The Public Health Care Plan: What Seems to Be the Problem?

Rory Cooper / May 21, 2009

Debunking the Myths

• Lower Costs? It’s a shell game. A government plan always looks cheaper, but the reality is that the true costs are hidden. Costs are passed on to providers in administrative costs and lower reimbursements, resulting in a huge cost-shift to private payers to make up the difference.
• Quality Care? One only needs to look at current government health plans. Medicare has huge gaps in coverage. And Medicaid’s quality is notoriously bad. The record is clear: They offer substandard care compared to private health insurance, especially in the areas of cancer and cardiac care. These persistent quality deficiencies are routinely overlooked in discussions of a government health plan.
• Increased Competition? With a public plan, the federal government would create the rules for the “game” in which it plans to compete. But the government would not just be a neutral umpire in the game. It would also own one of the competing teams, namely the public plan.
• The Public Plan Won’t Crowd Out Private Insurance? It’s impossible to believe that Congress and the Administration could resist setting rules—and interpreting those rules—in favor of their own public plan. Independent estimates show that as many as 119 million Americans would no longer be in private coverage.
• The End Goal Is Not Single-Payer? As Congresswoman Schakowsky will tell you, the end goal is definitely a single-payer system. That’s why many supporters of a single-payer system, where the government runs the whole health system, are suddenly converts to choice and private competition as long as there is a public plan. (more…)