Public Plans and Rationing Your Health Care

Conn Carroll / March 23, 2009

The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus tackled health care reform in an op-ed this Sunday, and her article nicely laid out many of the key areas of dispute and offered some interesting ideas for compromise. But in doing so, she exposed the internal contradictions of those arguing for a “public plan” and why a public plan cannot be part of reform. Marcus writes:

Should there be a public insurance option? This is a question that evokes near-religious fervor and that could crash the whole enterprise. Republicans hate the notion of a government program because they fear, with ample reason, that it is a slippery-slope step to a single-payer program. Liberals demand a public insurance alternative for precisely that reason.

Potential solution: Have the public program abide by the same rules as private plans, so it has no inherent advantage.

But then Marcus writes: (more…)