Obama's Health Care Plan

The AP has a story today about President Obama's proposal for health care, Government-run plan could trip up health overhaul. I want to react to a few select quotes. My views are kind of in the air, so at first I'll sound like a liberal, and then I'll sound fairly conservative (in a dime-store New Dealer sort of way).

The proposal, which Obama advocated in his presidential campaign, would for the first time offer government-sponsored coverage to middle class families, as an alternative to private health plans. By some estimates, it could reduce premiums by 20 percent or more — making it much more affordable to cover an estimated 48 million people who don't have health coverage.

But insurers fear competition from a government plan could drive them out of business.

And Republicans worry it would lead to a government takeover of health care.

Oh, boo hoo! Conservatives like to blab on about how much better the private sector is than the government. When they argue against national health insurance, they point out that many Canadians have opted for private health insurance because of the inefficiency and incompetence of its government system. Then why should private insurers be afraid of a little competition, if the government will do its job so badly? Do they fear that they may have to spend money on, say, health care, rather than plush salaries?

A recent analysis by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit group that sponsors health care research, is giving supporters of a public plan some ammunition.

The study estimated costs and coverage under a hypothetical health reform plan similar to what Obama proposed in the campaign. It found that a public plan like Medicare could reduce projected health care costs by about $2 trillion over an 11-year period. Premiums in the public plan would be at least 20 percent lower, partly because of reduced administrative costs. Within a decade or so, some 105 million people would be in the public plan, compared to about 107 million with private insurance.

I sincerely hope that the cost of health care will go down under Obama's plan. By this, I don't really mean the amount of money that consumers pay, since passing the high cost onto the government can be expensive for the taxpayers. Look how much Medicare costs us, and that's only for the senior citizens! But, if Obama's plan brings down administrative costs and doesn't create a costly bureaucracy, then maybe it's a good idea.