How would the ‘public option’ outcompete private enterprise?
Members of the Senate Finance Committee have just voted 15-8 against adding the so-called public option to the Senate health-insurance reform bill;a vote on a second, similar amendment is forthcoming. (UPDATE: The second effort was rejected 13-10.)
Committee Democrats who voted against the measure generally did so on grounds that a bill including the public option would not pass on the Senate floor. Republicans generally argued that including the public option would eliminate private insurance, producing a single-payer, government-run system.
So let me repeat an earlier and pretty simple request: Walk me through the process by which the public option would supposedly eliminate private competition.
I have seen the charge asserted repeatedly, but nobody has yet explained how that chain of events would play out. The best attempts I’ve seen involve claims that in LATER legislation Congress might CHANGE the law to produce such an outcome, but opposing a bill today based on what you imagine Congress might do years later isn’t much of an argument.
Let’s talk facts and law. What in the current legislation would produce that outcome?
Under the House bill, which already contains a public option, the public insurer would be required to finance all of its operations and benefits solely through insurance premiums paid by its customers, just as private companies would. It could not be subsidized through taxes. It also would have to offer the same range of coverage and benefits as private plans, and private plans would have equal access to customers whose insurance was being subsidized.
Given all that, if private companies are truly much more efficient than public entities, it is the public option that would presumably be run out of business, not the private plans.
So why do Republicans claim it would run private companies out of business? Don’t the Republicans have faith in private enterprise to compete? If the public option would have unfair advantages, what are they?
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311 comments Add your comment
TnGelding
September 30th, 2009
12:24 pm
Say What??
September 30th, 2009
10:34 am
I’m certainly no expert, but it seems to me we’ve come a long way in a short period of time. And most of the stimulus package is still in the pipeline. Granted, the debt is regrettable, but manageable as long as we address it seriously next year.
Pokey
September 30th, 2009
12:48 pm
JB,
At best your blog post is disingenuous. At worst, if you can’t answer your question, you should be fired from the AJC. Even BHO embarrassingly admitted the advantages inherent to the “public option” when called out by the University of Colorado student during his August “town hall meeting”. Look it up on youtube but I suspect you already have.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt…you are a hack/flack(O-bot?) for BHO who knows better.
N.J.
September 30th, 2009
1:59 pm
National debt is not a problem as long as there is a model for replacing the revenues and paying down the debt that actually works. Democrats, have historically, a very good record of paying down the deficits and debt their initial spending creates but Republicans have a very poor record. They have been selling “supply side economics” for three decades, but they have not managed to pay down the deficit or the debt by doing so. They make claims to increasing revenues that are at best specious, but still the debt they create is never reduced, nor are the deficits they run up.
Most Democratic spending ends up being spent not by the government and in government agencies, but directly by the taxpaying public.
Basically Democrats do budgeting in ways that goes directly into the market from the bottom. Republicans have this “trickle down” method that results in money having to pass through many layers of both public and private bureaucracies before it has any effect on the economy or government revenues at all.
By almost every economic measure Democrats are much better for the economy than Republican:.
Politicians Lie, Numbers Don’t
And the numbers show that Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans.
The Economy 1959-2007
% Change in GDP
R Avg 2.94
D Avg 4.09
Inflation
R Presidents 4.5%
D Presidents 3.81%
Unemployment
R Presidents 6.21%
D Presidents 5.33%
Avg Fed Taxes
R Presidents 17.97%
D Presidents 18.4%
Federal Spending % GDP
R Presidents 20.67%
D. Presidents 19.6%
Defense Spending
R Presidents 5.71%
D Presidents 5.83%
SPENDING MINUS DEFENSE
R Presidents 14.94%
D Presidents 13.77%
Federal Deficit Surplus
R Presidents
-2.7%
D Presidents
-1.21%
http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/
Republicans increase spending, increase deficits and lower taxes. Thats about it.
N.J.
September 30th, 2009
2:09 pm
Basically speaking you have to listen to Republican propaganda to determine who is elitist and who is not. Republicans are always hurling “Intellectual elitism” at Democrats, while carefully creating an economic elitism that is the reverse of true free market capitalism, the base of which is the consumer, not the business.
The Republican theory is that you create an economic elite that trickles down money to the non-elites in the form of job creation
Democrats believe in allowing the non elite consumer masses to decide which businesses survive and which do not by their mass economic activity.
N.J.
September 30th, 2009
2:16 pm
And of course an interesting commentary I read about the reasons that Republicans and Conservatives prefer charitable programs to social programs was so simple it stunned me. Social government programs in the U.S. are democratic. Republican charitable theory allows those who give the charity to control the behavior of those getting the charity. In Ireland during the potato famine this was obvious. Convert from Catholicism to Protestantism and get the bowl of soup.
In America this has morphed to “Listen to the sermon, come to our religious service, and then you get the soup”
N.J.
September 30th, 2009
2:20 pm
As a result for all of the country western lyrics, the Republicans create an economic system where the bottom 98 percent or employers somehow must be subservient top two percent of employers.
In a democratic system, one can truly sing “Take this job and shove it”
This is of course the true Republican objection to health reform. It gives additional power to the employee at a job he can’t stand, to simply walk.
This was behind the Republican National Committee 2008 platform to completely eliminate unemployment compensation. Another method by which to control employees by threat to their income when without jobs.
Say What??
September 30th, 2009
2:34 pm
N.J.
I’ll try to sneak one in here between your varied thesis papers.
Interesting numbers you posted about the different impacts of Republican and Democrat Presidents. Care to illustrate, during the same period of time, the impact based on which party controlled the legislative branch of government? Just sayin…
TnGelding
September 30th, 2009
3:27 pm
Say What??
September 30th, 2009
2:34 pm
You might be interested in this:
“Economy healing very slowly”
http://blogs.ajc.com/business-beat/2009/09/30/economy-healing-very-slowly/
TnGelding
September 30th, 2009
5:31 pm
Telling it like it is?
http://www.ajc.com/video?bcpid=1659825399&bclid=1716449804&bctid=42827347001
TnGelding
September 30th, 2009
8:00 pm
“In 16 states, drug deaths overtake traffic fatals”
ATLANTA – In 16 states and counting, drugs now kill more people than auto accidents do, the government said Wednesday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090930/ap_on_he_me/us_med_drug_deaths_5
No
October 1st, 2009
8:57 am
The simple chain of events is this. Public health care option is created and loses money or barely breaks even on care. Private insurance companies must match this, which is naturally impossible because they dont have a nearly limitless supply of tax dollars to spend and borrow against. So they sell out and go under.