What's So Scary About Offering People the Option of a Public Health Plan?

[Joanne98]

Independence Day is a time to reflect on the United States and to ask what it is that we really value about our country. Most people would probably list the freedoms that it has usually guaranteed to most members of society. The opportunities for economic success, while not as great as often touted, are nonetheless impressive.



However, some members of Congress were apparently celebrating our system of employer-provided health insurance last weekend. Or, at least that is what they want us to believe.



As Congress starts to delve into the dirt of a health care reform package, the clearest point of conflict is over the existence and structure of a public health care plan. Some members of Congress have thrown down the gauntlet, insisting that they could never allow the public to have the option of buying into a government-run plan.


http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141160/what%27s_so_scary_about_offering_people_the_option_of_a_public_health_plan_/
These members tell us that a government-run plan will be like having the post office manage our health care. While the post office actually does a pretty good job where I live, if the point is that a government-run plan is going to be bureaucratic and inefficient, then why are opponents of a public plan so worried about giving people the choice to buy into it? If the public plan is bad, then people will just stay with the options currently available in the private sector. As those of who believe in the free markets like to say: "what's wrong with giving people a choice?"



In addition to the members who just say "no" when it comes to a public plan, there are also members who are willing to allow a public plan, but only if they can be sure that it will not provide real competition with existing private plans. This route involves crippling the public plan in various ways to make it less competitive.



For example, one proposal is to establish a series of health insurance cooperatives, which would be prohibited from acting jointly to maximize their bargaining power. The idea is that a newly formed Nebraska health insurance cooperative, insuring a few thousand people, will not be able to put too much pressure on Pfizer or the American Medical Associations when negotiating prices. It also will not be able to provide much competition for Aetna, Cigna, and the other major insurers.



Several members of Congress have made protecting these insurers and the current system of employer-provided health insurance into a basic principle. Max Baucus, the head of the Senate Finance Committee, who will probably have more to say in the final bill than anyone else in the Senate, falls into this camp. Senator Baucus has explicitly said that he would not support a bill that jeopardized our system of employer-provided health insurance.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141160/what%27s_so_scary_about_offering_people_the_option_of_a_public_health_plan_/

[niceypoo]

1. The insurance companies wont like it

and the republicans will cry, "Socialism!"

[Yupster]

2. I think the biggest fear is

the public option will quickly drive the other options out of busieness so we will have socialized medicine.

I agree with the complaint, but believe single payer is the only long-term way to go.

It's not possible for insurance companies to compete with the government for a couple of reasons.

1. The government will write the rules. That's umfair at a basic level if two people are competing in anything and one of them gets to write the rules they will compete by and can change them at any time.

2. The private companies will have to make profits while the public option can run continuous and growing deficits year after year. Just as an example, how is Ford's R & D budget supposed to compete with GM's when GM now has the US treasury to call on to fund researching new ideas.

3. The government option will add new benefits to its plan every time congress meets and votes in an enlarged benefit, without any concern with cost. The private companies won't be able to compete with that.

4. Finally, companies will kick out their private insurers and just go with the government option because it's such a pain for employers to currently deal with all the insurance choices and changes. Easier and cheaper to just go along with the government option.

So, I think people who don't want single payer health care have much to fear from the government opton.

[dysfunctional press]

3. once people get a taste of socialized medicine...

they'll start to wonder what else the government could do better than the private sector- and that's NOT good for profits.