Public Option must be available to EVERYONE, or there's no incentive to cut costs!

During his historic address on healthcare before a joint session of Congress, President Obama sought to alleve Republican fears that consumers would flock to the Public Option and put private insurance companies out of business, by suggesting that ONLY people NOT already being offered insurance by an employer would be eligible.

(As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) put it: "If you have coverage you like, you can keep it, But if you have coverage you don't like, you gotta keep it.")

Such a limitation on the Public Option would ensure it does NOTHING to lower insurance rates or improve service. Prohibiting people from switching to the Public Option... even if their employer offers BAD/inadequate insurance... eliminates the threat of them possibly losing customers to the Public Option, and therefore would result in NO incentive for insurance companies to change. Couple that with prohibitions on allowing employers to join the Public Plan in the first place, and the insurance companies will have a lock on customers MANDATED to purchase their product for decades.

o Imagine if your office required you to mail everything, even local mail, using FedEx because of a law prohibiting you from using the cheaper government-run mail system...

o Imagine if your home was broken into, but a Federal law prohibited you from calling the police because you have a private security system installed in your home...

Sound ridiculous? That's what President Obama suggested may happen to the Public Option should we be fortunate enough for it to pass.

We all agree that a "Public Option" (short of a Single Payer system) is the best way to lower skyrocketing healthcare costs in this country. But without the threat of potentially losing customers to it, what motivation do the insurance companies have to actually lower rates or provide better service?

Tell President Obama that unless ANYONE can join the Public Option for any reason, any proposed reform won't do a thing to resolve the healthcare crisis in this country.