I keep hearing that Democrats want a Public Health care option to increase competition so let’s do a little thought experiment about how we could apply Obama’s health care ideas about competition to auto insurance so we could have more competition there too!
First the government would make it illegal for you to purchase car insurance across state lines, thus eliminating tens or maybe even hundreds of insurance companies from your state and leaving only a few options. Then the government would give huge tax breaks to people who got their insurance through their employer instead of buying it for themselves.
This would mean that, if you had a job, you would be stupid to pay more for insurance directly when you could get it through your employer so now, even if you’re in a big state where maybe even 10 insurance companies can still sell car insurance, you can only choose between a couple options that your employer has picked for you. Oh yes, plus if you leave your job you lose your car insurance.
Having cut the number of insurance companies you can buy from down from hundreds to maybe two, Obama will now give you the option of buying your insurance from the same guys who run the DMV. Presto! Now that’s competition!
This is classic Left wing government: first government screws up the market, then the Left claims that the screwed up market is proof that the market isn’t working, then the Left want to either take the market over (i.e. the fascist approach) or eliminate it completely (i.e. the socialist approach).
The false competition claim is one that the Right has left alone far too long in this debate. Robert Reich in Salon prattles on about competition but is evidently completely unable to visualize letting more private companies compete for people’s health insurance business as an actual means of getting competition, though, he does offer some insight into the political cowardice behind the “trigger” option.
Interestingly enough, the new momentum for talking about competition on the right seems to be coming from Sarah Palin (by way of this WSJ Op-ED ), who showed some of the conservative heft that I had pretty much given up on seeing from her. She also quotes The CATO Institute, which a sure way to my NeoLibertarian heart:
As the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let’s give Americans control over their own health care.
Someone should require all Republicans to write this paragraph on their left arm with a sharpie so that any time they want to cry “socialist” or “you lie” they can shout some ideas instead.
Hopefully the competition argument will have legs: there is a great blog post on Hot Air with video of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer pounding on White House adviser David Axelrod about competition. Axelrod, evidently surprised that someone from CNN would question the wisdom of Obama, does quite the deer in the headlights dance to try and avoid the question. The well titled post is called Video: Axelrod not comprehending what “competition” means.
