having a public plan would add to health insurance companies' incentives to work harder on lowering their own costs, and increase price competition. And a public plan that wasn't in the business of spending lots of its money figuring out how not to cover sick people would have lower administrative costs. Enough lower to make it a viable large-scale player in the market? We don't know. A public plan would let us see.
Some bills without a public plan would still be worth passing. Some bills with a public plan would not be worth passing. But a public plan is not merely an "easily understood metaphor that can be used to wage an ideological war." A public plan would be a pro-competitive intervention in the health care market.
And if it turned out that it could provide better care at lower costs than private insurers, and if people did flock to it, and if it did become the plan a plurality or a majority of Americans chose--would that be so bad?
That's very different from the insane screaming about how people shouldn't think about whether they want an advance medical care directive and what it should say.
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
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