USA Today Editorial, Opinion Piece Discuss Proposal To Establish Public Health Plan To Compete With Private Plans

USA Today on Tuesday published an editorial and opinion piece that addressed proposals by President-elect Barack Obama and HHS Secretary-designate Tom Daschle to establish a public health plan to compete with private plans. Summaries appear below.USA Today: The proposal to establish a public health plan "modeled after Medicare as a choice for people who don't get insurance through their employers" is a "compelling idea for the simple reason that it tests the notion that private health insurance plans operate more efficiently than government," a USA Today editorial states. "As a matter of reality, the potential relationship between a government-run plan and private insurers is immensely complex and hard to gauge," according to the editorial. "On one hand, private insurers would see government as a potent competitor (too potent in our view if the government subsidizes its premiums)," the editorial states, adding, "On the other, they could benefit from government's entry into the market by piggybacking on the cost savings that the government wrings out of providers." The editorial states, "Something must be done to get health care costs under control before they bankrupt the nation. So why not let people pick the plan they like?" The editorial concludes, "If commercial coverage becomes unaffordable to all but the few, the future of private insurance will be the least of everybody's concerns" (USA Today, 1/13).

Robert Moffit, USA Today: "A major component of Obama's plan is a national health insurance exchange, in which the government competes with private insurance," Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, writes in a USA Today opinion piece. Moffit writes, "In theory, everyone wins" because the "competition lowers rates and induces insurers to offer better plans," adding, "In reality, the presence of a large national plan would, perversely enough, encourage employers to drop coverage (which is, after all, quite expensive)." He writes, "Let the government take care of employees, they'd reason." According to Moffit, the "overwhelming majority of Americans who get health insurance through work say they're satisfied with it," and "most American voters say they oppose any kind of government-controlled plan if it means they'd have to change their own health coverage." He concludes, "Under Obama's plan, though, that's exactly what many would have to do" (Moffit, USA Today, 1/13).
Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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