There is further reason, however, that the latter alternative - a modest Conrad or Schumer type proposal which waters down/eliminates the public option - is untenable: not only the morality but the very legality of private health insurance as a concept is highly dubious.

When your life is threatened by illness or injury, your health insurance provider only stands to profit if you die due to their denial of care, and only stands to lose if your care is approved and you live.

An industry structured on this premise should by all rights be illegal, for the same reason that I cannot buy life insurance for you; I have no insurable interest in your life, thus it would be unlawful for me to buy a life insurance policy on you, because I would stand to profit from your death even though I don't know you, and such a circumstance only provides groundwork and incentive for criminality, death, and the common sacrifice of innocent human life for the bottom dollar. The health insurance industry does this every day; when a policy holder gets a life-threatening sickness or injury, private insurance companies can only profit from the denial of care which leads to the death of that person, a person in whom they have no insurable interest, and can only lose money by saving their lives. As long as there is no real, robust public option for all Americans to turn to, this untenable situation continues, which cannot be permitted; if Congress fails to pass such a public option, the next step would be to take this issue to the judicial branch - which could threaten the existence of all private insurance companies:









The Legal Argument - For Hardball Closed Door Negotiations Defending The Public Option





While it is indeed true that corporations previously were able to act around the concept of insurable interest due to the lack of court challenges, now that such cases have actually been brought, the US Supreme Court has been very clear that there are no corporate exceptions when it comes to the basic and necessary legal concept of insurable interest; the IRS has recently gone after corporations in court who benefitted from life insurance policies of employees that no longer worked for them:

The controversy helped convince Walt Disney and Wal-Mart, among others, to drop the policies. Winn-Dixie battled the IRS in court, but the supermarket chain recently lost its final round when the Supreme Court refused to review a lower court decision that backed the IRS. So far, one company has prevailed against the IRS -- Dow Chemical, which took out the policies on more than 21,000 workers. A U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan ordered the IRS to return $22.2 million plus interest to the company. The IRS has appealed the ruling.

The Supreme Court's refusal to even consider Winn Dixie's appeal leaves little doubt to how the Dow case will ultimately be resolved; no US Supreme Court is going to undermine the entire concept of insurable interest with a binding legal precedent because the implications are too chaotic - big corporation or not. If the families of Murder By Spreadsheet victims start suing the private insurance companies for profiting on the death of a customer they have no insurable interest in, presenting their case on the basis of centuries of precedent behind the legal concept of insurable interest, a Supreme Court ruling could have the result of effectively banning private health insurance altogether, under the determination that the very notion violates the principle of requiring an insurable interest in a policy where one party to the policy ends up profiting from the other party's death.

Or - the passing of a real and robust public option will prevent such a route being taken, allowing private insurance companies to stay in business and compete with the public option, which I frankly think would be a heck of lot better for the economy. Your choice, Senators.









The Moral Argument - For Defending The Public Option Effectively In The Public Square





Every public option supporter who debates an opponent of the public option on the air from this moment forward should, calmly but firmly, rebut their arguments with the following knock out punch:

"I want you to go ahead and say that insurance companies should have an investment in Americans dying, because that's the system we have today which you want us to keep; come out and say it if that's the position you're advocating. I want you go ahead and say that insurance company shareholders and executives should continue to have their profits soar when a customer who has payed their premiums every month is denied life-saving medical care: over 20,000 Americans die each year who were denied the medical care they needed to live. There's a reason a person can't take a life insurance policy out on someone they don't know - there's no financial interest in their life for it to be protected by an insurance policy; a stranger taking a life insurance policy on you, if it were legal, would only have the effect of giving them an incentive to kill you - which is why it is illegal. Yet health insurance companies do the exact same thing; when you have a life-threatening injury or illness, they only lose money if they provide you life-saving care, and they only make money if they find a way to deny you the care and let you die. Now if you think that should continue, just come out and say it. Go on. It is the point of view you're advocating by blocking any real reforms to the current system, so just come out and say it."

As the opponent stutters and panics, scrambling for an appropriate talking point to rebut with and unable to find one, then launch into to the original argument presented as to why the public option IS the compromise - by that point, and after that ownage, they will probably be relieved - and so, eventually and hopefully, will be hundreds of millions of Americans who deserve affordable, reliable, and comprehensive access to health care NOW.