Health care reform is on the forefront of political news these days. One aspect of Obama’s proposal has polarized the American right and left–the public option. (The polarizing effect of this piece is so great–as is Obama’s desire for bipartisan politics–that he’s thought of dropping it altogether. This move is perhaps having its own deleterious effects.) Town hall meetings have been marred by disruptions and Obama has routinely been called a socialist. (And, in other situations, he’s been compared to Hitler.) What’s striking from all this hubbub over the public option, however, isn’t rationing, euthanization of the elderly, or a government monopoly on health care. Rather, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding over what the public option actually is. Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight has a point-by-point proposal for getting a better hold on the public’s view on the public option. These include (1) Make clear that the ‘public option’ refers unambiguously to a type of health insurance, and not the actual provision of health care services by the government; (2) Make clear that by ‘public,’ you mean ‘government’; (3) Avoid using the term ‘Medicare’ when referring to the public option; (4) Make clear that the public option is, in fact, an option; and (5) Ask in clear and unambiguous terms whether the respondent supports the public option–not how important they think it is. Forcing people to think about the public option in this manner surely will help politicians gain a better understanding of what their constituents want. And, perhaps more importantly, it will force citizens to think more clearly about what they want for themselves and others.
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. - George Bernard Shaw
