Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The mish mash of inefficiencies in Reid bill

From Dr. Krauthammer via NRO: "On Senator Reid's proposal for states to opt out of the public option in health care:"

"Well, it's getting weirder and weirder. We already will have a 1,500-page bill of some sort eventually, which is a mishmash, a crazy quilt of regulations and new programs and mandates all mixed up, adding hopeless inefficiencies on to an already hopelessly inefficient system.

"And now we're going to have an opt-in and opt-out public option, which is going to make the quilt even crazier.

"Look, the argument is it will increase competition if you have a public option. The way to increase competition, to lower the price of health insurance, is simple. It's not adding inefficiencies and regulations and government involvement and subsidies. It is abolishing the ban on the purchase of health insurance across state lines.

"You buy auto insurance in a national market. You buy life insurance [in a national market]. It's the reason that prices in America are low. If you weren't allowed to buy oranges across the state, it would be expensive in Wisconsin, especially in the winter.
But the problem is that Democrats…want is a public option under one guise or another which will increase government control. That's what it is about. It is not about competition by any means.

"…And in principle, how can the CBO make an estimate of the cost of a program in which some states presumably will opt in and opt out, but you have no idea which states, how large, how expensive, and how subsidized?

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