A Medicare-Style Public Option in Healthcare Would Kill Private Insurance
What works in higher education won't work in healthcare
Dr. David Gratzer is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of
The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care.
Congress should consider reforms that will build on what already works in the American system. Here are few ideas:
First, Congress should make it easier for people to buy insurance. For a family attempting to get coverage, state regulations drive up the cost. In regulation-heavy New York, as an example, a family of four would pay $12,000 a year for coverage; in Wisconsin, a similar policy would be just $3,000. Why not allow people to buy policies across state lines? Not only would this save money, but it would help insure millions of uninsured—roughly 12 million, according to an analysis by University of Minnesota's Stephen Parente and Roger Feldman.
Second, Congress should make it easier for small companies to provide coverage. An easy reform: Allow companies to band together and purchase health insurance collectively. Some estimates suggest that this one regulatory change could shave a third off the cost of plans for some employers. For organizations like the Manhattan Institute, the advantage would not only be lower costs, but it could help provide its employees with more options.
Third, Congress should address the tax code's discrimination against the self-employed. Today, people who get their health insurance from the workplace get huge tax advantages; the self employed don't. Congress should level the playing field, making health insurance more affordable for the fastest growing segment of our workforce.
These initiatives would create a more competitive and affordable market for health insurance—increasing our choices, not killing them.
- Read the public option debate between HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Mike Enzi.
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Reader Comments
Isn't that the point? Good riddance!
I think that truly, what is needed is not a "public option" but a universal, single-payer system. What Gratzer is failing to recognize is that this entire issue is also a MORAL issue. It's preposterous to even begin to think of health care as anything other than a right of every American, as opposed to a privelege.
Even the "best insurance companies" are still making a profit off of others when those dollars could be spent on the patient and their physician. Many physicians, especially those who own their own practices, support single-payer because they will see the money immediately, and will not have to have hired help spending weeks and sometimes months tracking down payments from those who are unable to pay or from insurance companies who stop at nothing to make it difficult to cover those that they supposedly serve. That whole process is costly for the physician and the insurer.
With single-payer, the patient can choose to see whomever they would like to see, rather than being told to see only a list of certain doctors and hospitals that are included in their insurance company's network. Pre-existing conditions will no longer bar those who desperately need care for survival from accessing the help they need due to their economic status.
Isn't that what health care is for? To help maintain and promote the health of humanity?
What if we made all of our police forces or our fire departments private? How about our military? I may think that I only need the protection these services provide once in a while, if ever. I've never had a house fire. What would happen then? Why is our health treated so differently?
So of course any sort of "public option" will put many private insurers out of business. The reason that they are even in business is to capitalize on the fact that all people need access to health care, to live healthy, happy lives. Some people's entire livlihoods DEPEND on it. To make a profit off of opening or closing someone's door to this care is down right barbaric.
Another Voice for Profits of Insurance Companies and Another Lobby for Bad Healthcare for Americans
The best run Health care in America are the Veterans Administration and Congress' own health care - both much better than anything most American have. Health Insurance companies are lobbying hard to prevent Americans from getting good health care, so we have to settle for the bad health care to the benefit of their profits.
Republicans want to deny Americans the choice of having good health care - why, because profits from the monopolies of health insurance companies can buy politicians. If removing the monopolies "Would Kill Private Insurance" then so be it, we need the competition to lower health care costs in America.
Having a monopoly on offering bad health care is very profitable for health insurance companies and is bad news for Americans who want good health care.
Here we have another paid-for opinion from a conservative group whose job is to manipulate public opinion in favor of their corporate supporters.
Bad health care seems to be very profitable for conservative lobby groups like the Manhattan Institute, but bad for America.
David Gratzer
I think this speaks to Dr. Gratzer's supposed points and is clowned by Kucinich: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DII7v8yeRjs
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