Did the Repubs say government public option is more efficient that private health insurance companies?
The Republicans say we can't have the government involved in health insurance because government is wasteful and inefficient.
They also say a public option would be unfair to private insurance companies because it would be too competitive.
Does that mean that the Republicans think private health insurance companies are more wasteful and inefficient than the government?
They also say a public option would be unfair to private insurance companies because it would be too competitive.
Does that mean that the Republicans think private health insurance companies are more wasteful and inefficient than the government?
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There is something circular to their argument isn't there. Methinks they dost protest too much:) Love your screen name btw.
June 16, 2009 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, the Dalai Lama and I share the same birthday [as do G W Bush and Nancy Reagan, although I think the D L more than balances things out] and I spent a lot of time in Bali.
June 16, 2009 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is exactly what they're saying. Both that it's going to horrible, because of rationing and high cost and no choice of doctors, and no say in your treatment, and also that it will drive everybody out of private insurance bacause it will be so much more desirable. They should be doing it as a comedy routine, like a schizoid Dom DeLuise in "The End" but they don't have that good a sense of humor.
June 16, 2009 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking out of both sides of their mouths?
June 16, 2009 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Does that mean that the Republicans think private health insurance companies are more wasteful and inefficient than the government?"
No, they're saying it would be unfair because a serious public option would be subsidized, therefore able to offer lower premiums for similar service.
Look, anything is better than the current system, I'd personally like to see a strictly regulated private insurance market like in Switzerland where insurance companies compete to reduce overheads rather than compete to reject high-risk clients or clients with pre-existing conditions. But frankly, both the right and left are muddying the water in their talking points on the public option - the left avoiding talk of subsidies, and the right avoiding talk of the obvious inefficiencies of the current private insurance market. And THIS POST IS NOT HELPING!
June 16, 2009 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obey,
I think that is a straw man argument.
My wife and I pay $6600 a year for $10,000 deductible insurance [BCBS] with exclusions. I would love to buy into Medicare for the same money. Given the overhead in private insurance, we could get gold plated insurance for the same premiums.
If we are offered that option it could even get Medicare into better shape and not raise taxes. We are already paying out the money.
That way there is no subsidizing, just an incentive for the private companies to cut expenses. It is hard to justify "Dollar Bill" McGuire of United Health Group getting as much as $100,000,000 a year and he is sitting on 1.6 billion in stock options and say that a public option would be unfair at the same time.
There could be one national insurance pool to share the risk instead of the way the private companies game their "pool" system.
Now if we can get the drug benefit handled and get private insurance out of it all together, we'll be in great shape.
The Swiss system is better than what we have now but not as good as in that socialist hellhole country, France.
I think it comes down to whether or not one feels that health care is a right or a privilege. I am one who thinks that health care, education, libraries, police and fire protection etc. AKA "the commons" are a right and in the long run are less expensive for society that the privatization movement that is rampant here today.
June 16, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nicely done Lama. Hadn't seen a serious proposal for unsubsidized public optioin. Mostly people just throwing 'public option' around like manna from heaven. Is 'Medicare for All' on the table? i.e in active negotiation? I haven't seen any outlines of what the public option that people are 'for' and 'against' actually amounts to...
June 16, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
bali, didn't the Clinton plan have pooling requirement for insurance companies? I.E., Didn't they require insurance companies to form risk pools - regional pools if I remember correctly. I thought at the time that was a brilliant idea. Their whole plan, as I vaguely remember it, was excellent.
June 16, 2009 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't recall details the Clinton plan. I do remember it had some good ideas.
I do know the way the private outfits use pooling ends up driving the policy premiums to an unaffordable amount for the ever-shrinking pool of users who are actually using their policies. I don't know how many people know how the pools work.
Those of us who are self employed are at the effect of this pool thing. If you get insurance through your job, it is somewhat different, but as more companies don't provide health care, more of us will deal with the pools.
June 16, 2009 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Subsidized? Would it really, or is that just more talking points?
There are two ways to pay for health care - via general taxes or via direct individual purchases. Both ways can use risk-spreading aka "insurance", neither way must use risk-spreading (in principle).
Single payer kinda gets rid of risk-spreading in the usual sense. But what it does is to create a need for pricing and rationing mechanisms which perform a similar function to the actuarial function in insurance.
Two kinds of public option:
1) A publicly administered insurance fund and payer. This could be subsidized or not subsidized. It would compete with private insurance funds. People would pay premiums, and maybe some tax dollars would go to it, or maybe not.
2) A non-insurance fund and payer, aka Medicare. Here "insurance" vanishes. But again, controls on pricing and rationing are necessary.
June 16, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi balilama - Republican critics of a public option will tell you that they are not claiming a government program to be more efficient. Rather, they claim that any enterprise that includes making a profit as part of its budget can't charge as much, at any given level of efficiency, as a program that makes no profit.
I favor the public option, but we need to frame our position in a way that accurately acknowledges the position of the other side.
June 16, 2009 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink