President Obama isn’t giving up on a government insurance plan option for Obamacare, despite widespread congressional opposition when it was considered in 2010.
Obama in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association called on future policymakers to implement a series of reforms to Obamacare. Among the reforms is a call to “revisit” the idea of a public option for Obamacare enrollees.
Obama tried to add the public option, in which the government competes with private insurers and offers Obamacare plans on the marketplaces, when the law was drafted about six years ago. However, heavy lobbying from the insurance industry nixed the provision.
Now, Obama said a public option can help enhance competition in the marketplace. He pointed out in the article that 88 percent of Obamacare enrollees live in a county with at least three insurers this year, but 12 percent live in areas with only one or two.
To spur competition in the Affordable Care Act, Obama suggests creating a public option only for places where competition is limited.
“Adding a public plan in such areas would strengthen the marketplace approach,” he wrote.
Obama also called for Congress to boost tax credits given to Obamacare enrollees to make insurance more affordable to those still without coverage.
“The steady-state cost of the ACA’s coverage provisions is currently projected to be 28 percent below [the Congressional Budget Office’s] original projections, due in significant part to lower-than-expected marketplace premiums,” he said. “So increased financial assistance could make coverage even more affordable while still keeping federal costs below initial estimates.”
Republicans, and some independent lawmakers, such as former Sen. Joe Lieberman, were adamantly opposed to the inclusion of a public option when the healthcare reform law was approved in 2010. Obama was forced to nix the provision for the healthcare law to narrowly pass.
