Marginally-related, I feel if the problem is that there is insufficient insurance company competition – then let’s correct that. You don’t correct every situation of inadequate competition by having the government join in as a new participant.
We didn’t do that with Standard Oil, nor with AT&T, nor with Microsoft. By analogy, do folks who support the public option “because there’s no competition” think that the U.S. government should have started oil, phone, and computer software businesses and then run those into perpetuity?
No. We have a mechanism to deal with inadequate competition: it’s called Antitrust. It really is not rocket science. It’s my understanding that the medical insurance companies were granted some antitrust exemptions back in the 30’s or something (I didn’t research).
Anyway, I would have no problem whatsoever removing those exemptions if that were now appropriate (and it may well be).
I have a much bigger problem with this piece of legislation being rammed down our throats. This is a *big* new entitlement to sign up for – when the others are already insolvent. Seems crazy to me.
