Why So Scared of a Public Plan?
Big insurance and pharmaceutical companies are lobbying frantically (and spending millions of dollars) to foreclose the possibility of the most promising aspect of health care reform: a public insurance option.
Joe Conason, TruthDig
Pat Bagley
Within the coming weeks, Americans will begin to consider critical issues concerning the future of health care for themselves and their children, including universal coverage, taxation of benefits, computerized records and the controlling of costs. But before the debate commences in Congress and the media, big insurance and pharmaceutical companies are lobbying frantically (and spending millions of dollars) to foreclose the possibility of the most promising aspect of health care reform: a public insurance option.
After decades of denigrating government—and worshiping corporations—the idea that a public program might work as well or better than a corporate provider may well sound counterintuitive to many Americans. How can government, which is so widely believed to do nothing well while wasting enormous sums, possibly be expected to outperform the highly efficient, supremely managed and profitably motivated corporate sector? Wouldn’t we be better off if we simply entrust the provision of health care to the insurance industry? How can we trust those Washington bureaucrats with our health?
