We hear continually that the nation must have a “public option” so private insurance companies will be “kept honest.” This is sheer baloney and regime spokesmen must think they can prevail on this simply through repetition.
Don Boudreaux refutes this notion in another of his sterling letters:
Editor, Los Angeles Times
Dear Editor:
Re “Obama’s evolution on a public option in healthcare reform” (August 19): The administration repeatedly insists that a “public option” is a way of (as spokesman Robert Gibbs describes it) “fostering choice and competition in a private health insurance market.”
I don’t get it. Americans have goo-gobs of choice and competition in many markets that have no “public options.” For example, choice and competition are abundant in the market for automobile insurance, even though no government-run insurer competes along side State Farm and Geico. Choice and competition also thrive in grocery retailing without a government-run supermarket challenging Safeway and Whole Foods for customers. The same is true in countless other markets.
If Mr. Obama were interested in fostering greater choice and competition among health-insurers, he would work to break down government-imposed restrictions on interstate competition among such insurers and oppose government-imposed restrictions on coverage options, including restrictions on offering high-deductible plans.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Wouldn’t you love to see Robert Gibbs try answering that?
