Only Communists are Against the Public Option
I find it funny that almost every time I get into a conversation with a Republican about Health Insurance Reform, they call me a Communist. Sometimes they will do it outright and sometimes they will just imply it by putting “Comrade” in front of my name.
Why would they label me a Communist? Well for starters, I am supporting the Medicare4All plan for health insurance. This would be a government take over of the health insurance industry. So I can see where they may have some justification for this label. However, the government has taken over a few other industries in the past and no one claims that we are a Communist nation as a result. For example, the post office is already government run. So that would mean that anyone who gets mail is supporting Communism, right? Anyone who likes getting mail must be a Communist. What about the police? If you like the police, then you must be a Communist because the government pays their bills too. And then there is the military. Apparently, during the Cold War we had Communists fighting Communism.
Republicans seem to think that Canada and Great Britain are both Communist countries. After all they have “evil” socialized medicine. When you think about it, Republicans must also think that every American over 65 years of age are Communists too. They are all on Medicare and seem to love it. They love it so much so that one retarded Republican yelled to his Senator during a townhall meeting that Medicare was great and that the government better stay out of it. So why is it that if I think everyone should be able to go on Medicare, I must be a Communist?
I don’t actually think Republicans know what Communism really is. They just like to throw that word around. Didn’t we go through that period in American history? I thought that the Red Scare was over. Communism isn’t the government take over of one industry. It is the complete take over of all economic and social activity under a one party totalitarian government. The fact is that the Medicare4All plan is not Communism. But that aside, President Obama’s plan wasn’t for Medicare4All. His plan was a compromise plan calling for a Public Option. In other words, Obama wants to introduce new competition into the market.
Currently, the level of competition within the Health Insurance Industry is very low. This is in part because most Americans don’t choose their health insurance company, their employers do. For many larger companies, the cost of switching back and forth between health insurance companies is more costly than the savings that the company would get from switching. In any case, the Public Option would be a new competitor in the marketplace.
While it is true that this would be an unfair competitor in that the Public Option would be much cheaper since it doesn’t have the large overhead of the major insurance companies, Republicans should trust that the market will adjust. For example, one common criticism I hear from Republicans is that government programs are inefficient and just horrible. That being the case, if the Public Option is really that bad, no one will choose it. People would pay more money to get the better product, right? Isn’t that how Capitalism works?
People would be able to choose (that is freedom, right?) to either go with the private health insurance company that their employer has enrolled them into or they can opt out of that in favor of the Public Option. If they switch to the Public Option and it sucks, than they can switch back. While it is true that the private insurance companies will probably have to lower their prices and profit margins a little bit to compete, that is what Capitalism is all about. They will also probably have to be a better service if they want to keep customers. But again that is the nature of Capitalism.
When you boil down the ideas of Capitalism and Communism, you see that it is really all about competition. The reason why Capitalism is great is because competition forces companies to continue to better their product or service in order to compete with rival companies in the same industry. The problem with Communism is that without competition, there is no incentive to improve products or services.
Republicans seem to not want competition within the health insurance industry. Why is that? Well, most Republican politicians and even a fair number of Democratic politicians have been bought by the insurance industry. The insurance industry doesn’t want competition. They certainly don’t want real competition. As it is, they are the only game in town. With the Public Option, they will have to actually compete.
The sad fact is that the Health Insurance Industry has no one to blame but themselves for this. If they made sure that their customers were happy and that everyone loved their coverage and low prices, no one would want to reform the system. But instead, they became greedy and decided to raise prices ridiculously and lower their quality of service. People’s medical bills weren’t being covered because of loopholes in their policies designed specifically to find reasons why the Industry shouldn’t pay claims. People who would have higher medical bills due to “preexisting conditions” would have premiums that they couldn’t pay or were just kicked out of the system altogether. The Health Insurance Industry has a poor and expensive service and there is no real competition forcing them to improve.
Filed under: Current Events, healthcare, Politics
