You seem to miss the point also. If you have a government option patterned after Medicare it is not a matter of leaving your healthcare in the hands of a faceless third party. It is simply a way of financing the cost. Ask any Medicare recipient. He/she is free to choose their own physician, and which medical procedure is best for him/her. The question is can they afford the cost of the procedure.

Leaving it in the hands of insurance companies and shopping it around is a program for disaster.  It is precisely why healthcare is so expensive. The insurance companies don't want to relinquish a cash cow like healthcare. If they have a reasonably priced government option to compete with they will have to reduce their prices to a competitive level in order to stay in the market. However, if you insist on shopping it around yourself you would still be free to do so. The government option only competes with the insurance companies. It does not replace them.

If you recall when the healthcare bill was working its way through Congress the insurance lobbyists were screaming that they could not compete. The Republicans immediately jumped in to defend their interests, and a few renegade Democrats started pushing for earmarks before they would vote for it. The final bill turned out to be something quite different than originally intended. Originally it was supposed to resemble something close to the British system which has been in place for 63 years. If you did not like the proposed government option you were free to stay with your private insurer. I really can not see the problem other than those that wish to protect the insurance industry.

So I really do hope that as Boener said the Republicans do seek repeal/reform of the Healthcare Bill. It will open the whole issue of the government option again. Perhaps this time the general public will be better informed than the last time. The Republican's  current proposal for vouchers in lieu of traditional Medicare has the Baby Boomers outraged....the biggest single voting block in history.