A New Public Health Plan: How Congressional Details Will Impact Doctors and Patients

"While many claim that a public plan would merely represent an alternative choice to private health plans operating on "a level playing field," the reality is that Congress will use the government's power to artificially deflate the cost of the public plan by lowering provider reimbursement rates.

It has been suggested repeatedly that if Americans like their health plan they can keep it and that nothing would change except that they would pay less. But the creation of a new public plan modeled on Medicare could result in the loss of the private coverage that millions have today by undermining the current system of employer-sponsored insurance. Those who are actually able to keeping their private insurance will likely be forced to pay more--not less--to cross-subsidize the public plan." [Heritage Foundation]