The whole problem with the public option is that employers who now cover their employee's health insurance would dump their coverage on their employee's forcing them to go to the public option.
Employers who don't insure their employees would be fined a payroll tax of 8%. Employers already pay MORE than 8% to cover their employee's insurance. This would be a very attractive incentive for business's to dump their health insurance plans forcing everyone onto the public option.
I understand your convictions, but your arguments fail miserably. Not saying you are completely incorrect, but let's look at some of your points.
First of all you argue that all government programs have been failures. You use Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Fannie May/Freddie Mac, and the USPS as examples.
Everyone of those programs have been successful. However, they have been abused and/or miscalculated. For instance, Social Security would still be very solvent had we not allowed our elected representatives to continually borrow from the funding of that program for the last 30 plus years.
Funding for Medicare and Medicaid were calculated based on healthcare costs from the 60's and 70's when total healthcare spending only accounted for around 7% of GDP. Now it accounts for 17%, and we're still trying to fund those programs based on them accounting for 7% of GDP. Those programs didn't drive up the cost of healthcare; healthcare costs drove up the cost to fund those programs. And what drove up the cost of healthcare? Many things including unrealistic awards from lawsuits due to malpractice, new technologies, and employer provided Cadillac healthcare plans.
As for the USPS, they lost a huge percentage of their volume due to the Internet, yet they continue trying to provide first class mail service at a low price. It can't be done. Neither UPS or Fed Ex could provide first class mail service for $.42 per letter. They too would go bankrupt. So the USPS needs to raise their rates, plain and simple.
In almost every case of government programs gone bad, the blame lies with the voters who elect representatives who do not serve their best interests, and then those same voters refuse to throw them out with the power of their vote.
Now let's move on to your support of our current system. You are assuming that by leaving things as they are, everything will be fine. The fact is that healthcare costs are going to double again over the next ten years for employers who provide health insurance to their employees, and that will happen while our economy as a whole stagnates, so the cost will be in real dollars, not inflated dollars. Employers will begin to go belly up or they will drop their insurance coverage for their employees. Companies not permitted to drop coverage by law, will cut pay for employees and force employees to pay a much bigger percentage of their healthcare costs. In the end, this will dramatically reduce the standard of living for most working Americans, and it will leave even more people without coverage.
If you have some great ideas as to how we can improve the system while actually cutting costs, I'd love to hear them, because that is what we need. However, supporting our current failed system is no answer.