The Health Care debate is a very useful example of how conservatives claim to love markets but when it comes down to it truly don't. Actually from their Ivory Towers they don't like governments and long for the days before the industrial revolution--which is fine, and some of their points to this effect are valid as academic questions,logically consistent, as they opine romantically about some far off utopia.
But theory and the real world are two different things. And when it comes down to it abstract reasoning doesn't matter. What matters are the struggles, challenges, strengths, and humanity of everyday people living their lives. One of my coworkers always says to me... "I load trucks, no book or idea is going to get that truck loaded and those packages to folks who paid me to get them there safely and quickly. And no idea is going to feed my kid or pay for me to go to the doctor. But if it helps improve the quality of my life then its okay in my book"
And he's right.
UPS could sit around and complain if Fed Ex had some way of providing cheaper services that more people want--making Fed Ex a more competitive firm than UPS. Or UPS can compete in the market finding ways to cut costs, provide better more efficient service, and win customers through a job well done.
When it comes to health care the private sector is terrified of actually having to face competition. Because of this fear of not being able to provide services that people will want to buy they have turned to lots of straw man arguments and clever chess moves to try and protect them from the marketplace.
We have two choices we can protect excessive profits from inefficient bureaucracies that have created the health care crisis and are doing a terrible job of it compare to the rest of the world... or we can prioritize our long term fiscal health, and the quality of life of our citizens before we start to worry about jet-set CEO's.
I side with hard working citizens who deserve a choice. I don't think protecting private companies from some good old fashion competition is bad, scary, or the end of the world. Actually for many it will be the thing that keeps them in this world. If my best friend had the medication she needed for her untreated psychiatric disorder she'd be alive. She was brilliant so she'd be doing something that would have been of great use to our society and our economic productivity.
If the public Medicare-like option is as terrible as ideologues, ivory tower types, and private industry says it is then people won't choose to turn towards to public plan. N one is going to make people use the public option. The point is to provide it as one more choice for people to look at, to see if its services, prices, and options fit their needs. No one is arguing to get rid of private insurance--we're arguing that market competition works. It doesn't matter why the government can do it better and cheaper... and for some it won't be better as they are happy with their private plan... what matters is that competition creates incentives for private companies to lower costs, become more competative, more effiecient, and provide better services.
Take two examples...
Look at the medicare advantage program... where private insurance companies whom we allow to provide medicare services spend more than traditional fee-for-services. The private sector likes to claim they do it better, but its just not so.
Look at the prescription drug benefit plan that Bush push through--where the government isn't allow to use its purchasing power to lower costs. Meaning we have to spend more tax payer dollars so that private drug manufactures get more profits flowing to them. Imagine a law that made it illegal for walmart to use its purchasing power because it was unfair to Target? Thats the argument being made by folks who claim to love markets--but happen to forget their "principles" when private profits are at stake...
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