Legal Commentary

The Argument For Public Insurance

By Big Tent Democrat

Ezra Klein writes:

The key to cost control is a politics that forces Congress to make the hard decisions that lead to cost control. Right now, the ranks of the uninsured grow, the cost of insurance rises, and Congress can pretty much ignore the whole thing. The individual mandate controls average premium costs, but more than that, it is the political mechanism for cost control. Kill it, and you've killed our best hope of making the next reform better than this one.

The next reform? Ha! Actually, Ezra has it precisely backwards.The mandate is the bargaining chip necessary for putting health care reform on the table. We are not getting reform in this bill and if you give up the mandate now you will NEVER get reform. [More...]

More importantly, Ezra actually explains why public insurance programs are the best cost control reform - because there is an absolute built-in pressure on the Congress to control costs - it is a federal program. Mandates are no pressure on the Congress. They are a handout to the health insurance industry. A mandate to buy public insurance however, is the most effective cost control of all. In the end, this really tells you about Ezra Klein's views on health care reform - uninterested in the facts of cost control through public insurance (see Medicare and Medicaid), fascinated by the unproven magical exchanges and the "market" for private insurance.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 16, 2009 (boomark / email).