Breaking News

Letter to the Editor: Public option

Monday, November 2, 2009

by Hoyt Banks

Ben Cohen’s “Politically Correct” column in favor of the public option is an ever more frequent insight into stage-five liberal dementia. The public option is not a good idea. It will not “guarantee us coverage until we could afford it ourselves.” If coverage is defined as the government telling you what sicknesses you can be treated for, long waits for simple surgeries and small businesses collapsing because of mandatory health coverage costs, then, empirically, coverage will be guaranteed.

These problems didn’t arise in some distant land, they occurred in Massachusetts within one year of state law mandating health insurance for all. Within two minutes of searching on ehealthinsurance.com I found more than 70 health insurance plans for $27 a month and more, or four hours of work if you make minimum wage. Most 19- to 29-year-olds forgo purchasing health insurance because they don’t think they will get sick, not because they can’t afford it.

Lastly, the public option will not create competition — it will destroy it. How can private insurers compete with this “new player” who doesn’t have to worry about costs or having a profit margin? It’s simple ­— private insurers can’t charge a price below their costs and then tax all of us to make up the difference. The government can.

President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi have spoken of their desire for single-payer government health care on record several times. The public option is not a mere player — its Obama’s stepping stone to socialized health care. Competing with the public option is comparable to wanting to go to Quinton’s tonight but realizing you have insufficient dinero in your ATM to finance another night of debauchery. Meanwhile, the government also wants to go to Quinton’s, checks their bank account at an ATM, realizes its overdrawn $11 trillion and decides to buy all of Massachusetts Street anyway.

Comments

pantheon (anonymous) says...

An analogy is like a beautiful woman. Your analogy is comparable to you meeting this beautiful woman, locked her in a basement, throwing acid on her face and then cutting her with razor blades. Then, later, bringing her out and defecating on her and introducing her to your parents.

November 2, 2009 at 10:47 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

Geiiga (anonymous) says...

I had knee surgery a couple years ago. The wait times for the insurance-mandated hoops I had to jump through to get from "I can't walk up stairs in winter" to actually having a surgeon fix the problem meant that it took almost an entire year. Two months waiting for an appointment to see a primary care doctor. Three more months waiting for my appointment for the MRI the doctor set up for me. Two months after that to get back to the primary care doctor, who did nothing but glance at the MRI and set up an appointment for a surgeon four months later. Oh, and when I lost the job that paid for the really good insurance that meant the whole thing only cost me two grand instead of forty, they gave me the option of continuing on it for $946 a month.

I'm told that the wait time in Canada for the same procedure averages four months. And I'm fine with that if it means that somebody who's had his leg smashed in a car accident gets right in (which they do). But let's not pretend that the public option is bad in any way other than that it doesn't go far enough, or that the wait times in places whose health care system isn't based on the American "help as few people as we can get away with" idea are worse than ours.

November 2, 2009 at 5:22 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

reuben (anonymous) says...

Is the public option bad because it can also be called "socialized medicine," which sounds like socialism? If it helps more people (which it does everywhere it exists), then why is it a bad idea?
If Europe/Canada/Asia can do it, why can't we?

November 10, 2009 at 8:47 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

Advertisement