It looks like the end of the so-called public option in the President\u2019s healthcare reform package. While Obama continues to speak in generalities, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made the following comment on CNN\u2019s State of the Union: “I think there will be a competitor to private insurers. That’s really the essential part, is you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing. We need some choices, we need some competition.”<\/p>\n
This quote tells us a lot about how this administration views the economy. So what exactly is a \u201ccompetitor to private insurers?\u201d Why must the government get involved to have real competition? Insurance companies\u2014like all private businesses\u2014compete to provide the best products and services at the lowest prices. We could have more competition if Washington would take action to allow individuals to purchase their insurance from providers across state lines. We don\u2019t need a government player in the market to do this.<\/p>\n
And what\u2019s this about trust? Are insurance providers untrustworthy? Are we supposed to \u201ctrust\u201d the government to \u201cdo the right thing\u201d when it comes to health insurance?<\/p>\n
This is really quite simple. Private businesses MUST deliver the goods to survive. Those that perform well are rewarded with profit, while those that don\u2019t meet customer needs lose money. Government-run businesses are not under this pressure, however. They can lobby for legislation to tilt the playing field in their favor when things aren\u2019t going well. Or they can simply ask for more money from Congress, arguing that they exist to pursue the \u201cpublic good\u201d instead of profit.<\/p>\n
Sebelius told us a lot in her statement. This administration views private businesses as evil capitalists who can\u2019t be trusted, while only the government is capable of \u201cdoing the right thing.\u201d But they\u2019re missing the point. The profit incentive is not evil; it\u2019s precisely what forces private businesses to meet the demands of the market. Remove the profit incentive and organizations can do as they wish without repercussions. This is why we need MORE private competition, NOT a government option.<\/p>\n
The public option might be gone for now, but we must remember why it was there in the first place. The left\u2019s preoccupation with destroying capitalism is still alive and well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It looks like the end of the so-called public option in the President\u2019s healthcare reform package. While Obama continues to speak in generalities, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made the following comment on CNN\u2019s State of the Union: “I think there will be a competitor to private insurers. That’s really the essential part, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}