Here’s Lanny Davis, the former Clinton team member and all-around Democratic good guy, on the subject of the “public option” crowding out private competition, and becoming a stalking horse for a single-payer system:
“I favor a public option - but the White House needs to explain better why, if public option is heavily subsidized by tax dollars, it won’t always have substantial competitive advantage over any private insurers, even those with very modest profit margins, and thus, will not result in a total federal government take-over — in effect, socialized medicine as in Canada, U.S., and the U.K.”
If I’m reading Davis correctly, he thinks there’s no problem with a public option that better communication (aka lying) can’t solve. That’s unless he honest-to-goodness believes that a public option won’t lead eventually to a single-payer system.
There’s a really stupid-simple question I have to ask. If there’s room in the market for another health-insurance vendor, then why haven’t capitalists and entrepreneurs stood up one or more new ones? By definition, that statement means that money is being left on the table. Nothing, but nothing, would prevent legitimate business people from rushing to fill that void. It’s like catnip.
Since it’s not happening, then obviously there’s no opportunity to do anything here, unless you have advantages that simply can’t be matched by the private sector.
