Every poll I've seen recently shows at least 65% want a public option choice and many polls show over 70%. So public opinion is not even close on this issue. With those kinds of numbers, the ONLY reason any politician should be struggling with the issue is because they're either:
(a) in the tank for the insurance industry (GOP);
(b) blue dog Dems who claim to be captive of "swing state" constituencies who will throw them out if they vote for a public option; or
(c) all the above.
But the polls show that, except for industry advocates, the only public support politicians can reasonably cite for opposing a public option is from the Fox News/Limbaugh/Beck/screaming teabagger crowd. And while that group's media profile has been high in recent months, their actual numbers are in reality very low.
I doubt most politicians have ever been faced with a clearer, more dramatic choice between public and private interests with such huge amounts of money at stake.
The outcome of this debate literally means life or death for both people without health insurance and the health insurance industry. The insurance companies are currently spending $1.4m every day on advertising and lobbying because they KNOW a serious public option will take many of them out. And the revenues and profits of the companies that survive would be a mere shadow of what they are now. In effect, if a robust public option becomes law, the health insurance industry will draw a Monopoly game card that says "Do not collect $401,152,979,783.00 a year."* And no, that's not a typo. A cash flow of over four hundred billion dollars a year that the insurance industry is currently enjoying is at risk of slowing to a trickle.
*2007 net revenues from health insurance premiums. And that's just the major players!
SOURCE- www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS187049+15-Jul-2008+PRN20080715
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