I’m having a moment of cognitive dissonance here and I’m hoping someone can help me get my mind straight. In the outbreak of protests that have been popping up all over cable news, I keep hearing from the teabaggers, the healthcare reform opponents and my Libertarian friends variations on this argument: Government never works, and because government never works, we can’t allow a public option to compete against private insurance companies.
David M. Woods said it this way: “The free market always can solve problems and produce what people need better than government. There are no exceptions.”
I get it. You’re convinced that government never works and that free markets always work better than government.
If the free market folks are really so convinced of that, then explain this to me: how would a public option health insurance plan pose any kind of competitive threat to private insurance plans? If the free market always works better than government — “There are no exceptions” — then the only logical conclusion is that private health insurers would not only thrive against a public option plan but would provide such a demonstrably superior product that they would drive the public insurers out of the market.
You can’t have it both ways. If the free markets are perfect and always “produce what people need better than government,” then how could a public option health insurance plan possibly be any kind of threat to private insurance companies? After all, under the Libertarian free market argument, private insurers would always give people superior coverage at a lower price.
If the free market advocates are now contending that a public option would be a threat to private insurers, then they’ve done a complete 180 and they’re conceding that private insurers are charging too much for crappy coverage.
Which is it going to be?
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