Monday, August 17, 2009

Matt on Lindsey Graham and government run insurance

Link here

Lindsey Graham talks to Ezra Klein about his opposition to the creation of a “public option” for people currently languishing on the individual health insurance market:

My belief is that no private-sector entity can survive over a long period of time competing against the government. The public option will be written by politicians. It will be generous. Nobody in my business worries about the bottom line. Eventually, the public option will dominate the marketplace because the political forces in the public sector are different than the economic forces in the private sector. Eventually, the private sector will give way.

Ezra asks the natural followup question: If government provision of health insurance is so terrible, why not scrap Medicare?



Francois' response: Now we're talking about single-payer. I thought single-payer was off the table? It would be mighty dirty and dishonest to use a public option as a trojan horse, something which liberals vociferously deny in mixed company(but not in purely liberal company).

I'm fine with a public option, but it must play on the same field as the private companies, not enjoy special advantages dictated by law. And it must not be bailed out if it fails.

But then again, it's all academic now. There will be no public option. There aren't enough votes and the President is no longer committed to it.

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