The Right Wing's Latest Argument Against Public Health Care -- We'd Like It Too Much

A common thread is emerging in the right-wing response to health care reform. Its opponents aren't claiming that public health care will be bad. Rather, they are terrified that the new system will be so good that no citizen would buy expensive private insurance -- or vote for politicians who wanted to take public insurance away.

Barack Obama's team is sending clear signals that health care reform is a core economic issue, and the health insurance industry is becoming increasingly anxious by the future administration's determination to bring health care costs under control. Some Americans are seeing their health care premiums rising at four times the rate of inflation, if they have insurance at all. Health care reform is a pocketbook issue for all of us, according to the Obama team.

In tough economic times, it might be tempting to postpone health care reforms, but Obama is adamant that delay would be a false economy. In the American Prospect, Joanne Kenen and Sarah Axeen support claims about the high cost of doing nothing:

A recent report by the New America Foundation's health-policy program estimates that the cost of doing nothing about health care, including poor health and shorter lifespan of the uninsured, is well above $200 billion a year and rising. That's enough to cover the uninsured and still have some left over for other public-health needs.

If health care costs continue to rise at their current rates, it will cost $24,000 a year to insure a family of four by 2016, an 84 percent increase from today. At these rates, half of American households would have to spend at least 45 percent of their income to be insured.

In the Nation, Willa Thompson describes how a bicycle crash made her appreciate the connection between health care and politics. Thompson was 21 years old when she suffered major injuries after a collision with a truck. Luckily, she was covered by her parents' medical insurance until she turned 22. She later realized that if she had been just a few months older when the accident happened, she wouldn't have been able to pay for her medical care.

We all agree that something needs to be done. Let's briefly review the options that have been proposed so far: Obama wants to provide health care for all by requiring private insurance companies to cover everyone, and he wants to create a public health insurance plan to compete with private insurers. The second part of his plan, the public option, is what Republican opponents are so scared of.

Insurance companies love the idea that we will all be forced to buy their expensive product; they're not so keen about competition from the public sector.

Ezra Klein writes, "If you're looking for the coming fault line on the left of health care politics, keep an eye on what happens to the public-insurance option in the health reform bill." Will the public plan survive? Not if the Republicans and the insurance lobby have anything to say about it. As evidence, Klein cites this passage from a recent article in Congressional Quarterly:

Mark Hayes, a Republican health policy adviser to the Senate Finance Committee, said Republicans have concerns because the government plan might have access to price controls and other tools not available to private insurers. This could lead to lower premiums in the government plan, which would cause most consumers to migrate out of the private market, he said. "Over time, the effect the government option could have [is an] erosion in the private market, [making] other choices not available," Hayes said.

The consensus among progressives is clear, the public plan must prevail. In fact, many advocate going all the way to single-payer health insurance. Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee argues in the Progressive that Obama and Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for health and human services secretary, should opt for single-payer health insurance. Now is no time for piecemeal solutions: