Refutation of a Journal Entry Featured on DU's Front Page

[clear eye]

The OPer of this journal holds that the built-in differences between a mixed private-public plan vs. single-payer are "not the most important issue" in deciding whether the plan can offer affordable access to quality health care in a cost-efficient way that is "reasonable" for our economy. He outlines an imaginary "public option" which he defines as having costs comparable with single-payer, without offering research or example to show that such a thing is possible. The Administration is estimating their mixed plan will cost $1T over 10 years more than current costs; PNHP shows w/ research that single-payer can cover all well for the same as we are paying now.

The costs, carefully researched, calculated, and compiled by numerous specialized health economics researchers say different.

There's an enormous difference in direct and indirect costs to us as individuals between the two options.
Single-payer is hugely less expensive than any mixed private/public plan. People, especially Baby Boomers whose life savings and pensions are already accumulated in yesterday's dollars, are now feeling the hit that excess borrowing is taking on the dollar. In this dreadful economy we also can't afford the combination of increased taxes, either VAT or taxed health benefits AND decreased care for the poor and elderly that is needed to fund a mixed plan. Single payer, even if subsidized to cover the poor and self-employed and chronically ill, would cost less in taxes for almost all working people than they are already spending on insurance premiums with no danger of ever being dropped from the rolls.

The options would strongly effect the economy in opposite ways.
The expensive, partially employer-funded mixed plan would worsen the economy. In contrast, as a result of removing employer costs for health insurance, single-payer will make U.S. enterprises more competitive w/ the rest of the world, and allow more small enterprises to succeed, thus improving the whole economy.

There are great amounts of research available explaining these differences to those who care to look.
This is not simply my "belief". If you go to the PNHP and the CNA websites, you can find study after study by health economists from Harvard and elsewhere proving it. Please, don't take my word for it. Find out for yourself what the difference between the two options is to our society. And that holds true even if a miracle happens and a "public option" is passed that doesn't simply function as a hugely expensive dumping ground for those who won't be profitable for private insurers.

The OPer presents himself as someone who speaks as a statistician--a numbers cruncher. This journal entry is terribly misleading in that light. For anyone who has studied the issue, his credibility has taken a hit. Saying that he thinks strategically we need to support a mixed plan is a defensible opinion. I don't believe experience in other countries and the individual states has shown that to be true, but it is something reasonable people can differ on. But saying that he, as a numbers cruncher, doesn't "believe" the difference between the two choices is "important" is irresponsible, especially as he doesn't include info on the enormous difference in costs and sorts of coverage that are likely with each.

[Oregone]

1. rec

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[clear eye]

3. Krugman wrote his column supporting the Edwards plan BEFORE the bank bailouts.

The Krugman remark is the only evidence the front page journal entry gives that a mixed plan can be affordable. Of course what was affordable before we blew through several $T and had 6 straight months of record job losses, and what is affordable now are two different things.