Two-thirds of American personal bankruptcies are related to health care costs.

Businesses - particularly small businesses - cannot afford to provide health insurance for their employees under the current employer based private insurance system, and will be forced to either drop their coverage or go out of business unless a public option is passed.

One-sixth of all our government spending is on health care, twice as much as any other country spends out of its budget. Our nation pays $2.5 trillion for care costing $912 billion .

Every independent estimate says the public option will save us money, from saving 150 billion dollars (CBO) to saving 265 billion dollars (Commonwealth). The Congressional Budget Office estimates the current bill in the House would leave a 6 billion dollar surplus.

So - if you'd rather spend more taxpayer money, bankrupt businesses, AND pay $29,000 a year for your family's private insurance coverage in exchange for a policy that can be dumped the second you actually need it, then the current system is great for you. If you'd rather spend less, wait less, have less of a chance of dying, and want to remove the corporate bureaucrat from between you and your doctor, then a public option is the way to go. Right now, even if you're lucky enough not to be dropped by your provider when you need urgent medical care, your private insurance company can overrule your doctor's advice for life-saving treatment and only offer to cover something cheaper; a public option would remove that middleman and leave these decisions where they belong, between the patient and doctor.





Any elected Democrat making the case for health care should know these arguments in and out. They're quick, they're effective, and when communicated in sequence , they're bulletproof. Most importantly, they kill every Republican talking point while staying consistently on the offensive.



A super simplified overview would be:

Don't believe for a second that you're immune

They must think we're fucking idiots

You're getting ripped off

The walls are closing in

The threat is a mortal one

People are going broke

Businesses are going broke

Our government is going broke

A public option saves everyone money

Private insurance is what's killing the patient-doctor relationship

Steps one through three in sequence are what especially open the door for undecided citizens on the issue to listen to the remainder of the argument without glazing over at all the figures. Voters first listen if they think something effects THEM, they resent being tricked, and they hate being robbed - in that order; it's the same strategy Republicans have been using successfully (in their case, with boldface lies) for years: it begins with fear to grab the viewer, then taking umbrage to identify with the viewer, and finally telling the viewer who is taking them to the cleaners now that the trust has been earned. Perhaps it's time someone applied that strategy honestly for a change, as the genuine sense of fear, umbrage, and thievery surrounding our murder by spreadsheet health care system is thoroughly legitimate and justified, and has to be brought to the attention of the electorate for the desperately needed public option to become the law of the land.





Sources for the less commonly known statistics (h/t to NBBooks and Edgar):

(1) Americans are just as likely to be dropped as they are to receive care from private insurance when life-saving treatment is actually needed.

(3) The statistic of an average Canadian family paying less than $2000 a year is based on an average Canadian paying $40 a month, multiplied by twelve months ($480 per year), multiplied by a family of four ($1920 per family per year).