Today, 128 House representatives introduced a bill that would establish a public option in the state health exchanges created by the health reform law.
The bill is an effort to bring back the public option included in early versions of the
health reform bill (i.e. PPACA which stands for "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"). In order to ensure the passage of the health reform bill, the public option was dropped from the final version signed into law in March.
According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, it’s just a matter of time until the public option is passed: “We’re going to have a public option, it’s a question of when.”
Would a public option help reduce health care costs by introducing competition into the marketplace? Or, will it become another government program, and eventually add to the growing deficit?
