Words. For Your Consideration...
"The "public option" is dangerous not for what it might do but for what it allows the politicians not to do.
From the start, the Obama administration has said that health-care reform has to make health care both more accessible and less costly . If Congress does the first without the second -- guarantees a new entitlement without controlling costs -- it will bankrupt us, because health-care costs are rising faster than the overall economy is growing.
So far, though, that seems to be where Congress is headed, for two reasons: First, no one knows for sure how to control costs; and, second, the reforms that are likeliest to work are politically unpalatable.
...If, as advocates sometimes argue, a public plan operates without favoritism, it will be simply one more entrant in the marketplace. Like other companies, it will have marketing and administrative costs. In some markets served by few private plans, it could offer a useful alternative. But it won't radically reduce costs.
If, as advocates argue at other times, the point is to insure sick people whom private companies, despite all regulatory efforts, find ways to shun, the public plan could offer a valuable safety net. But that wouldn't save money.
And if, as seems likeliest -- and as House legislation mandates -- the plan uses government power to demand lower prices from hospitals and drug companies, those providers may lower quality or seek to make up the difference from private payers. Private companies would have to raise their rates, so more people would choose the public plan, so private rates would rise further -- and we could end up with only the public option and no competition at all. Single-payer national health insurance may be the best outcome, but we should get there after an honest debate, not through the back door."
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