16 June 2009
Competing with a Public Health Plan
It is surprising that Scott E. Harrington, in his OpEd article, “The ‘Public Plan’ Would Be the Only Plan,’ in the June 15, 2009, Wall Street Journal, believes that a public health insurance plan would drive private insurance out of business. The reason for a public plan, on the contrary, is to make it possible for private companies to make money by insuring the health of the majority of the population.
When society makes the political decision to provide equal quality health care for everyone, it clearly chooses to deal with the inequality of the cost of caring for everyone. Just as Medicare fills the needs of the elderly, who for the most part are no longer employed, another public plan is necessary to fill the medical needs of the chronically ill so that private payers, employers and individuals can cover the occasional and catastrophic illnesses of the majority of health care customers.
The economic ideology of the U.S. posits that the private sector is able, through well-regulated competition, to fill the needs and desires of the community more efficiently and at less cost than the government. However, when some of those needs and desires can only be filled at exorbitant cost and society deems that for reasons of equity those costs should be shared by everyone, then it is time for the government to step in. Limiting the public intervention to paying for the care of the chronically ill will leave the bulk of the health insurance system in the hands of private companies.
It is surprising that Scott E. Harrington, in his OpEd article, “The ‘Public Plan’ Would Be the Only Plan,’ in the June 15, 2009, Wall Street Journal, believes that a public health insurance plan would drive private insurance out of business. The reason for a public plan, on the contrary, is to make it possible for private companies to make money by insuring the health of the majority of the population.
When society makes the political decision to provide equal quality health care for everyone, it clearly chooses to deal with the inequality of the cost of caring for everyone. Just as Medicare fills the needs of the elderly, who for the most part are no longer employed, another public plan is necessary to fill the medical needs of the chronically ill so that private payers, employers and individuals can cover the occasional and catastrophic illnesses of the majority of health care customers.
The economic ideology of the U.S. posits that the private sector is able, through well-regulated competition, to fill the needs and desires of the community more efficiently and at less cost than the government. However, when some of those needs and desires can only be filled at exorbitant cost and society deems that for reasons of equity those costs should be shared by everyone, then it is time for the government to step in. Limiting the public intervention to paying for the care of the chronically ill will leave the bulk of the health insurance system in the hands of private companies.
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