One thing that really bothers me about the statist’s propaganda is the claim the public option health care plan is “market based.”
For example, read this hogwash from Rep. Jane Harmon (D-ishonest):
A good healthcare bill will provide universal coverage, foster competition, encourage innovation, and preserve patients’ choice. I strongly believe that a robust public health insurance option is essential to achieving these goals. Neither a single-payer system nor an all-private market approach can achieve the results that competition among a robust public option and market-based plans will.
We know what happens when insurance companies don’t compete: The results range from complacency to price gouging. A public option will help fix this, harnessing the power of the market to drive down premiums, encourage efficiency and quality, and keep bloated treatment regimens in check. By one estimate, it could save the country $800 billion over the next decade.
The government option is harnessing the power of the market? Not remotely.
Here’s how it works. The government health care bill uses FORCE to make insurance companies offer benefits in plans they are FORCED to sell via The Exchange. The government also FORCES insurance companies to offer plans to those with pre-exisiting conditions. The insurance companies might not want to, but they have no choice. The law, aka the government, FORCES them to. It will also FORCE every American to have private health care, take the public option or pay a fine, getting nothing in exchange for their property.
The government also FORCES taxpayers to pay for the public option coverage of those who can’t afford to pay for the benefits themselves. This is called the “hardship waiver.”
That’s a lot of force to be market driven. See, in a market, the parties are free to enter into agreements based on mutual benefits. The seller agrees to part with a product or service for a price and the buyer agrees to pay the set price. The buyer gets a profit, the seller gets what they want or need.
With the Democrat’s health plan, the law tells the seller what they will sell and to sell to whomever asks. The more the government mandates, the higher the cost to the seller. Meanwhile, the government option is being sold at a loss, and the government doesn’t really care. If they need more money, they can use force to take it from the people, or they can just print it.
How exactly is this “harnessing the power of the market to drive down premiums?”
I assume Rep. Harmon is making the case that if the public option is cheaper than the private option, they will drop the price of their product to make it competitive with the government plan. But that’s impossible, because the private insurance company can’t afford to sell at a loss.
So what happens then?
Well, employers will see that their employees can get cheaper health benefits from the government and will drop the coverage. Those people will end up on the public option. People who can’t afford insurance now will apply for the government option since it’s really no skin off their backs. Someone else is paying for it. Insurance companies start hemorrhaging customers, driving down their evil profits. And those who chose not to carry insurance, but can afford it, will opt in for the government option instead of paying a fine for not having coverage.
The government, having forced people into it, will then brag about its success and trumpet the power and strength of the government option. And like Barney Frank says, that’s “the best way to get to single payer”:
The Democrats know the public option will put insurance companies out of business. That’s because the Democrats plan on selling their product at a loss by subsidizing it with taxpayer money. We have trade laws against this. The U.S. government has actually gone to the World Trade Organization to get China to stop doing this exact type of behavior.
But when a Democrat promotes it, it isn’t unfair or illegal. It’s market based.
How can they make this claim when it’s obviously false to anyone who really looks at it?
They understand “the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.”
Or, if you tell a big enough lie over and over again, people are bound to start believing it.
