Health Care
I’ve seen the “public option” compared to the Post Office (by the President), and I just saw it compared to public colleges by Sen. Schumer (D-NY).
The explanation of the public option that I keep hearing is: The government will set it up, and then it must compete on its own, and the government will be “hands off” after that. To that I say: maybe. Suppose the public option plan begins to have trouble, and starts to fail. Won’t we bail it out? It has to compete with other insurers. Believe it or not, these have patents on business processes. Will the public option be given the royalty-free right to use these processes? If so, it isn’t a level playing field.
Does the government even have the authority to create such an entity? The Post Office is, after all, explicitly an enumerated power in the constitution. Clearly they do… but really, should they?
If Schumer’s analogy (like public colleges) is apt, then I would point out that the government subsidizes public colleges. But I am repeatedly told that the public option will not be subsidized.
The Post Office is a pseudo-independent corporation and receives no tax funds. But it has only been this way since 1971 (thank you Mr. Nixon); before that the Postmaster General was a Cabinet position, and was, in fact, in line to succeed the President.
Maybe Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the models to follow. But Fannie and Freddie are protected monopolies. Then again, so is the Post Office. It is illegal for anyone else to deliver letters.* Even better, all three are exempt from state and federal taxes and free from most government regulations.** We could expect much the same from the public option, I suspect.
(* The USPO has a monopoly over the delivery of certain kinds of mail, and also over access to your mailbox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service)
(** Fannie Mae pays property taxes: http://www.fanniemae.com/aboutfm/charter.jhtml. But not state or local taxes! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_mae)
It is starting to look like the public option is dying. Maybe that’s sad, but there’s no way to know. So far as I can tell, it was never adequately explained.
