My Wonk Room colleague Igor Volsky made what I believe was his cable news debut the other night, talking about health care reform on the Fox Business Channel and explaining that the purpose of a public option in health care is to create choice, not socialism:
It’s worth noting that publicly provided health insurance is, in some ways, as American as apple pie. The vast majority of people live long enough to be on Medicare eventually and for most of us the “Medicare years” will be the period in our life when we’re actually most in need of medical services. Poor people, and a growing number of middle class people in need of long-term care, rely on Medicaid. And veterans are treated to extremely high quality health care at the Veterans Health Administration.