Several states are moving to implement public option healthcare at a state-level. How do you feel about this?

32 comments

1. It is great because when they fail it won’t hurt people in other states.

2. I think it’s a great idea that we let individual states pilot programs and if it has proven successful we can move to adopt it nationally. Best of luck to them!

3. I admit, as a life long recipient of Medicaid, I’m very pessimistic about “state run healthcare”

4. I fully endorse states being policy laboratories.

5. As someone in favor of universal healthcare, I think it’s great. I’m a big fan of using federalism as a laboratory of democracy, and if universal healthcare can work on the state level, maybe it will be easier to persuade people that it can work on the federal level.

6. Much better than at federal level

7. Sounds great, 7k with insurance to birth our daughter I’m absolutely sick of private insurance. Universal healthcare!

8. This is the function of the states; whatever isn’t the purview of the federal government is automatically theirs. I’m all for it

9. I wish them luck!

10. [It’s going poorly.](https://www.opb.org/article/2022/02/21/washington-state-public-option-health-plan-slow-to-gain-traction/) The state is already having to leverage its power and force providers to accept the public option in order to be remotely competitive with private plans. While it’s difficult for a layman to diagnose why perhaps it’s that the *most* the public option will payout is *less than the average* for privates.

    ​

    I believe firmly in laboratories of democracy. Sometimes, experiments don’t work out the way a scientist expected them to. But, instead of adapting, the state did what states do and forced their way anyway.

11. That’s *exactly* how Federalism is supposed to work. I applaud them

12. Fine. One of the main points of states is that they can make their own laws and run themselves differently. It gives people options and lets states try things out. If you hate your state’s healthcare moving states is a lot more reasonable than immigrating to a different country. Also competition is good. If a state actually pulls off having a really good state public healthcare option then they will attract more people and benefit in other ways. People of a state deciding on something for their state, not small states being rolled over by big states with high populations on a federal level. Top down government is shitty.

13. More legitimate than the federal government doing it.

    I also remain skeptical that it will work as well as advertised, but we’ll see.

14. It’s necessary if we want to keep having private insurance be a thing. As long as private companies don’t have to compete with a standard, they can continue to extort and abuse us consumers.

15. Good for those states. I hope one of them comes up with something that works

16. As someone who was once on Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid) I’m in favor of it. I wouldn’t be where I am today without that time where the state paid for things like medication and dental care.

17. I’m for anything that gets us closer to universal healthcare.

18. I’m all for it. Currently paying almost 600 a month for our family through THT and the coverage sucks. Still payed $1000 for my wife’s emergency room visit last year. The employer health insurance system can be some serious dogshit

19. States are free to do as they wish. But I don’t think any state is large enough for it to make a dent. The point of a large pool of collective power is the larger the pool, the better the outcomes. You just have X state here and Y state there, not even joining together but setting it up on their own only for their residents, probably won’t do as much good as everyone thinks.

20. One thing thing that has always caused problems with these sorts of plans is that the States have no control over who is considered a “citizen” of their state due to the constitution.

    If a state like California (for instance) implemented some sort of universal coverage, they’d have no way to stop everyone from nearby states moving to California as soon as they got cancer. This would probably collapse the state level universal coverage in time due to increased costs.

21. Last time Colorado tried, it failed at the ballot [big time.](https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Creation_of_ColoradoCare_System,_Amendment_69_(2016))

22. It’s perfectly legal for states to do. As long as the process is democratic and the policy has support in the state, I see no problem with it. It might even take off some of the pressure on federal public healthcare, as states that want public healthcare can have it and those that would rather remain without can do so as well. It’s a lot less ‘all or nothing’ than a federal plan would be.

23. It’s the way it should be implemented IMO. I’d rather States decide for themselves than the federal government forced it on them

24. I mean, MA started it with Romneycare.

25. I’m very conservative, but we need some kind of universal health care. I don’t understand why the red side doesn’t see how bad it has become. No one can afford 1400$ for heath care for their family.

26. Half measures. Medicare for all at the federal level, yesterday.

27. I support it, but the Cascade Care option where I am is still more expensive than my employer plan which has a better network. I’d consider buying a dental plan there but the dental max for my estimate is only $1k which is not much ($1500-$2000 is typical base on my work in the insurance industry).

28. I live in WA state. I love it.

    Homeless individuals are very vulnerable to upper respiratory illness and skin infections.
    Giving them access to decent medical care improves our society.

    And it includes mental health care

    State pregnancy medical insurance gives women the ability to get prenatal care, a hospital birth and a few home visits with a nurse.

    Why is improving our health negative?

29. yesss yeeeessssss. YEEEESSSSSSSS!!!

30. I am from New York, which already has a vast medicare program.

    I would be in favor of expanding the existing program to include everyone.

    Allow the state to negotiate fair prices for prescriptions. Make it so all doctors have to accepts the insurance. Make it so there is no out-of-network policies. Finally, implement an increase on Medicare tax to adjust for the increase in people that would sign up.

31. I love it. I reall enjoy the fact that I, an unemployed disabled person, do not get charged $300 just to walk thru the door at the doctor’s office. I love preventative healthcare. I think it’s fantastic that so many people in my state have access who would not under past laws. Healthcare for all.

32. They are? Well that’s cool.

    Something needed to be done. It may not work out, or it might. I have seen both kinds of public heath care myself.

    But something needed to happen. The US system is horrendous.