Friday, June 12, 2009

Non-profit insurance for health care

Last Friday, we discussed Greg Mankiw's criticism of the public plan option for health care.

Ezra yesterday interviewed Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) about "a 'potential compromise' on the public plan: A system of federally-chartered co-ops that could offer a non-profit alternative to the for-profit insurance industry. In this telling, the co-ops preserve the central feature of the public plan -- they're a competitor to the traditional insurance industry -- but are free from the baggage of government control."

1 comment:

Scooter said...

Now that might be a way around the funding/start-up capital criticism...if the non-profit co-op can generate enough interest.

I think there are some of my ilk who do this through nationally administered orgs that act kinda like co-ops but not really. If someone in the org gets sick, the others pitch in and pay. I've never used so I have no idea how well they work. One is called Medi-Share and another is Samiritan something.