figure this is enough to digest for the time being.