text: A subsidized public option would give insurance companies a safety valve for dropping both really poor and really sick patients, lowering premiums while raising taxes. Taxes under the bill could be shifted from the top 2% to an across the board increase in the Hospital Insurance Payroll Tax or by converting HI to a full-blown Value Added Tax. Having only the rich pay is too cute by half and although repeal was taken out by McConnell, it would go back in conference. As for alternatives, when you tell Bernie Bot that your Obamacare policy and your Medicare plan through the same insurer are roughly equivalent, they get angry becauses their slogan does not work anymore. As for Cruz, what he is proposing already exists in Obamacare Bronze.