President Obama blames profits for our problems with health care and says a new not-for-profit insurance option will make everything better. But the largest insurance company in North Carolina, with well over half the market, is the not-for-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. Most hospitals in the state are also not-for-profit organizations.
Medicare is a not-for-profit government entity that pays 30 percent less than private insurance. Medicaid pays even less–North Carolina Medicaid is one of the most generous in the country and it pays medical providers just 95 percent of Medicare’s reimbursement rate. No wonder more than half of doctors won’t take new patients on one of the government programs.
As for a single new entity creating competition, does the president think UMass is the reason why his Harvard education was great? Does Rutgers really push Princeton to excel? Did the DC public schools really make Sidwell Friends School strive that much harder to enroll the Obama girls?
If public options worked well, Germans would be selling Trabants around the world today instead of BMWs and Volkswagens.
Health care needs more Walmart and less Washington.
