Why the So-called “Public Option” is Ultimately as Dangerous as “Medicare for All”
After wins in Mississippi, Missouri, Idaho, as well as the key state of Michigan, former VP and Delaware Senator Joe Biden is looking increasingly likely to capture the Democrat nomination.
The good news? The imminent threat of a serious candidate espousing immediate, full-scale socialized medicine and the elimination of all private, union, and employer-provided health care plans, looks more remote.
The bad news? As voters have learned about the true, dire consequences of Medicare for All, the left has shifted its messaging to sound more moderate to voters. But proposals such as price controls and the so-called “public option” are mere building blocks of the same full-scale socialized health care death star.
Price Controls
Price controls will have a lasting effect on patients, innovation, and our economy. Similar to Nancy Pelosi’s H.R. 3 price control bill, Biden would force manufacturers to set the price of medications at the same rate of other countries for Medicare and his public “option” plan. According to Biden’s campaign website, he’d establish an “independent review board to assess their value,” or in other words, allow unelected bureaucrats who would undoubtedly bow to political pressure and arbitrarily sink the price of these life-saving treatments.
Numerous experts and studies have concluded price controls would stifle the innovation seniors, and the neediest of patients rely on. To develop a drug from conception to market costs about $2.6 billion. Price controls would destroy incentive for the tremendous investment required to discover new cures and bring them to market. This is not speculation: as countries with socialized health care have seen, as price controls are implemented, innovation flees.
The Public “Option”
The left promises to “build on Obamacare,” the most radical piece of legislation that upended the health care industry, by introducing a public “option.” Make no mistake, this won’t be an “option” for very long. When introduced, the government-set, below-market rates will goad tens-of-millions of Americans to buy in, confronting the government with a massive cost which will be passed along to middle-class taxpayers.
The arbitrary, below-market rates will also crowd out the private insurance market. If allowed to succeed, the left will throw the weight of the government behind the so-called public “option.” Using socialist-style price controls and other big-government levers, they’ll set the price of medications below their true cost, consequentially destroying private sector health care competitors who must deal in the real world. Before long, private insurance plans will be out of business entirely – leaving only one “option” for consumers: big government, socialized heath care.
In the long run, a public “option” instead of Medicare for all is a distinction without a difference.