WHCE Health Care Reform Panel- Issues of Transparency

I had the pleasure of attending the WHCE's Health Care Reform Panel tonight, where several health care folks debated on the controversial (or more controversial) points of the current health care reform movement. The one that I'd like to discuss is the effect of the public option on the health insurance industry as a whole with regards to transparency.

Here are the (paraphrased, not verbatim) perspectives from a couple of the panelists ...

Catherine Dodd, Interim Director, San Francisco Health Services System: The public option would add value to the health care system because we need transparency in exactly where the money is going. Private insurers don't have to disclose such information, while Medicare (a public option) is required to do so because it is funded by tax dollars and governmental funds. Citizens want to know where how their tax dollars are being spent. If there is a new public option that offers transparency, the competition would push private insurers to provide information on the breakdown of where premium dollars go. They would do this in order to keep their customers from changing to the public option.

Jenni Vargas, VP for Business Development, Stanford Hospital & Clinics: How will the public option keep insurers honest? It won't. It will just be one other competitor in the health insurance industry. The public option would serve the population that insurers are not currently serving, or won't want to serve. Since it won't use underwriting, the public option would be taking in patients that the insurance companies probably wouldn't want to cover in the first place. Customers that are satisfied with their current care won't switch just because their insurers don't disclose the minute details of how each premium dollar is being used.

Thoughts? Agree/disagree & reasons?