Monday, June 29, 2009

LTE: Healthcare Monopoly

The Editor for the Asheville Citizen-Times writes:
The argument here is convoluted at best. Opponents of a single-payer or other plan generally seem to hew to the line that the free market works best and should be left to work its wonders. However, in the next breath those opponents say a government-backed plan would put private insurers out of business. How that adds up — inefficient government bettering efficient capitalism — we have yet to decipher.

A universal health care plan will become a huge monopoly

Dear Editor, Asheville Citizen-Times,

In a recent AC-T editorial on health care ("We need serious debate on health care reform, not political theater," Jun 24, 2009), the writer claims to be unable to decipher how efficient capitalism can be bested by inefficient government. That, of course, does not mean that the question is undecipherable.

First, we do not have a free market in healthcare. This industry is heavily regulated. The problems we experience in healthcare derive from a long history of politically-driven government interference in that once-proud industry.

The truth is that the government, with its hands already in your pocket, competing with counterparts the private sector is the antithesis of competition. It is the direct negation of fair competition. It is in reality a pathway to coercive monopoly that ultimately squeezes private providers out of the market. Which, of course, is what this administration and the supporters of government-run healthcare want.

In 2003, Mr. Obama said, "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal healthcare plan. But we may not get there immediately." And as Chicago Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said in April of 2009, “a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single-payer.”

This is not how a free market competes, this is how the Mafia competes.

(NOTE: This letter was also published in the Asheville Daily Planet, June 1, 2009)

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Health Policy on the Radio
Bob Glass "Radio Free America" with Ari Armstrong | June 23, 2009

That's Not Logical?
Neal Boortz | June 25, 2009
Did you catch this part of PrezBO's presser earlier this week? Some reporter asked him about his government health insurance pushing private health insurers out of business. Obama responds "If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical."

You're Not Buying This 'Competition' Nonsense, Are You?
Neal Boortz | June 29, 2009
Now we know just how ignorant Obama thinks the American people are. Answer: Dumb as rocks. All the president's men (and women) are out selling the asinine idea that Obama's government health insurance idea is going to put competition into the marketplace. This is an idea that one could only sell to a fool. Thanks to our system of government education, we are not suffering any shortage of fools.

Tax Credits for Education
Ayn Rand | 1973
No private concern can compete with a government institution for any length of time, and the injustice involved is obvious: it is a competition in which one contestant has unlimited funds, part of them taken from the other, and in which one contestant is forced to obey the rules arbitrarily set by the other. If any private schools survive, they will survive in name only (which is the typical policy of a fascist state): they are all but hog-tied by the government already.