...at least they seem to be when it comes to American healthcare.
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Excerpt:
Anyone who remembers the 1993-94 healthcare fights knows that Republicans have long asserted that private insurance is more efficacious and more adored by patients than government-run programs like Medicare. To solve the healthcare crisis, those on the right say we must ****** more price-cutting, efficiency-producing competition. "The American people know that innovation, choice, and competition work," wrote Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in an archetypal Op-Ed titled "Competition Solves Health Care."
Give conservatives credit here: At minimum, this argument had a logic to it, however flawed. Sure, it is belied by data: The Urban Institute reports that private insurers spend up to 30 percent of their revenue on administrative costs (read: salaries, paperwork, etc.) while government programs spend just 5 percent, and polls show Medicare recipients are far more satisfied with their healthcare than those in the private system. But, in nonetheless claiming that the private sector will always outperform the government, Republicans at least presented an ideologically coherent (if fantastically inaccurate) hypothesis.
That all changed, though, when Democrats this week began pushing to let citizens buy into a government-sponsored health plan similar to the one federal lawmakers enjoy.
The allegedly competition-loving GOP immediately stated its strong opposition on the grounds that the initiative would begin "******* free market plans to compete with government-run programs," as congressional Republicans lamented. While Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., insisted that the GOP remains "committed to common-sense solutions that promote competition," he said his party is "concerned that if the government" is permitted to compete, "it will eventually push out the private healthcare plans."
Hold on a second.
Don't Republicans insist that "competition solves healthcare?" Yes, ad nauseam.
Haven't they been telling us that government programs are obviously worse than private health insurance? Yes, again.
Then, don't they welcome a private-versus-public competition, believing that the former will easily trump the latter? Well ... uh ... no.
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Excerpt:
Anyone who remembers the 1993-94 healthcare fights knows that Republicans have long asserted that private insurance is more efficacious and more adored by patients than government-run programs like Medicare. To solve the healthcare crisis, those on the right say we must ****** more price-cutting, efficiency-producing competition. "The American people know that innovation, choice, and competition work," wrote Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in an archetypal Op-Ed titled "Competition Solves Health Care."
Give conservatives credit here: At minimum, this argument had a logic to it, however flawed. Sure, it is belied by data: The Urban Institute reports that private insurers spend up to 30 percent of their revenue on administrative costs (read: salaries, paperwork, etc.) while government programs spend just 5 percent, and polls show Medicare recipients are far more satisfied with their healthcare than those in the private system. But, in nonetheless claiming that the private sector will always outperform the government, Republicans at least presented an ideologically coherent (if fantastically inaccurate) hypothesis.
That all changed, though, when Democrats this week began pushing to let citizens buy into a government-sponsored health plan similar to the one federal lawmakers enjoy.
The allegedly competition-loving GOP immediately stated its strong opposition on the grounds that the initiative would begin "******* free market plans to compete with government-run programs," as congressional Republicans lamented. While Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., insisted that the GOP remains "committed to common-sense solutions that promote competition," he said his party is "concerned that if the government" is permitted to compete, "it will eventually push out the private healthcare plans."
Hold on a second.
Don't Republicans insist that "competition solves healthcare?" Yes, ad nauseam.
Haven't they been telling us that government programs are obviously worse than private health insurance? Yes, again.
Then, don't they welcome a private-versus-public competition, believing that the former will easily trump the latter? Well ... uh ... no.
