President Obama should provide all Americans the choice of a public health insurance plan like Medicare. He shouldn’t just leave us a choice of private insurance companies, none of which could offer decent coverage.

The public health insurance option is attractive for several reasons.

First, it would lead the way in lowering administrative costs. It wouldn’t need to make a profit. It wouldn’t need to pay outsized salaries to administrators. Public health insurance programs have administrative costs nearly 10 percent below those of most private insurance policies, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Second, since a public health insurance option would not be under pressure to pay shareholders, it would be more able to invest in quality health care through prevention and in advising doctors about the latest research on the most effective treatments — rather than on the most profitable ones.

Third, the public insurance option would provide beneficiaries with reliable coverage. Private insurers are notorious for dumping people with little notice. For example, a decade ago, when Congress restricted private insurer profiteering in the Medicare program, insurers quickly dropped coverage for millions of seniors. As a result, many were left without access to their doctors and to needed medical care.

Finally, a public plan could be held more accountable for its decisions than private insurers. Choices about what to cover and how to pay providers could be openly debated whereas private insurers often decide behind closed doors which doctors you can see and what treatment costs are reimbursable.

Private insurers know that, if they had to compete fairly with a public option, they would have to offer affordable, high quality, reliable insurance or lose. They could not get away with ripping off the government as they currently do when, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, they overcharge it 14 percent to cover Medicare beneficiaries.

So, private insurers have made blocking competition from a public health plan their top priority in this year’s debate over President Obama’s health plan. They will spend millions to influence Congress and the White House to allow them a free hand in looting new federal investments in health insurance.

For those who want an end to exorbitant insurer profits and our country’s long string of health care reform fiascos, it’s time to stand up. We should demand the choice of a public health insurance plan. With it, our country would finally get health care reform that bails out those needing health care, instead of those selling private insurance.

Ramón Castellblanch is an associate professor of health education at San Francisco State University. He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.