From Bizzyblog, June 30, 2009. Worth repeating as the vote comes today.
Questions for those advocating the “public plan” option in Obamacare:
- Will the “public plan” pay income and other taxes like the companies who run private plans must? (Example: Aetna alone incurred $790 million in income tax expenses in calendar 2008, and over $3.5 billion in the past four years. The company’s most recent 10-K [PDF] indicates that this expense is almost entirely related to its Health Care and Group Insurance.)
- What will anyone do to keep the “public plan” from taking advantage of other unfair advantages, which could at least include general government absorption of administrative costs, sales-tax exemptions, property-tax exemptions, ”public service” advertising, and much more?
- Will the “public plan” be just as vulnerable to class-action and no-limit malpractice lawsuits as private plans currently are?
- If the answers to Question 1, 2, or 3 are “no” or “I don’t know,” how can you possibly claim to know that the “public plan’s” competition against private plans will be conducted on a level playing field?
Related Update: On Sunday, Alo at Brain Shavings went after and properly characterized Obama’s snotty question (”Why would [the "public option"] drive private insurers out of business?”), and tore it to pieces. You can add the items ID’d in Questions 1-3 above to Alo’s cited reasons.
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