Obama needs to stop playing nice with people.

[Jenner]

[Aaron]

Books stores exist because a Library doesn't hold enough of a type of book you want. Not only that you can't usually buy books from a Library unless they're books nobody wants.

Public transportation failed so people bought and still buy cars to get from A to B.

Public golf course?! What does that mean, I can play golf for free on a gov't. owned course?

[Kizyr]

Books stores exist because a Library doesn't hold enough of a type of book you want. Not only that you can't usually buy books from a Library unless they're books nobody wants.
Public transportation failed so people bought and still buy cars to get from A to B.
Public golf course?! What does that mean, I can play golf for free on a gov't. owned course

Public transport works great in the right places. DC has a great Metro system which I use very often (it's how I get to work). I still have a car, though, to go to a few more places.

Bookstores and libraries serve a different function. If you want to buy a book, you go to a bookstore. If you want to read or do research, you use a library. (Also, libraries are sorely underrated.)

A normal golf course is operated by a country club. You have to be a member of the club in order to play. A public one doesn't require club membership to join.

By the way, the best example is the postal service. USPS delivers packages, yet FedEx and UPS are still in business. I love USPS though; the service I get from my local post office is worlds better than what I get at either the UPS Store or FedEx Kinko's. KF

[Werefrog]

Kizyr, a couple of weeks ago you asked me if I had heard the arguments that the "public option" would put the private insurance companies out of business. I have heard these before, but it's always been from the same people who argue that the government can't do anything right and is horribly inefficient, so I generally just say ignore them because it can't be both ways. Maybe, I should give it more thought though.

At the same time though, I don't really have a problem with the government having a (virtual) monopoly on some level of healthcare. Just like I don't have a problem with the government's (virtual) monopoly on education and roads. Healthcare serves everyone in a society (like the other two things I just mentioned), so I don't really see anything wrong with everyone paying into the system.

Edit: I also like the example of USPS vs. Fed Ex and UPS. I've always been happy with the service provided by USPS. It's bothered me that opponents of socialized healthcare have used USPS as a cautionary tale of what could go wrong with healthcare.

[Kizyr]

Kizyr, a couple of weeks ago you asked me if I had heard the arguments that the "public option" would put the private insurance companies out of business. I have heard these before, but it's always been from the same people who argue that the government can't do anything right and is horribly inefficient, so I generally just say ignore them because it can't be both ways. Maybe, I should give it more thought though.

First off, I haven't really felt up to returning to this argument. Namely because I've gotten a bit tired of the direction the healthcare debate has taken. I don't even like supporting my own position anymore (that universal coverage isn't feasible) because of the kind of arguments coming from people who supposedly would agree with me. For me, the reason someone agrees with me is as important, or more so, than the agreement itself.

Anyway, that being said, it can definitely be both ways. Inefficiency in government isn't necessary related to the possibility of pushing private companies out of business.

The fact is, the government is in a position where it can run a negative-profit operation. (Social security, for example, can pay out more money than is paid in as long as there's enough tax revenue to support that. If there isn't, the government can borrow so that there is enough money.) This guarantee isn't something private businesses have, therefore, you're almost guaranteed to have a lower cost for the public option than for private insurance providers--in fact, since the public option is supposed to be available to the uninsured, we can expect that this will hold true here as well. (There's no sense providing a public option that's more expensive, after all.)

Now, it can provide this kind of service inefficiently (if it's being run at a loss, it's almost by definition inefficient), and it can provide low-quality service, but it'd still be far cheaper. Because it's cheaper, individuals are much less likely to go for private insurance, and companies are much less likely to provide private insurance to their employees, since there will be a significantly cheaper option available. That's what would push private insurance providers out of business.

Anyway, this isn't inevitable. There are a few different directions this could take. One end of the spectrum is the situation I just described. On the other end of the spectrum you have something similar to USPS vs. FedEx and UPS. The USPS is a government operation (and in fact may be one of the most efficient parts of the government), yet FedEx and UPS are still in business. This would be the ideal for healthcare--a hybrid option where there are both public and private options available, and no one is shut out completely.

To reach that end, there are a few different ways this could play out:
(1) Public insurance would have to be a recognizably worse service than regular, private insurance. There would then be a quality difference between the two to where private insurers could continue to operate.
(2) The government would need to offer tax relief to employers for providing private insurance, sufficient to offset the costs of just having every one of their employees on the public option.
(3) The government would need to subsidize private insurers to where they could offer cheaper coverage, similar to the cost of a public option.

There are others that I'm not considering here. Unfortunately, (2) and (3) both require government spending / less tax revenue, while (1) is the most realistic, yet rather unpalatable. (Would you really admit that you're providing a service that's worse than your competitors?)

