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Understanding the “public option” It’s still just a concept By Kip Sullivan, JD
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n July 2015, Hillary Clinton announced her support for a “public option.” In an article in the Aug. 2, 2016 edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association, President Obama endorsed the “public option,” but only for Americans who buy health insurance on the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). By late August, Jacob Hacker, the inventor of the “public option,” had published several articles extolling the “option” as a solution to the ACA’s woes. Hacker, like Obama, seems to think the “option” should be available only to people shopping on the exchanges.
The CREATES Act
If I were writing this article in 2008, I could describe the “public option” (PO) in considerable detail. But since the summer of 2009, when congressional Democrats unveiled legislation including a PO, it has been impossible to define the PO. All we can say about the concept at this date is that it would be run by some level of government (state or federal) and subsidized to some degree by taxes. All the other
Assuring access to generic prescription drugs By Senator Amy Klobuchar, JD
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he high cost of prescription drugs is a major issue for American consumers and with good reason. The United States spent more than $297 billion on prescription drugs in 2014—that is a 12.2 percent increase over 2013 and the largest increase since 2002. According to a recent study, 1 out of 4 Americans whose prescription drug costs went up said they were unable to pay their medical bills. And 1 out of 5 were forced to skip doses of their medication. High prescription drug costs are
not only a pocketbook issue, but also a quality of care issue. This is unacceptable and it is why I have worked hard to find bipartisan solutions to help lower the cost of prescriptions. One solution to the high cost of prescription drugs is to promote competition, particularly from generic alternatives that give consumers the
The CREATES Act to page 16
Understanding the “public option” to page 18