Republicans now arguing government more efficient than private enterprise?

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- nokilleye -

New member
Of the several and oft conflicting major arguments against the healthcare 'public option', my favorite is the assertion that without such burdens as shareholder profits, executive salaries and advertising, a public program will hold an unfair advantage that will ultimately put private enterprise out of the healthcare insurance business altogether.

Without addressing the merits of the argument, please respond to the following question:

If private enterprise cannot compete with a public program, isn't the premise of that question based on assertion that government is more efficient and cost effective than private enterprise?
 
"If private enterprise cannot compete with a public program, isn't the premise of that question based on assertion that government is more efficient and cost effective than private enterprise?"

No, it isn't. Being more cost effective and efficient is a reason why one entity would do better than another, but not the only reason.

The reason why the government can do better than any private company is because its funding and resources might as well be considered infinitely more vast than any private company could ever muster. Private companies can do this too at time. Microsoft and Sony don't make money off their video game consoles, they lose money. But they want that market so badly that they keep funding it. Those companies bring in money from other market sectors and dump it into video games just to keep a foot in the market, in the hopes that one day the other might croak and they get to dominate that market. Similarly, the government makes money from tax revenue, they make more 'profit' in one year than any company could ever hope for in a century. So they could fund health care just to keep a foot in that market at a loss and it's no big deal to them.
 
The answer is quite simple. Private insurance cannot compete with a public program, because the Government doesn't need to recover all of its costs, not because it's more efficient. The Government can offer health care at a cost that is substantially less than the cost of delivering that care, by making up the difference through tax revenues. No private business of any kind can survive against competition that cares nothing for costs and has no incentive to contain them. Not only that, but Government will have a dual role as a player on the field and as the referee. They will decide which terms and provisions will be allowable for private insurance companies and mandate such things as guaranteed issue, and community rating. In short, the premise of your question is fatally flawed.
 
Your either a die hard liberal, or haven't thought this out before asking your question, or both. Government creates policy to suit it's needs. It would be virtually impossible to sue for making mistakes. It would not pay taxes as a healthcare entity, we would have to fund this entity with our tax dollars. Which brings up my next point, government healthcare does not have to be profitable so there is no incentive to be efficient. Look at other government entitlement programs and name one that works well. The democrats feel they have a limitless supply of tax dollars to fund their agenda and so they can keep spending forever. Raising taxes to whatever level necessary to continue a program does not equal efficiency.
 
Wow,you hit the hammer on the nail and drilled it in with one blow..
I think your question and theory should be put before a person like
congress man Wilson or Sara Palin and they'll need a translator to understand it.
 
A private company is funded solely through voluntary association with it's customers. A public option will be funded MANDATORILY by all people. Thus If person A wants to use the private obtion and person B the public, person A is not only payign directly for his own care, but is subsidizing (through taxes) the care of person B.

This means the public option can (and will in the name of charity) undersell the private competitors. The fees they charge will NOT cover their operating expenses, but taxes will make up the difference. Private entities cannot do this because they cannot compel someone they do not do business with to support them.

Another common lie that is out there is that medicare is more efficient than private insurers today. This figure is achieved by comparing "bureaucratic" overhead of an insurer against that of medicare. What the clever folks who spread this are hoping you don't find out is that private insurer's spend this money in order to prevent fraud. Medicare doesn't and has MASSIVE fraud problems. The fraud prevention efforts of the private sector are cheaper than just letting folks defraud the company. But Medicare has a functionally bottomless bank account, so it doesn't care about stopping fraud.
 
Have you actually read any of the health care bills to know what is in them? Most of them allows you to keep your company health care plan until you transfer jobs then you have to go on to the public plan or if there is no public plan, than what ever the government has created. Also, the biggest reason that the public plan can't compete is when you stack the deck so that within so many years the public plan is the only viable option means that it is not playing by the same rules as a private company has to.
 
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