John Edwards’ Healthcare Plan
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Elections, Health Care, MoneyThe first one is out, and the details are basically mandated health care (shades of Massachusetts), combine with government subsidies for those who can’t afford their own and a system that forces insurers to cover people regardless of their medical condition. All in all, not bad from first glance.
But that’s not the plan’s most intriguing — and potentially radical — feature. That distinction…is for what’s known as a Medicare buy-in. When people go to buy insurance through the Health Markets, they’ll have the option to buy into a public program modeled on Medicare. This would, in theory, set up a competition between the public and private insurance plans. And, if the public program ends up winning in the long run — by attracting most or all of the subscribers — then eventually you’d have what is basically a single-payer system, in which the government provides insurance directly to most people through something like Medicare.
Feasible? I’d imagine that free marketers will scoff at this competition between the private and public systems, but nothing says that competition has to be between private businesses.
You can find the entire plan here.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 and is filed under Elections, Health Care, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
This sounds like a VERY interesting plan. I think I will look into it!
February 7th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Absolutely correct with the possible exception of the definition of competition.
February 7th, 2007 at 10:47 am
I never thought that I, a Republican, would say something good about John Edwards, but this does sound good. Alan Stewart Carl said something similar in a blog post on his blog a few weeks back. If the US Postal Service and UPS/Fed Ex can compete in the mail business, then Medicare could compete with the likes of Blue Cross.
I don’t think that this is single-payer through the back door, though. It simply allows the government to work within the free market and also assures that basic health care is afforded to all.
Sounds like “win-win” to me.
Dennis
February 7th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
My guess is the Medicare plan will “compete” with the market-based plans by subsidizing health care with everyone’s tax dollars. If they wanted to, the gov’t could decrease the price of the plan by raising taxes on the general fund and moving into the medicare buy-in, effectively out-competing the other plans.
If enough socialists in the legeslature wanted to take it that far, they could force the public into a single payer system, sort of like forcing car-manufacturers to purchase American steel by raising import tariffs on foreign steel.
Very sneeky. Its not fair competition if the government can force everyone else to pay for their product, even if they otherwise would choose not to buy it.
February 8th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Dos; Webster’s defines competition as a “Rivalry btw. 2 or more persons or groups for an object desired in common usually resulting in a victor and a loser…” If you’re refering to some sort of equal playing field or ‘fairness’ between the players, as in the anti-competitive, monopoly laws, then obviously you haven’t followed the NY Yankees.
Jimmy the Dhimmy; I would be weary of the Gov’t ability to fix all problems by dipping into the public coffers as well. And nobody wants another bureaucratic boondoggle to increase the federal budget. But something must be done to remedy a bad situation. There’s such a strain on the system with of all the uninsured visiting the hospital’s ER. Everybody pays for that. But calling everything Socialist that is done by the Gov’t for the people is just annoying rhetoric. Isn’t that the reason we created a government in the first place? Some things just have to be handled nationally by the Feds. I just think we’ve lost the ability to do anything in a rational, productive way. We’ve got political constipation !
February 8th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Interesting point regarding the USPS although somehow I don’t think that this vastly expanded Medicare would be very responsive to the market and that was my point regarding “competition” — responsiveness to competitiors, responsiveness to demand/supply, responsiveness & accountability & the bottom-line.
BTW, all to be paid for with a huge tax hike.
February 11th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Markets are fine for purely economic goals. They are perfectly capable of failing dismally when it comes to societal goals if left on their own. If in fact providing health care for as many of our people as feasible is an acceptable goal for our society the market isn’t going to cut it.