At the same time though, I don't really have a problem with the government having a (virtual) monopoly on some level of healthcare. Just like I don't have a problem with the government's (virtual) monopoly on education and roads. Healthcare serves everyone in a society (like the other two things I just mentioned), so I don't really see anything wrong with everyone paying into the system.

There's a difference with roads, though (similar to the earlier examples of public transport and country clubs). They only serve a specific, localized area. You can't have a competitor to the Jersey Turnpike, for instance, since you can't build another road running exactly the same route as the Turnpike. (And even if you could, unless you charged a toll, it'd be prohibitively crowded.)

Edit: I also like the example of USPS vs. Fed Ex and UPS. I've always been happy with the service provided by USPS. It's bothered me that opponents of socialized healthcare have used USPS as a cautionary tale of what could go wrong with healthcare.

Folks who use USPS as an example of failure have no clue how the postal service actually functions. Unless they never use their mailbox, they're hypocritical morons. KF

[Werefrog]

Anyway, this isn't inevitable. There are a few different directions this could take. One end of the spectrum is the situation I just described. On the other end of the spectrum you have something similar to USPS vs. FedEx and UPS. The USPS is a government operation (and in fact may be one of the most efficient parts of the government), yet FedEx and UPS are still in business. This would be the ideal for healthcare--a hybrid option where there are both public and private options available, and no one is shut out completely.

To reach that end, there are a few different ways this could play out:
(1) Public insurance would have to be a recognizably worse service than regular, private insurance. There would then be a quality difference between the two to where private insurers could continue to operate.
(2) The government would need to offer tax relief to employers for providing private insurance, sufficient to offset the costs of just having every one of their employees on the public option.
(3) The government would need to subsidize private insurers to where they could offer cheaper coverage, similar to the cost of a public option.

Or... insurance companies could just find a new niche by providing supplemental insurance. Isn't this the way that it played out in Canada and the U.K.? Granted, I agree with you that this system may not feasible in the U.S. due to our hatred for taxes.

[Kizyr]

Or... insurance companies could just find a new niche by providing supplemental insurance. Isn't this the way that it played out in Canada and the U.K.? Granted, I agree with you that this system may not feasible in the U.S. due to our hatred for taxes.

It's how it worked out in the UK, with the NHS. But yes, I do think that either system would be untenable in the US due in part to the same reason, but also that logistically we're a much larger country than either Canada or the US. (Japan might be a better comparison, since it's much larger.)

I didn't intend to provide an exhaustive list, of course. I think there're ways that a public option could work. But given how there's been no substantive debate on the topic (and instead you just get fictitious crap like "Death Panels" coming up) I think it's less and less likely we'll actually find that way.

I really think Obama should've had Hillary Clinton put together a team to draft a bill from the very start, so they would have had something to work with from the beginning. That way it'd be more difficult for Republicans to shape the debate by making up stuff that isn't even being considered--you could simply point to the bill and say that it's not a part of it. KF

[Ruby]

I find this entire situation to be a little funny*, actually. Health care costs as they are now in the United States is not a free market situation, which is why health care costs are so much more than consumers can afford. 50% of every dollar spent on health care currently in the US is provided by the government, and business are required to give employees health care if they're full time (incentivising business to not make people full time workers but that's another story) so you end up with a system where health care providers only have to compete for the other half of revenue the government isn't providing them, and insurance doesn't have to compete to keep their costs down as much because businesses are forced to purchase their services. Oh and don't forget that a bevy of laws are in place to make it difficult for new insurers, health care providers, or pharmaceutical companies to enter the business so this limits competition even more. So you have a market that is not even remotely free, which has little competition in it, and so naturally the prices rise astronomically because unlike a free market they don't have to fight for your money.

And the grand solution to this all is empower men in Washington to use force on your behalf to take the other 50% of healthcare they don't already control come under their control and that's going to fix everything? Doesn't that sound a little wrong to you?

Oh and by the by, no, that doesn't mean that empowering men in Washington to use force on your behalf to go around the world and blow up brown people was right. Or any kind of welfare period, immigration control, social works, schools, EPA, ordering the theft of American's gold currency, or pretty much every other government program you can think of, because there is not a one that I can think of has had its precepts based in liberty that I can think of.

The Philosophy of Liberty

*You know, darkly humorous. The same way Paula Poundstone sprays her cats with a squirt gun and the cats run to her for protection from said squirt of water is darkly humorous.

[Werefrog]

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colber ... merica-now

Good Colbert clip.

[PottleElf]

Ruby is right on one thing. A big reason healthcare costs have gone up is because of insurance, and tax breaks for employer-provided coverage. A public option might bring the cost of insurance down and thus might bring down the cost of healthcare, or providing more insurance to more people might bring the cost up. Then again, maybe the decrease in personal cost from tax-breaked insurance more than offsets the increase in costs, and by the end of it all it's really cheaper per person. I really don't know how it would work (dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a businessman) but I just wanted to put that out there.