[ExI] health care individual mandate

[Damien Broderick]

On 11/9/2009 1:45 PM, Jeff Davis wrote:

> You may recall the claim that govt run plan would drive the private
> insurers out of business.  What other cause could there be than that
> the govt insurance would be cheaper?  That is, so much cheaper that
> the private insurers couldn't compete -- couldn't make the profits so
> essential to their survival.

Presumably the argument is that the govt-run option would have its 
funding topped up to a traumatic level from taxes, so the fees it 
charges customers would not reflect the true costs, or something. It 
couldn't possibly be that the new player might function more frugally 
(as happens elsewhere, because of not having to gouge their customers in 
order to pay the owners their rightfully huge salaries and perks), but 
surely that can't be it--what, capitalist businesses objecting to 
competition that drives down costs?

Damien Broderick