Via ThinkProgress, both the Baucus Bill and the plan put forward by Pelosi will enroll some more people but most will not be in the Public Option and it will not cover everyone:

CBO: Public Option To Attract Only 6 Million Enrollees & Doesn’t Offer Lower Premiums

The public option would attract about 6 million enrollees by 2019 and charge premiums that are “somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges.” This is because the public option would “engage in less management of utilization” by its enrollees and “attract a less healthy pool of enrollees,” the office concludes. Moreover, since the House bill expands Medicaid up to 150% of the federal poverty line, it’s possible that the enrollees that would have enrolled in the public option went into Medicaid instead.

Below is a comparison of the relevant provisions in the House and Senate Finance Committee legislation:

	CBO Score Of House Bill	CBO Score Of Baucus Bill
Costs	Reduce deficits: $104B/10yrs Cost: $894B/10yrs Spends on subsidies: $605B/10yrs On Medicaid/CHIP: $425B/10yrs On Small Employer Credit: $25B/10yrs	Reduce deficits: $81B/10yrs Cost: $829B/10yrs Spends on subsidies: $461B/10yrs On Medicaid/CHIP: $345B/10yrs On Small Employer Credit: $23B/10yrs
Insured	Uninsured reduced by: 36M Uninsured in 2019: 18M In Exchanges: 30M | Public Plan: 6M In Medicaid: 15M	Uninsured reduced by: 29M Uninsured in 2019: 25M In Exchanges: 23M In Medicaid: 14M
Revenue	Mandate penalty: $33B/10yrs Pay-Play penalty: $135B/10yrs New taxes: $572B/10yrs	Mandate penalty: $4B/10yrs Free rider penalty: $23B/10yrs New taxes: $196B/10yrs
Medicare and Medicaid	Total savings: 426B/10yrs Medicare Advantage: $170B/10yrs	Total savings: 404B/10yrs Medicare Advantage: $117B/10yrs

With a Single Payer solution it would be everybody in and nobody out - AND it would save a heck of a lot more money for everyone.

The difference is not just everyone being covered but HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of DOLLARS saved every year:

The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is because we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay. Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs to deal with the bureaucracy. Combined, this needless administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans’ health dollars.

Single-payer financing is the only way to recapture this wasted money. The potential savings on paperwork, more than $350 billion per year, are enough to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone without paying any more than we already do.

Under a single-payer system, all Americans would be covered for all medically necessary services, including: doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental,
vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs. Patients would regain free choice of doctor and hospital, and doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

There are too many reasons why so many Doctors and Nurses support single payer. Some frequently asked questions concerning Single Payer:

• Is national health insurance ‘socialized medicine’?

• Won’t this result in rationing like in Canada?

• Who will run the health care system?

• What about medical research?

• Won’t this just be another bureaucracy?

• How will we keep costs down if everyone has access to comprehensive health care?

• How will we keep doctors from doing too many procedures?

• What will happen to physician incomes?

• How will we keep drug prices under control?

• Why shouldn’t we let people buy better health care if they can afford it?

• What will be covered?

• What about alternative care, will it be covered?

• Can a business keep private insurance if they choose?

• What will happen to all of the people who work for insurance companies?

• How will we contain costs with the population aging?

• What about ERISA? Doesn’t it stand in the way of states implementing universal health care plans?

• How will the Health Planning Board operate?

• Since we could finance a fairly good system, like the Norwegian, Danish or Swedish system, with the public money we are already spending (60% of health costs), why do we need to raise the additional 40% (from employers and individuals)?

• How much of the health care dollar is publicly financed?

• Why not MSAs/HSAs?

• Why not use tax subsidies to help the uninsured buy health insurance?

• What is PNHP’s response to libertarian proposals for health savings accounts and deregulated insurance plans?

• Won’t competition be impeded by a universal health care system?

• Why not make people who are higher risk pay higher premiums?

• Won’t this raise my taxes?

• Isn’t a payroll tax unfair to small businesses?

• Walter Reed Army Medical Center has been in the news lately for poor care and treatment of returning soldiers from Iraq. Won’t national health insurance have similar problems?

• What about incremental reform of the health system?

• What happens to investor-owned hospitals under national health insurance (NHI)?

• What proportion of health spending is for undocumented immigrants?

• The insurance industry says that PNHP’s figures on administrative costs are outdated. Is this true?

• How much could the states save on administrative waste by adopting a statewide single-payer program?

• What will happen to malpractice costs under national health insurance?

• Should PNHP support a public Medicare-like option in a market of private plans?

• Would a “public plan option” at least be a step in the right direction?

• Universal healthcare is okay for a small country or organization like Switzerland, Canada, or the Veterans Administration, but it wouldn’t work when scaled up to meet the needs of a large country like the US.

• Responses to recent attacks on single payer health reform: Ideology Masquerading as Scholarship

• When Canada adopted single payer, did she allow labor unions to opt-out and “keep what they have.”

• What does PNHP have to say about the primary care workforce shortage?

• What is a Voucher Plan? What’s Wrong With It?

• What about the claim (in videos circulating on the internet) that a patient in Canada would have died of a brain tumor if he hadn’t come to the U.S. for an MRI?

• How much do private insurance companies spend on overhead and profit?