Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Blanche Lincoln Compares Co-Op Plan To Post Office

Those loans would be paid back and then it would be on its own and self-sustaining just like the Post Office is.

Yeah, cause that worked out so well...

Source: http://www.asmainegoes.com/content/snowes-committee-favoring-health-reform-post-office

Update: This quote was incorrectly attributed to Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Hat tip to Dan Echt for the correction.

5 comments:

  1. First, Snowe didn't say it, Blanche Lincoln did. Second, what's so wrong with the Post Office? It's certainly had financial trouble, but last I checked, the mail still moves. Not to mention, a lot of the financial issues with the USPS have to do with declining demand. Which would presumably not be an issue with this co-op plan.

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  2. Granted, I still support the "public option" over the co-op.

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  3. The USPS is a government-sponsored monopoly, that is the problem. Literally one of the first examples used in an intro microeconomics class, by economists on the left and the right. Yes, declining demand is the problem, but decreasing demand would be fine if the company was able to/forced to correct itself.

    And when did socialism become en vogue. To steal a term that has been making the rounds lately, we don't need Fannie Med. Public option or co-op, government stepping in with an option is simply going to compound the problem of perverse incentives in the American health care market. And if Dems would just admit that what they are supporting is a socialism in a micro setting, just like Medicare was, then we could have an actual debate about the merits of the incentives of the market vs. the government.

    These aren't scare tactics, just facts. There are arguments for socialism, and let's just admit that this is a debate about whether government or the market can do it better.

    But it is frustrating feeling like characters from Atlas Shrugged, crying out to no one in particular and being ridiculed for it.

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  4. In some situations, I do believe that the government can do better. Take, for example, those who can't get coverage because their health makes them a liability to the insurance company. They could certainly be served better by a government system that would actually insure them.

    Something that's been bothering me is the constant yelping about the "imminent demise of private insurance" that will allegedly result from implementation of a government option. The government has no interest in forcing the private sector out of business. And if the private insurance industry is forced to adjust, then so much the better.

    Of course, I have Tricare coverage until I leave grad school. So maybe I'm a little biased.

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  5. No, only high-end private insurance will remain, so the gentrification between the rich and the poor will be greater, though the rich will be worse off, as will be the middle class forced off of their current plan. The only people better off under Obamacare are those who don't have health care right now but will receive it, which the CBO says isn't even close to all of them, since many don't WANT health insurance. And the public plan doesn't force "adjustement", it uses market power to force business out of the market.

    Look at Canada. If anything even whiffs of easing the entry into the market of private insurance, even the "conservatives" have to remind people that they oppose private insurance. THis is what a "public plan" does. There is no going back once it happens. Government inherently grows, we will end up with single-payer, and we will end up with social democracy. Accept it. These aren't scare tactics. These are facts based on what has happened historically and is happening elsewhere.

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