What the Public Option Will Mean to Your Wallet

If the Democrats succeed in creating their "robust public option" of health insurance for those who currently don't have any insurance, there will be blood. Well, maybe not actual blood, but the color of blood--red--all over the budgets of people and entities from coast to coast.

Consider this:

A study by the actuarial firm Milliman calculated that public programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, currently shift $88.8 billion in costs onto private payers per year, increasing the typical American family's annual private health insurance premium by $1,512. Can you imagine the cost shift if 103.4 million more Americans were on a government plan?

Pretty frightening, huh? And since the "public option" will be just as underfunded as Medicare/Medicaid, you can chalk up another $37 trillion in unfunded liabilities over the next 50 years or so.

But the Democrats will forever be able to charge at election time that "the Republicans will take away your health care" and thus presumably win votes.

However, since they'll also have to ration and deny health care just to be able to pay 80 percent of what private insurers do (in order to make the public option "affordable"), taking away one's health care won't amount to a whole lot. You won't be able to get any medical services anyway, so what will there be to take away?