Jacob Hacker’s Public Option Is Back on the Table

Both at the state level and the federal level, ISPS Director Jacob Hacker’s public option plan has been garnering support. On the federal level, two liberal Congresswomen Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) and Jan Schakowsky (D- Illinois) have proposed the “Medicare for America” bill based on Hacker’s plan that lets people keep their private health insurance provided by their employer, but for those who don’t have employer-covered insurance let’s them enroll in a public option, a newly constructed government program.

On the state level, Professor Hacker was an invited expert at an informational hearing at Connecticut’s state capitol last week, where several varieties of the ‘public option’ are being considered to cover the uninsured in the state. 

“To me, this is an opportunity for us. We should seize it, but we should be careful, because it is possible to do this badly,” Hacker said at Connecticut’s hearing. “And we all want to do this well. We want this to be a positive example that the rest of the country will look to.”

In Huffington Post: “2 Liberal Democrats Are Promoting A Twist On ‘Medicare For All’”

In Hartford Courant: “There’s a New Push for Public Health Insurance in Connecticut”