62 Million That Terrifies For-Profit Insurance CEOs

Quinnipiac released a new poll [1] that once again shows overwhelming support for a public health insurance option. The Quinnipiac poll found:

Although 69 percent of voters nationwide say Americans should have the option of government- run health insurance, only 28 percent would choose to be covered by it.

Only 28 percent?! That is roughly [2] 62 million Americans who want to sign up for an unknown and unproven public option right now. No one yet knows what the public option will cover, how much the premiums will be, or what doctors would be in the network. The public option is currently a complete unknown, yet 28% of Americans would choose this unknown public option over any private insurance plan. Given the current lack of information and the massive effort by Republicans to discredit the public plan, 28% is huge.

Could you imagine that statistic for any other product. You think 28% of Americans would prefer to drink a government made soda, eat at a government run restaurant, or buy a government build DVD player? I doubt it. This shows just how little respect a segment of America has for private health insurance companies.

I suspect when people really find out more about how the public plan will work it will prove to be even more popular. Any real public option should be noticeably cheaper than private insurance and not use any of the tricks that private insurance plans use not to pay claims.

It is this 28% which literally strikes terror into the hearts of health insurance CEOs. They know there is a large percentage of their consumers that want nothing to do with them. They know their only hope to hold on their market share and their profits is to do everything they can to deny these 62 million the alternative they want. This is why they are spending over $1.4 million [3] a day to kill the public option.

Crossposted on The Walker Report [4]