Ahh, okay. I worry, though, that getting too deply into the details of answering the question, will focus people back on ... the details of the question, and make them forget how fundamentally wrong the whole question is in the first place.
For example, one of the points you brought up was the government's ability to use its size to negotiate lower prices. In the context of "unfair competition" that seems like a possibly good point, but if you step back and look at the real goals of health care reform, you realize that that's actually a great reason *to* have a public plan - if it can do that, who cares if it's "unfair", it's *better*. That's the sort of thing that worrying about the fake "unfair competition" question can obscure. In some cases, the very things we want to accomplish may turn out go hand in hand with competing "unfairly", and where that turns out to be true, those are things we should pursue.
Plus, I think that using the facts, those who oppose the gov't health care plan could have made a convincing *logical* argument about why it *would become* unfair, in addition to making their *emotional* argument.
Perhaps the could've if they'd wanted to more, or tried harder. I don't know. Probably not - in the general public, this is engaged on a level of broader arguments, not details. What I see permeating the public is the idea that the public option might be unfair competition for private insurance companies. I don't see people convinced that they know a bunch of detailed facts that explain why that is or isn't true, I just see people bringing it up as a general concept. Blowing away that smokescreen is my goal here.
no subject
For example, one of the points you brought up was the government's ability to use its size to negotiate lower prices. In the context of "unfair competition" that seems like a possibly good point, but if you step back and look at the real goals of health care reform, you realize that that's actually a great reason *to* have a public plan - if it can do that, who cares if it's "unfair", it's *better*. That's the sort of thing that worrying about the fake "unfair competition" question can obscure. In some cases, the very things we want to accomplish may turn out go hand in hand with competing "unfairly", and where that turns out to be true, those are things we should pursue.
Plus, I think that using the facts, those who oppose the gov't health care plan could have made a convincing *logical* argument about why it *would become* unfair, in addition to making their *emotional* argument.
Perhaps the could've if they'd wanted to more, or tried harder. I don't know. Probably not - in the general public, this is engaged on a level of broader arguments, not details. What I see permeating the public is the idea that the public option might be unfair competition for private insurance companies. I don't see people convinced that they know a bunch of detailed facts that explain why that is or isn't true, I just see people bringing it up as a general concept. Blowing away that smokescreen is my goal here.