I was going to point out that the "unfairness" is not a smokescreen to the question the insurance companies are trying to ask, but you're answering a different question (which you've just pointed out).
Huh, that comment confuses me. My point all along was that the very question the insurance companies would have us debate is the smokescreen: it obscures the real question we should be debating, which is whether having a public option would make health insurance for Americans better, with a question of their own, which is whether the competition would be "fair". Ultimately, we the people don't care about that latter question, we care about the former: will the overall result of this be better or worse for us (not "will it be better or worse for insurance companies")?
Second, I think it does matter that there is private insurance, and the reason is for competition. Here, I'll point to the British model [...]
Nobody suggests that any plan that actually eliminates all private insurance could possible get anywhere close to passing the Congress, so that's a strawman. Private insurance would only disappear entirely if it could not provide anything whatsoever that anyone finds value in. It might get much smaller than it is now, or might not, depending on how good a job it does, but complete disappearance seems far-fetched (and if it does happen, it would happen only because it turns out that we get no value out of having private insurance).
As you point out, even if we had a public health system as comprehensive as the NHS (which neither Obama nor Congress seems to be contemplating), there would *still* be some niches for private insurance as long as we didn't ban them. And you certainly can't pretend that there's "fair" competition between the NHS and the private insurance companies in the UK. It's clearly dominant, with huge structural advantages, and no pretense of a level playing field. But so what? A level playing field between private and public insurance is not a legitimate public policy goal, better more effective health of the people is.
no subject
I was going to point out that the "unfairness" is not a smokescreen to the question the insurance companies are trying to ask, but you're answering a different question (which you've just pointed out).
Huh, that comment confuses me. My point all along was that the very question the insurance companies would have us debate is the smokescreen: it obscures the real question we should be debating, which is whether having a public option would make health insurance for Americans better, with a question of their own, which is whether the competition would be "fair". Ultimately, we the people don't care about that latter question, we care about the former: will the overall result of this be better or worse for us (not "will it be better or worse for insurance companies")?
Second, I think it does matter that there is private insurance, and the reason is for competition. Here, I'll point to the British model [...]
Nobody suggests that any plan that actually eliminates all private insurance could possible get anywhere close to passing the Congress, so that's a strawman. Private insurance would only disappear entirely if it could not provide anything whatsoever that anyone finds value in. It might get much smaller than it is now, or might not, depending on how good a job it does, but complete disappearance seems far-fetched (and if it does happen, it would happen only because it turns out that we get no value out of having private insurance).
As you point out, even if we had a public health system as comprehensive as the NHS (which neither Obama nor Congress seems to be contemplating), there would *still* be some niches for private insurance as long as we didn't ban them. And you certainly can't pretend that there's "fair" competition between the NHS and the private insurance companies in the UK. It's clearly dominant, with huge structural advantages, and no pretense of a level playing field. But so what? A level playing field between private and public insurance is not a legitimate public policy goal, better more effective health of the people is.